Backup/reverse lights: thoughts?

[BigAl]

I have a single round driving light mounted inside my spare tire facing backward. My spare is on a swingout tire carrier. I made a simple "L" shaped bracket, it is held on by the bottom lug nut. I have a disconnect on the wire for when I need to take the spare off. The light is well protected from snags mounted inside the spare.

 

[d2offrover]

I recently bought a pair of those from www.RallyLights.com. Hopefully I'll have them installed within a couple of weeks, and I'll report back when I do.

Have you installed these lights?

 

[ColinTheCop]

I fitted a couple of Micro spots to my rollbar, got them from Ebay for about £12 a pair. Very small and very bright.

They're pretty good, but cast a bit of a shadow behind the rear bed, I was thinking of moving them down under the bed by the towbar, as others here seem to favour.

:bowdown:

Without wanting to hijack the thread, I was wondring about side mounted lights for lighting up campsites.

 

[miller_au]

I also have a flood light mounted in the centre of my spare, its hooked up to turn on while in reverse but i can also turn it on or off at any time..
This will be next..

 

[R_Lefebvre]

I've been dreaming up a system with one or two lights mounted on an extendable pole, which is mounted to my spare tire carrier. They would work in both positions. Down for reversing, and you could raise it for more lighting when setting up camp.

Anybody have anything similar? My only hesitation is that my antenna is mounted to the carrier as well, and I don't know if the light pole would cause interference.

I don't yet, and may never, have a roof rack otherwise I'd just stick them up there.

 

[Lynn]

I had a 3" tractor work light mounted on the back of my Jeep, not through the reverse lights. I think that's illegal in a lot of places.

I also discovered that I could get 35W halogen bulbs to replace the stock Toy backup bulbs on my '85 4-runner. That was really nice, and cheap. You might check into that option. The one that Toy used was a standard bulb: I think an 1156, and the Halogen 1156 was an aftermarket replacement.

 

[miller_au]

...

Hey mate a company by the name of Kaymar do a "telescopic" work light pole that mounts to your spare wheel, but there are plenty of DIY ideas for half the price

 

[ntsqd]

I've been dreaming up a system with one or two lights mounted on an extendable pole, which is mounted to my spare tire carrier. They would work in both positions. Down for reversing, and you could raise it for more lighting when setting up camp.

Anybody have anything similar? My only hesitation is that my antenna is mounted to the carrier as well, and I don't know if the light pole would cause interference.

I don't yet, and may never, have a roof rack otherwise I'd just stick them up there.

I nearly was able to buy an ex-News 4wd Suburban. It still had the mast for the satellite antenna and the motorized gimble on top of the mast, and the 7.5kW genset. It was my plan to mount several 110 VAC halogen work lights on the gimble and put the 2M business band antenna on a stationary part of the mast. The mast extended up about 20 feet, which would have made the truck an instant base station for my desert racing.
I have since pondered some sort of self erecting/retracting mast just for the antenna.

I say put both the lights and the antenna on the mast. You'll probably want some 1/4 wave radials for the ground plane for the antenna to work well, but sometimes that much higher has made Simplex possible where it wasn't before.

On Patch I cheaped it out, er.... recycled things. I used a Bosch fog light obtained from the junkyard along with a Ford relay in the Bosch pattern. Patch has a 10 gauge battery hot run back as far as the last major cross member where it terminates in a GM truck's isolated stud. Power for the light comes from there with the relay being triggered by a splice into the back-up lights.
Some times I was that I had an enabling switch. Would've been nice to have a means to turn it off on a couple of occasions.

 

[xtfritz]

On my FJC I have the ARB rack on there, so I decided to run wiring for lights up on top (none bought, nothing installed). Since I was doing that and expanding my visibility when reversing at night, I mounted some inexpensive prolight fog lamps onto the rear vertical C-channels on the rack. The wiring follows the other two capped hot wires and ground through my A-pillar and into a protected relay box in the engine bay. I put an add-a-fuse connector between my stock fuse block and new aux. 12 circuit block; this allows me to not have lights on (or anything else) if the key isn't in the ignition (no dead batteries, thank you very much). My only gripe with my setup is forgetting to switch off the light switch before pulling the key out since everything goes black. Even had a few times where I forgot to turn the lights off and was kindly reminded by passersby.

As work lights, their fantastic with a nice overhead flood scheme. As backup lamps they work pretty good and aren't down low to flood when deep water crossings are on the horizon.

 

[rickc]

I have a pair of IPF816s up top:
http://www.4by4connection.com/816backuplamp.html

They come with 3-way switches; off/on/on when in reverse. I have them attached tight but not too tight with nylock stainless fasteners so that if I want, I can turn them out or in but usually they just point down. With my big rear mounted spare, I can't see well at night out back.

The forum will not let me upload pics for now.

 

[xtfritz]

The forum will not let me upload pics for now.

Easy way around this is to open a photobucket account and paste the url here in your post. I did this when showing off some 78 series cruiser pics.

 

[The BN Guy]

Hey mate a company by the name of Kaymar do a "telescopic" work light pole that mounts to your spare wheel, but there are plenty of DIY ideas for half the price

Point me in the direction! I've been wanting to do that for a couple years now but couldn't find what I wanted.

 

[rickc]

My IPF816s:

 

[miller_au]

Point me in the direction! I've been wanting to do that for a couple years now but couldn't find what I wanted.

Hey mate just saw your reply... sorry for the delay. Kaymars site is www.kaymar.com.au believe it or not this is the only crappy pic they have on the site..

heres some others ive found...

 

[Atticus_1354]

I think I am going to have to get some reverse mount lights. The parts store had some decent small lights that I will be picking up after this next trip. I am going to be going from no auxiliary lights to front and rear in the same day. I can't wait.