BOSTON4RUNNER

I didnt want to drill holes in the roof.

Say what you will, but I think this works well.

5/8 heated and bent to follow contours of roof and windshield. Angle iron pedestal spaced with stainless spacers/washers to ensure it sits and bolts down correctly i.e. factory rubber seal washers in place on roof rack foot.

Ran all wires down and sneaked into the space in the cowl panel, away from the hinge.

Does not make ANY wind noise at all and does not move/shake etc.

Eventually truck will have snorkel etc, so this light wire bar simply makes it look more rigged out.

Also allows an easy swap back to stock.

Please feel free to post this pics. Here is the link to facebook.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?ai...9&l=00ffce7e6f

Regards, Tim

aviator

Interesting idea Tim... you might find that down pipe bounces around on the highway in the wind... you might consider adding a pad/bracket to the back of it and attaching it to the windshield with some 2sided tape stuff like they use to "permanently" attach towel racks to tile and so on... you can get them from HD/Loews for next to nothing.

lgrt

I like the approach... let us know how it is working after you've had a chance to put some miles on it.

JeEVeS

nice setup. i did mine a bit different by running a pos up my pass b pillar and neg down my driver side. these seank into the hood and are hiden between some paneling by the windshield. a little less protected than yours but a little more hiden. i really like the idea though. and a snorks will hide it well. what gauge wire did your run?

BOSTON4RUNNER

Even at 100 miles per hour there is no bounce, it is very stable. It pretty much does not move at all.

The rod is 5/8 and the angle iron is close to 1/4 inch, it is very stout. It is not pipe, but rather solid mild steel rod, that way no channel, open center where air can travel and cause lift and bounce.

I really prefer this type of approach over drilling a hole in the roof.

Be interested to see pics of similar set ups.

BOSTON4RUNNER

I forget what gauge, also pretty stout....standard fog light type wire, what is that usually 12 or 14?

JeEVeS

I ran 12 gauge and it powers 4 (soon 5) cheap 100,000 lumen (?) lights. does well and i pulled 14 volts from one of the wires when i was hooking it up so not to much loss. ill take some pics in the morning. im kinda leaning towards setting them up more like yours though. mikey likey.

treknwil

I also didn't want to put holes in my roof. So I came up with this as a way to wire the lights. I used a 4 pin trailer plug. The female ends at the lights and under the dash, and the male ends on a patch cable of sorts. I have 2 switches on the dash to turn the lights on and off.( 2 lts per switch). So when I want to use the lights I just plug them in, and when not in use I store the cable.

BOSTON4RUNNER

Thanks for the compliment.

I think it is a clean set up and great alternative to the Gobi mod, adds a little rigged out look as well. Best of all remove no problem and go back to stock if I wanted, no holes drilled in roof.

BOSTON4RUNNER

hey treknwil, what type of safari rack/basket is that? simply bolts on the factory rack? what did it cost you, where you get it?

thanks!

gabe74gt

hey treknwil, loved you machine man! and better is to suggest the same idea. no need to drill holes, you can find out alternatives like that

ESQ

FYI, open circuit voltage doesn't tell you anything about resistance in the circuit

JeEVeS

I think as soon as i typed that i thought about it and realized my bad. How ever my brain starts to hurt when i think about electrical to much. How would i properly tell if my wire was to small?

ESQ

Measure the voltage drop under a known load (similar to your application load). Put an ammeter in series and use a voltmeter in parallel to measure the drop across your known resistance.

Now you know the voltage drop across your load at a certain current.

Then you take the difference between your open circuit voltage and and the measure load v-drop and, using the known current with the voltage difference, can easily calculate with Ohm's law the 'other' resistance (i.e. the resistance in the wires/connections etc).


Hope that helps!

BOSTON4RUNNER

this is still holding up well....hopefully it has been helpful for others in determining how to run their wires

treknwil

Sorry I didn't get back to you any sooner. I guess I missed this thread. The rack is a Yakama Load Warrior. with a exstension added on. Ive had this rack for almost 10 years now. Great Rack!!!!


Thanks!!!