Trey, if you are still having trouble, let me know. I have extra harnesses and relays from when I bought mine off ebay. Wiring is my specialty, and I can wire it so your backups or the switch will kick on the lights if you want, kind of a manual override for the auto kick on... I can explain how to do it if you want. I'm going to be very bored for the two weeks following this friday so hit me up.

 

Thanks Chris. My backup lights have never came on when I put it in reverse. Ive had some rectangular harbor freight driving lights mounted under my rear bumper with a switch on the dash for some time. What got me confused is when everybody started talking about relays; ive never used them before. My dad said I dont need them for my backup lights but we might use one for the daylighters. He is going to get a junction box from his work that they use on the dumptruck trailers for the lights. I think it has relays built into that. It will mount on my front fender. I dont want my daylighters to come on with my headlights, im going to put them on a separate switch on my dash. Im taking my dash out tomorrow or friday (the whole metal dash) to put a switch panel in and paint the dash black. I figure now that I cant drive my truck, its the perfect time to paint my interior. Im taking the seat out, the door panels are coming off, and everything is getting masked off. Im tired of the inside of my cab being 5 different colors. I got a few cans of black paint from GI Joes and im just going to rattle can the whole interior black. I took the white visors off, cleaned them up, and painted them black just now. I got a can of vinyl paint, it looks to be working pretty good. I'll have to take some pictures and post them up. What was Ford thinking when they put so many white visors and headliners in trucks? White DOES NOT belong in a truck interior.

 

Thanks, good catch, kspilkinton. I should have mentioned there are height requirements. That's why you can't use the lights up on your rollbar, even if they happen to be legal headlights. And there's a foglight height regulation, if I remember right. I think they can be a bit lower, maybe even down to 12 inches.

I haven't read any of that stuff for a long time. If I recall correctly, I kept the high level tail/brake and signal lights on my International just under 6 feet, because that was maximum allowable height. BTW, I think I've replaced one of those Truck-lites out of four, in 20 years.

I'm a believer in using very high quality lights with good beam control. Aim them correctly. And ALWAYS dim lights any time you see vehicle lights in front of you. I don't care if they're red or white lights, or if they are two miles away. This has worked for me. Even when I ran the Saab 99 Turbo with rallye bulbs in all four Cibie headlights and both big Cibie driving lights (6 lights and 600 watts when I hit high beam), I never got stopped for my lights.

Those look like nifty li'l backup lights, Trey!

BTW, I've noticed a LOT of small "dichroic" lights by Dick Cepek on eBay for ten bucks or less, set of two. Just search for Cepek Lights.

I was sure you had some cheap rectangular driving lights on the back of a truck, Trey. I used to do the same thing for backup lights on my car trailer. Let me know if you or someone else needs a spare.

 

The height requirements for fog lights is 12"-30"... which means a lot of those low riders are violating the fog, and probably the head light rules as well. Auxiliary driving lamps are 16"-42" high. You can only have two sets of lights running at anytime while on a public road.

The law on brightness says no more than 300 candlepower at 75 feet... who's gonna have an intensity meter with them???

I think the 80W came from Ford based on wire size and current draw, the max wattage for a stock wiring application (I guess the factory is saying you can only draw 5 amps through a 16 gauge wire?)

-Kerry

 

Ok guys I have sat and watched long enough. When it come to wiring yes you need to run relays, On that not for a clean install of relays you need to go to your local u pull wrecking yard and find the jeep cherokees (mid 80's) . On the right inner fender well there is a bank of relays. Now I am not saying use the relays but get the bases. They are a plug in base. you can mount them individually or stack them together like lego's. Also for a really factory looking install you release the old wires from the base, go to baxters or? and buy some new ends, crimp them on your wires, and plug your wires directly into the base. Painless wiring sells these bases also but they are expensive.
Another thing I like to do is get the battery jumper block out of the late 80's buicks and 4 relay bases and go to frye's computers and get what is call a project box. 4 relays and a jumper fit quite nicely inside and now they are protected from the mud.

Bushman

 

another reason to go to pull&save
Howdy bushman...good to see you here!

 

who to say if they are lower than 18" that they arent "fog lights" lol i mean, what are they gonna do, say NO! that specific model is a driving light! see heres the number...i crossrefrenced to the imansipation of hte proclomation of the 98th amendment....the sorry thing is, some poeple get pulled over and the cops feed ema line like that and they are like ... (wimper wimper) sorry officer....

 

Tater, it's a Washington law, not an Idaho law... you can run 4 gazillion candle power from whatevahh angle you want in Taterland

Seriously, you can call them what you want, it's when they're on they are limited in the power, height off the ground, and the number that can be on simultaneously.

I feel sorry for the idiots that have the modified mini road graders and actually think that running those projection lights under their bumper makes them see any better... you can't see out of a pot hole

-Kerry

 

That is a source of frustration. Our big old trucks at least have room to mount lights. I'm even putting extra lights on Wife's Suburban (don't tell her I backed it into a tree while four wheeling out a friend's cabin tonight ). But her little 2003 Malibu has no good places to mount lights. I'm going to manage to hide a couple of fogs behind the slotted valance panel, and there are a pair of little round holes on the outboard ends of that under-bumper panel. But there are NO good places to mount driving lights, unless we do the "frog eyes" rally car thing -- and that ain't gonna happen.

BTW, I wonder if this is what Trey wants to put on his truck:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/BACKU...QQcmdZViewItem

OH, uh... try not to choke on the brand of truck wearing those backup lights...