best way of wiring and routing 4 Aux lights on 1st gen roof?

any write ups out there?
any ideas on the cleanest looking way to do this?
run to a seperate small battery?
thanks in advance fellas...
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TRD

 

anyone?

 

Wondering the same thing...

 

why dont you get a light bar, that clamps on by the doors, and run the wireing inside under the panneling, that way there is no drilling or sawing


check out somehting like this and find a way to wire it in the rack
http://www.autopartswarehouse.com/d...l?apwcid=P1135867996W43b3f85c7ab9e&gan=1#desc

 

I have my 4 PIAA's mounted on my roof rack but I have yet to decide how to wire them up? Right now they are wired so that the outer 2 will come on separately than the inner two. My only question is how to power them... I don't want to be sucking my battery dead every time I turn them on.

 

i just ordered one and im trying to figure out how and where i will route the wires? drill into the roof-seems to be the only option i can think of?

 

bump...

 

Oh jeez. It's a nightmare.

I love lights, but I hate wiring them. I have quite a lot of electrical knowledge, but it's still a bitch.

By the time I am done with my truck, I want to have 13 total aux lights, which means i need at least 7 switches and a nightmare of wiring.

Right now I only have 3 driving lights, 2 fogs, and 2 reverse mounted, but will soon put on a roof rack with 2 PIAA's and 2 bed lights.

I don't think you need to drill any holes...any visible ones at least.

I did not drill any holes through the firewall from the battery to the switches. I just ran the wires through the gap between the fender and the body, and ran the wires through my weatherstripping to my switches. I looks like any light bar or rack you'll get will have to be clamped onto the door, under the weatherstripping, so you should just run it right under the weatherstripping right to your console.

Seems even easier than all the wiring I did for my front lights or my reverse lights.

I'll do a writeup/build thread for my truck soon, where pics will be taken.

 

MY only real question/concern is how to power them? Do I run the switches straight off the battery with an inline fuse or straight from the fuse box...?

 

I ran them straight from the battery, and just used crimp connectors to hook up 15 amp fuses to each wire, then wired up to the dash, where I have my switches.

If you're only doing like a pair of lights, I geuss you could find an unused, but still wired up fuse on the fusebox, but I don't know if I'd wanna take apart the fusebox to do that...

I have all the fuses labeled and sitting right next to the fusebox. Kind of messy, but it works.

EDIT: Rule of thumb is to make sure the wire gauge is appropriate for the light, and the fuse is appropriate for the wire gauge.

http://www.rbeelectronics.com/wtable.htm

^^that chart's pretty useful.

 

As far as power usage, 10 of the 13 lights I'm installing will pull 55 watts each, while the other 3 will pull 100 watts each. Giving me a total power consumption of more than 800 watts, compared to the 100 watt pull of just the headlights. Combined with my 300 watt amp makes this a lot of fucking power to pull from one little battery!

I believe that our alternators are 130 amp ones, multiplied by 12 volts makes that 1560 watts of alternator output.

I'm going to be putting in a secondary marine deep cycle battery in the engine bay eventually. If you'll need a second battery, that depends on how obsessed you are with lights. ^_^. You could be good using a better battery, or my friend starts his giant (454, i think? who cares, it's way too big) chevy off of one sears deep cycle battery.

I'm ranting. I need to do my homework. Somebody please stop me.

 

i might just have a mechanic do the dirty work...

 

Let me know how much that costs. I'd like to know how much money I'm saving if I ever feel like giving up.

 

who has a freaking writeup? WTF!!

 

have you tried running the wires under the windshield weatherstrip, some people have done that. the nice light racks that i have seen on the roof are drilled through the roof and enclosed professionally. not cheap

 

Oh wait, nevermind. Our alternators put out only 70 amps...giving us only 840 watts...jeez I might need a bigger alternator.

EDIT: Anybody try a Cadillac Deville alternator swap?

 

if you had a bar that mounted in the bed and shined the light over the top of the cab, you could just run the wires under the truck up to the engine bay and through the firewall.

 

Yeah, kind of thought of a rollbar, but that'd be a lil expensive, and I haven't seen many on Tacomas.

 

I ran the wires through the door weather strip... pain in the asssss install
but i like the final outcome...

 

done