Custom Back-Up Lights?

[blue_kjR417]

I have trouble seeing whats behind me when backing up at night, my stock lights work but aren't bright enough for me. So, I've been pondering installing some custom back-up lights, I've came up with an installment that mounts onto my spare tire. I found a T bracket at Home Depot made of 1/8" steel. It has a hole in each side of the cross bar of the T shape and one in the drop down part of the T shape. I'm planning on bending the drop down upward to a 90 degree angle so that I take my bottom lug nut off slide the bracket on and put the lug nut back on. Then mount a couple of lights on the cross bar of the T shape. I found some cheap little $10 lights at Wal-Mart that seem pretty rugged, not that they really need to be but they're 55w each. Is that too much for back up lights? I mean I'm going to wire them to a seperate switch not to the stock reverse lights because I don't want them on if I'm backing up somewhere at town. But I plan to run the wiring through the spare spokes and underneath the spare mount to the tailgate. Then hide the wiring behind the inside paneling. Also where the wiring runs to the tailgate I'm going to install a connector in the wiring so that I can unplug them for easy removal and access to the spare tire. What do you guys think?

 

[blue_kjR417]

well i went ahead and did this so i'll take pics tomorrow lol

 

[Dave]

I am also interested in more lighting out in back of the KJ so I can't wait for the pic's and how you did it.

Dave

 

[501]

Pic's please, I've been think of how I want to add some better lighting to mine too.

 

[blue_kjR417]

Ok, so I bought the T shape bracket at home depot it looked like this

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So, then I bent it to look like this

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Then I had to do alot of grinding to get the to fit onto the lug without scratching the wheel so then it looked like this

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Then once I had ground it down enough I tried to put the lights on and the holes we're gonna be wide enough for the lights to fit without touching so I went back to Home Depot and just got a rectangular piece of and drilled 6 holes that were already in the rectangle piece through to the T bracket and put some bolts in it to keep it good and tight, so this made the holes farther apart and it looked like this

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Then I paint the bracket mounted it on and the lights, wired up the lights and now for the good pics.

Excuse the dirtyness lol

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I wired the lights to a trailer plug that is in between the the spare and the tailgate. So that I can take of the bottom lug and unplug them and have easy access to my spare. I ran the wiring under the tailgate inside panel through the conduit in the tailgate door jam and through the inside panels to the switch in the front.

 

[Dave]

That came out really good.

Real nice job and thanks for the pic's.

Dave

 

[501]

Thanks for the pictures! I like how it turned out. I'm going to fab up something like this for mine!

 

[Ry' N Jen]

That looks good.
Well done.

 

[blue_kjR417]

I tried them out tonight! Work Great! They're super bright almost light headlights for the rearview thanks for the comments!

 

[blue_kjR417]

Well I've had these on for about a week now and I'm very satisfied! They work great, they're super bright, and look pretty sweet I think!

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After a good cleaning

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Nice and bright! Looks like one giant spotlight on my spare lol

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I pulled my truck up behind it, it has 6% tint on the back glass and they're still bright!

 

[Murray]

They look good. I just bought the roof bucket from Cabela's and in going to hook some lights on the back of it and just run the wires down allong with my mag mount cb antanna cable.
I get a kick out of my wife, every time i say im going to do something to the Liberty she says no (and i do it anyways) then she says she likes it.
Its easier to get forgiveness than permission.

 

[blue_kjR417]

hahaha nice