Where route roof rack lights

[SpencerFitch]

I can't ever figure this one out. What is the way that MOST land rover owners do this? Through the roof? Does anyone just go down the outside of the A pillar.

 

[leeawalden]

yes, drill a hole in the gutter at the top of the a pillar and drag them through with a coat hanger...be careful not to drill into your windshield, and seal it up with some silicone. You can pull the a pillar off, i've never done it, but I hear its a true PITA to get it back on. I drilled a hole and fished it through. You can drop the headliner also and go through the roof rails, but dropping the headliner to do so is a lot more involved that the previous two routes.


edit: go inside the a pillar, saw you mentioned going outside of it...this will look half A at best. If you have a snorkel just fish it through the snorkel.

 

[AxeAngel]

Permanently mounting rack or not?

I would use disconnects and think long and hard what electric stuff you will run up there. Don't wanna run wires more than once.

-Sam

 

[SpencerFitch]

It will be easily removable. Im going to be using connectors.

Thankfully I already have the headliner out. So no problems there.

 

[leeawalden]

headliner out? to do it right I would go through the same hole as the roof rails and notch the bottom edge of the roof rail so your wire can sit between the roof and bottom edge of the roof rail...silicone everything well.

 

[Dave Legacy]

As stated earlier you should run your harness down the A-pillar. I found that it wasn't necessary to drill a hole at all as there was enough opening to get the wired through. Use your ground wire to fish the rest through. I ran my harness around to the battery compartment where I mounted my fused relays and then through a grommet in the firewall to enter the cabin. I used a cruise control button as my on/off switch which gave a nice factory feel. You can install a quick release connector at the rack for removal, but honestly how often are you going to remove your rack? My SD Rack's feet didn't have the rubber insulators and I was shocked to see how much damage they did to your rain gutter trim.

My final tid-bit of advice is to wire it all independantly from your factory wire loom. This way you wont have to worry about any electrical issues being caused by your auxillary lighting and you can run them w/o the ignition in the ON position. Take your time with the wiring and double check as you go. Some people experience issues with shotty ground sources so don't make that mistake; I like using the factory ground block.

 

[SpencerFitch]

Thanks..

But here is what I dont understand..

How do you go from the rain gutter to inside of the A pillar?

 

[crusader]

My personal take on this is to keep any extra stuff from penetrating the sealed bodyshell if at all possible. This eliminates the possibliity of water ingress. If I DO have to penetrate the body, I'll try to use sealed electrical bulkhead connectors and gasket made for this puropse, like the Circular CPC connectors by Tyco, pictured. Even still, that doesn't guarantee it won't leak.

Generally, I try to keep the wires external by running them down the snorkel (if equipped) or the A-pillar and under the rear of the bonnet. Wires for the in-cab light switches are run through the bulkhead (firewall). For external routing to the lights, I encase the wires in flexible braided wiring harness sleeving and zip tie the harness to the snorkel or fasten the harness to the A-pillar using zip ties and zip tie mounts from the same company as the braided sleeving mentioned:

 

[leeawalden]

Thanks..

But here is what I dont understand..

How do you go from the rain gutter to inside of the A pillar?

There is the corner piece of the rain-gutter that you can shift a little to open up a space/hole that goes down into the a pillar. I couldn't fit all the wires through there on mine so thats why I drilled a hole to make the opening a bit larger.