HOW TO: Turn on lightbar dash light

This was done on my o5 Sport.

1. Look for the 26 pin plug on the bcm. It is located on the back of the fuse panel towards the firewall. Its the top plug.

2. Look for pin 19. On mine it was blank so I stripped back a piece of 20gauge wire and fed it into the open cavity. Make sure it is about flush with the bottom of the plug. You dont want any sticking out and making contact with other pins.

3. Next I taped the wire harness so my wire would not pull out.

4. Touch to ground and the light should come on.

I plan on adding a diode to it when I connect it to my fog light switch so as not to backfeed any 12volts.

razzerx said:

This was done on my o5 Sport.

1. Look for the 26 pin plug on the bcm. It is located on the back of the fuse panel towards the firewall. Its the top plug.

2. Look for pin 19. On mine it was blank so I stripped back a piece of 20gauge wire and fed it into the open cavity. Make sure it is about flush with the bottom of the plug. You dont want any sticking out and making contact with other pins.

3. Next I taped the wire harness so my wire would not pull out.

4. Touch to ground and the light should come on.

I plan on adding a diode to it when I connect it to my fog light switch so as not to backfeed any 12volts.

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Forgive me..I am a car enthusiast but new to a Jeep. Do you have pics of what you mean by dashlight lightbar? Is it an indicator or some additional lighting for the dash? Thanks for the clarification.

It's an indicator on the right side of the instrument cluster that glows when the Renegade-style light bar is activated. Most times when they are installed after-market you don't get this option. May have to see if I can rig this up when I go to add my lights to my roof basket

To get a ground signal to the dash light, you'd have to run another relay off your light switch except passing ground instead of 12v, right?

Anyone else think of another way?

Yeah, I'd like to know the answer to this as well. I plan on aftermarket driving lights, and I'd run them traditionally with a relay and a standard radio shack rocker switch. I'd like to know what I'd need to do to control the ground to activate this light.

By the way, what does the symbol look like?

The relay way will definately work, just a matter of getting other ideas.

What I plan on doing is putting a relay with a ground hookup right next to the 12v relay and use the same trigger to control both.

I can't see why it wouldn't work, and I can't really see any other way to do it.

I'm not really good with electronics and wiring, just enough to be dangerous. I understand how the standard "+" relay works....so, would you use a standard relay and swap terminals between positive and negative for the relay to the BCM? Or, is there a special "ground" relay?

nah. Just a normal relay, but instead of hooking up a "battery" lead and output, hook it up to a ground source instead of the battery.

Just remembered this post that Fouros put up when he installed his light bar. He found all the wiring and connectors already installed, but that might just be because his was an export model and they may not be in the domestic versions. Anyway here's a link to the thread. Kevin, check the bottom pic in his original post to see what it looks like.

Cool, thanks for the link

Here's another question...by grounding this pin on the BCM when the lights are on, does the BCM chime when the engine is off and the door open like it does with headlights?

I'm going to check my '07 to see if the light bar harness is in the kick panel tomorrow. I don't plan on putting on a light bar, but I already have a set of auxiliary driving lights that I want to fit into the front bumper. I hope to wire those in soon (this weekend?). I plan on utilizing the dash light for an OEM feel.

Those instructions are lacking alittle.

What do you do with pin 26? Do you use it or do you just find it to look at it?

Do you only need to gound pin 19? Thats all you need to do to make the dash light come on?

You aren't looking for pin 26 - you're looking for the 26 pin plug (i.e., the plug that contains 26 pins).

Ground #19 and the light should go on. Meaning, you need to wire it up so when you hit the switch, #19 is grounded - i.e., use a relay to ground it. If you just ground it directly, the dash light will be on constantly.





Hmmm, reading Razzer's post again, I thought of something...the driving lights I want to run with this light utilize a ground relay - so, I'd run one wire into the cabin to the switch, and then ground the other pole on the switch to have it activate the relay.

If I were to wire pin 19 into the "feed' side of the switch, when I flip the switch, both would be grounded. Like the original post says, I could use a diode to ensure +12V doesn't get fed to the BCM.

When i was replacing my instrument cluster bulbs I checked all the locations with a flash light. I did not even see the light bar light anywhere in the cluster. Does an 02' even have this light in the dash? If so where is it and what does it look like? I checked the owners manual for a description of all the idiot lights and didn't see it in there either. I wanna hook this up to my hella's on the bumper.

I fixed my light to do this with my roof mounted KC's. I just spliced a wire off of my load wire at the switch and connected it to the trigger on a new relay, connected a standard ground to the relay, the connected another ground to the input male connector on the relay, then ran a jumper from pin 19 to one of the two output males on the relay flipped the switch and dash light lit up! its pretty sweet if I do say so myself!

This is what the light looks like in 2005 Renegade that didn't come with the stock light bar!

Sweet. Ive been waiting years for someone else to try this out. May have to give it a try myself now.

Wonder if its any different on 04 kj's? So far the two thats posted about it had 05's.

Speaking of relays, what you need is a double-pole, single-throw (DPST) relay. Since a relay is just a magnetically operated switch, one with two poles would have four "working" pins: two for the ground switch, and two for the positive switch. That way, when you flip your dashboard switch, the coil pins on the relay are energized, causing the other groups of two switches to close. The lights come on as well as the indicator. If you gotta have one relay, might as well make it do all the work.

JeepJeepster said:

Sweet. Ive been waiting years for someone else to try this out. May have to give it a try myself now.

Wonder if its any different on 04 kj's? So far the two thats posted about it had 05's.

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I'm not sure if its any different or not but for whoever asked earlier the light does not stay on if the key is off and nor does the dinging. You should try it its pretty cool!

By the prints..... The original ground for the dash light was done in the switch. When this little "mod" happens to my 06, I am just gonna use a two pole switch. One half to power the relay and the other half to control the ground for the light.

Ok i Pulled everything out how do I know which one is PIN 19? I really don't see any numbers

Thanks