I recently came across this and wanted to ask has anyone here ever used one of these mounts on our trucks? If not has anyone even used these mounts before?


I was seriously thinking about getting one due to its cheap nature just to mount the two LED spot lights I have till I get around to doing my push bar.


Access License Plate Off-Road Light Mount - LED, HID, or Halogen

 

Very cool, I've never seen a mount like that before.

 

It is, I would like to get one but I just don't know how sturdy they are or if they recommend using bolts vs screws for attachment. I haven't taken my license plates off in a long time but I think my '82 has those plastic push in pieces and with how rough the truck rides I would be a little concerned about the mount bouncing and pulling the screws out.

This one as shown in the video at the bottom of the page has long legs to allow it to be adjusted up or down as well as being mounted with four bolt holes. I am thinking just using the two top mounts with the legs would act as pivots to reduce leverage from the lights bouncing from pulling the screws out of the plastic fittings in the bumper.

 

It looks like I will just have to take a chance and purchase this directly from the manufacturer for $28 with free shipping and try it out. The manufacturer wouldn't comment on using just two mounts vs all four that the instructions I was emailed mention. They just referenced me back to the instructions.


I could see four being needed for a plastic front bumper but we are talking a steel truck bumper so two should be enough to hold it and the long legs for the other two mounts should act as legs to prevent the weight of the lights from pulling the screws out.


So I will just order them and post pictures here on the mounts and what I think of them.

 

Sorry mate, I didn't see this specific thread and just replied to your post in "what have you done today".

 

That's ok, I originally posted this to see if anyone used it before but now I will use it as a trial and error post and how it looks and what I think of it.

 

I am throwing this out there for feed back.


The two lights I have are LED and they are 42w a piece. The math I did at 12.7v and 14.3v shows I will be consuming between 5.86 and 6.60 amps.


Now with this in mind my original plan was to mount another relay under the hood and use a chrome toggle switch to activate and deactivate ground on the trigger side of the relay. The power for the trigger will come from the high beam trigger itself for the headlight relay upgrade I did. Up side to this is that it allows me to expand and if these LED lights ever go out I can upgrade if need be without having to upgrade the wiring. Another up side is I will have only one wire running inside the cab from under the hood to the toggle switch and the other side I could simply ground it to the bottom of the dash frame.


But while I was thinking I started realizing that it would be over kill to run a 20+ Amp relay for two auxiliary lights that will not draw more than 10 amps. So I am thinking about simply cutting out the relay and make my circuit very crude and simple by having one of the hot wires from the relay to the headlights themselves splice off come inside the cab to a heavy duty 20 amp toggle switch then back out to my lights.


This would make it simpler on me as well as removes the extra relay cluttering up my core support with the ones for my headlights when its not needed. Down side is now I will have two wires going to the firewall, one going in and one coming back out to power the LED lights.


I want to get some opinions on this as I am currently working on a parts list from summit on what I will need to complete this small project.


So far I have in my cart an Allstar Performance two terminal weather proof connector which will allow me to unplug both lights. I thought about getting two connectors then have the wires merge to one allowing ease of replacement of burned out LED lights. Havent decided on if I want to do two or just one the connector is cheap enough I can go either way.


The relay if I do go the relay route can be a very small tiny micro relay but every one I saw on summit is a five terminal and I am not that good with modern style relays that have five or more terminals so I don't even know if this could be used to work for what I am wanting it to do. I can get by with a simple four terminal relay with a positive trigger, a ground, 12v battery, and a load. Considering the low power consumption of these two lights I don't need a heavy duty high amperage relay like you would for headlights which is a big reason why I kind of tried to talk myself out of the relay route but I also hate the thought of having two wires going to the cab.

 

I believe CARR makes one very similar but aluminum

http://www.carr.com/light-bars/light-wings.html

 

I saw thoses but they looked a little too fancy for a old truck.






Mine should be in fairly soon and I will mount it once I get some lights, the 42w spotlights I got I was unimpressed with the light it put out, just didn't seem to have the distance. Well I got screwed cause the Amazon listing said its a spot light but on ebay the crystal clear lens is the spot light and the one with the frosted diffusers around the clear LED lens is a flood light. So I wont be using these $80 lights as I will be offering them up on ebay so I can get real spot lights for down road illumination which is what this is for not flooding close range with light.

 

I am actually thinking of coming up with something more rugged for use on my truck. I want driving lights, but not the bull bar or push bar. I'll play around with some ideas for everyone. Are you adding fog lights too?

 

I hadn't thought of it, I was thinking of mainly adding auxiliary lighting to help out my headlights if I need extra lighting. I have two flood lights already but thought they were spot lights, flood lights would probably work best for what I am wanting for general illumination to help my headlights out some.


The mount I purchased hasn't came in yet probably wont till Wed of next week. But I think it would work pretty good for what I am wanting. If not then I can always sell this one and use this as a pattern to build my own to work how I want it to work.


My biggest concern is mounting, I don't want to drill two holes in the steel bumper to use all four mounting points but I also don't know how sturdy the mount would be using the two factory mounts. If they are weak I could always use some machine screw bolts with a large flat washer and a lock nut on the back side to sturdy the mount up

 

The mount arrived Friday and I installed it. Its a very sturdy mount and had a nice black powder coated finish.


Now the bad I have to say about this. First off because of how our bumpers are designed with the license plate recessed if you want the mount to fit flush with the bumper you have to grind a little off the back side of the ears. I just firmly snugged it down with the ears up against the bumper itself. Later on I might take it off and trim some metal off the back side to get a better fit but I might not though because of the second bad thing I have to say below.


The next bad thing about this mount for use on our trucks is that if you have LED lights like I have the 4 1/2" ones that has very large heat sinks built on the back side of the lights like mine are you have to move the light all the way forward and then tilt it down just a hair so it doesn't rest on the bumper creating a rattle/squeak noise. This might be a problem with use with spot lights but as mine are flood lights as they were mislabeled on amazon this is not a problem for me. Now cutting the back of the ears to get a flusher fit this might result in the lights having to be angled down even more to clear the bumper which is why I will probably not modify this bracket to fit flush.


I drove the truck and the mount doesn't seem to move and it seems very strudy the way it is mounted with the lights on it. So it should work perfectly for what I want it for till I can get around to building me a push bar for the truck and mounting the lights higher up infront of the grill.

 

Pictures or it didn't happen!

 

I haven't had the chance to take photos of the lights actually powered up, the photos below are just photos of the mount installed with the lights mounted.