Z71 scene lights?

[Lykos]

Hi all
Just bought an '03 Z71(ls trim) Suburban.
I love this truck!

If any of you have ever been around ambulances fire trucks and even police cars you've seen they have side mounted "scene lights." These things are handy. When I was an OTR owner operator I had them mounted on my headache rack. I've had them on roof baskets on my Jeep. They're nice to have.

The Z71 roof rails have these big plastic covers on the front and rear ends. Z71 owners you know what I'm talking about.

Have any of you Z71 folks put flush mount led floods in those? On the factory rack at all?
There's a ton of online write ups on putting rear floods on the end caps but nothing else.

Thanks

 

[rayra]

Nope but there is room. The front and rear footings are unnecessarily huge. I"ve been doodling ideas for running rack lighting / power port wiring up thru those footers for the inset rear lights you referred to, a front 40" light bar and I'm considering 12v power receptacles in each of the footings that I could plug in something like a brighter map light wherever I need the light, when encamped. I've also considered the small LED light cubes on the side rails, but my overall design goal has been to keep things sort of stealthy. Don't want a bunch of stuff visible outside or inside.

eta 'flush mount' on the side of the front footer would have them aiming about 10deg above the horizon. The fixture would need to pivot to put more light on the ground

If you use the inset lights, you'd need / want to make a sort of wedge shim so the light housing is aimed more at the ground.

 

[rayra]

The front and rear rack footings on the Z71 racks are over a foot long and ~4" tall. There's a blocky honeycombed baseplate structure that actually bolts to the roof, with a thin aerodynamic ABS? shell that snaps and screws in place. The actual side railings of the rack only extend ~2" onto these baseplates / footers, with a bolt at each end. So there's a lot of room for some 'modifications' or inset power ports or even small lights. And plenty of room to route wiring thru them, either thru a new hole or even by removing one of the 3? bolts that hold each footer to the roof, passing the wire thru the bolt hole. When you take the interior pillar trim plastic off there's engouh gap and play with the rigid headliner to fish some wire around.

eta these LED cube lights would serve well as 'scene' lighting, if one was willign to drill . bolt them into the rack side rails. You could even add a rubber-covered switch and have them all on from a dash switch adn then individually switched off at the lights, or some other switched variation

https://www.amazon.com/LEDKINGDOMUS...516404346&sr=1-11&keywords=2x2+LED+cube+flood

 

[Lykos]

Nope but there is room. The front and rear footings are unnecessarily huge. I"ve been doodling ideas for running rack lighting / power port wiring up thru those footers for the inset rear lights you referred to, a front 40" light bar and I'm considering 12v power receptacles in each of the footings that I could plug in something like a brighter map light wherever I need the light, when encamped. I've also considered the small LED light cubes on the side rails, but my overall design goal has been to keep things sort of stealthy. Don't want a bunch of stuff visible outside or inside.

eta 'flush mount' on the side of the front footer would have them aiming about 10deg above the horizon. The fixture would need to pivot to put more light on the ground

If you use the inset lights, you'd need / want to make a sort of wedge shim so the light housing is aimed more at the ground.

Power ports? Great! Thanks a lot! Now I have even more ideas to geek out on.
LoL
But seriously, that's kinda brilliant

 

[rayra]

12v string lights under a vehicle awning, the plug in map /work lights. I'm working on a roof-top solar panel mount next and that's what got me started thinking about embedding a power connection in the rear footers of the rack. And that led me to the 12v receptacle / PowerPort idea.

I just haven't found a good 12v plug in light that I like yet.


There are several magnet-base work lights though

 

[nitro_rat]

The round holes (plugged) in the rear of the rack were originally intended to hold an auxiliary reverse light. They ended up not doing it due to legality concerns in certain jurisdictions. There are aftermarket lights which will fit directly into the rear of these racks. Do a search and I'm sure you can find details on one of the gm specific forums. I looked into it for my Dad, he has an 04. Never wmet through with it though...