How would you outfit this custom LJ?

[jscherb]

You got me thinking about adding a similar setup to my van.

If my thoughts are correct, when the relay is energized from the kitchen battery via the switch everything else on the ignition on circuit also gets power. I only see two wires connected to the relay energizer. Where does the power from the switch join to the circuit?

The relay coil is powered by the kitchen battery - there's a wire from the positive side of that battery to the switch in the dash and from the switch to the relay coil. The relay coil is powered from the kitchen battery because if the main battery fails it may not have the power to activate the relay.

The relay connects the positive side of the kitchen battery to the positive side of the main battery, putting the two batteries in parallel. The Trail Kitchen Charging System provides the heavy gauge wire to run between the two batteries so that was already in place, the new relay is in parallel with the 40amp relay and circuit breaker of the charging system, basically bypassing those components of the charging system. I described the Trail Kitchen Charging System here: https://expeditionportal.com/forum/threads/barn-door-for-jk-factory-hardtops.127687/post-2996721

The negative sides of both batteries have a common chassis ground.

 

[jscherb]

This is the vehicle I have wanted for 30 years. A YJ BUT with leaf springs and a "Brute" box.

If you're set on a Brute box you're probably out of luck, but if you go with a Jeep-tub style box there are commercial options out there for the box and there's also a fiberglass cab closeout you can buy. If you've wanted a Wrangler pickup for so long, why don't you build one?

My Wrangler pickup has been a daily driver since 2008, it was a great project and it's been a fantastic daily driver/all-purpose hauler for 14 years. I went with a 40's style bed to make my truck a modern version of the classic Willys pickup and lately I've been running a ladder rack from a 50's Willys to carry longer things, it's been an extremely handy vehicle to have.

My only complaint about it is that every time I park it somewhere, someone has to come up to me to ask about it. Fourteen years of that gets old, just leave me alone, people .

 

[ihatemybike]

the new relay is in parallel with the 40amp relay and circuit breaker of the charging system, basically bypassing those components of the charging system.

Thanks Jeff! That's what I was missing.

I had poured over the kitchen charging systems posts and the recent jump start modification posts had me thinking you replaced the 40 amp relay with the 500 amp relay and had it wired to be energized from the ignition power and the new jump start switch.

 

[jscherb]

A few weeks ago LED company Auxbeam asked me if I would write two articles for their web site. They wanted one to be a Christmas gift article and the other to be about winter driving. Each article would feature several of their products. I agreed and they sent me the necessary products to write about. I finished the articles and sent them to Auxbeam the other day. I'll post a few excerpts here about some of the products they asked me to include in the articles. I'm posting here because I did all the testing and photography on my '06 Wrangler pickup.

Multifunction Pod Lights

For both the winter driving and the Christmas gift articles, they asked me to write about their latest pod lights ((https://auxbeam.com/products/zd000713). Rated at 9600 lumens, these small lights are much more powerful than typical factory headlights, which are rated at about 1000 lumens in low beam, 1200 in high beam. These are multifunction lights - they're selectable between white output, amber/yellow output, or both as well as flashing.

I tested all of the lights in the articles on my '06 Wrangler pickup. The pod lights installed easily in the factory fog light holes in the bumper. For all of the lights I wrote about, Auxbeam also supplies a very complete wiring harness. All that's needed is to connect the harness to the battery, route the wires from the battery to the lights and from the battery to the cabin. Secure the wires along the way with some zip ties (not supplied), mount the switch in the cabin and the wiring is done.

The pods on the Wrangler:

In addition to the high-power white light, these are multifunction lights and are selectable between white output, amber/yellow output or both. The lights have six modes:

1. White
2. Amber
3. White + Amber Together
4. Flashing White
5. Flashing Amber
6. Alternately Flashing White and Amber

Modes 4, 5 and 6 seem like they might be useful in an emergency situation. This video demonstrates the six modes:


5D PRO LED Light Bar

Auxbeam's 5d PRO light bar is available from 12” wide up to 52” wide so they can suit a wide range of lighting needs and mounting locations and they range from 12,000 lumens for the 12” light bar all the way up to 55,000 lumens for the 52” bar. They sent me a 12" version (https://auxbeam.com/collections/led-light-bars-by-series-5d-pro-series).

It comes with mounting brackets that can be used for any flat surface and they also sell brackets for other locations, for example mounting to the hood hinges or above the windshield (https://auxbeam.com/search?type=product&q=light+bar+mounting+brackets). I tried it in two places - on the Wrangler's factory grille bar and on the bumper. I had mounting brackets on hand for the grille bar; mounting it in the bumper would require two holes to be drilled in the bumper, which I didn't do - I just posed it on the bumper for these photos.

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Like the other lights, the light bar comes with a complete mounting harness.

360 Pro 7” Driving Lights

The 360 PRO driving lights (https://auxbeam.com/products/360-pro-series-custom-lens-offroad-led-driving-lights) are a modern high-tech version of the classic driving light. These are LED and output 33,332 lumens per pair so they can really will light up the way.

Also available are optional amber lenses, these snap in place over the lights. The amber beams can provide better visibility in fog or snow situations.

A few more views of the driving lights. The bottom center and right photos show the optional protective black covers, these can protect the lenses from damage from stones or other debris on the road or trail when the lights aren’t being used.

GX-Series Bulbs

The new Auxbeam GX LED bulbs (https://auxbeam.com/collections/gx-series-led-headlight-bulbs) are available to replace most popular Halogen bulb sizes. Auxbeam says these are 650% brighter than factory Halogen bulbs.

Back to the Wrangler… this is a 2006 and up through that year Wrangler’s came from the factory with sealed beams, not replaceable separate bulbs. In 2007, Wranglers came from the factory with 7” round headlight housings with replaceable bulbs, and these are compatible with earlier Wranglers so to swap GX LEDs into a 2006 or earlier Wrangler (or almost any other vehicle with 7” sealed beams), 2007-2018 Wrangler light housings are installed and then the GX LEDs can be used.

In this photo a GX LED has been installed in the driver’s side and the original sealed beam is in the passenger side, you can see how much brighter the LED is.

In this next “garage door test” photo, the driver’s side halogen bulb has been replaced with a GX Series LED and the passenger side still has the factory halogen bulb. The factory bulb looks weak by comparison.

I've been running these LEDs in the JKU for several months and provide much better visibility the factory halogens. A very worthwhile upgrade.

Auxbeam AR-800 Switch Panel

The Auxbeam AR-800 Switch Panel (https://auxbeam.com/products/ar-800-multifunction-rgb-switch-panel-system-qp008526-1) is a great way to control everything with one simple switch panel and a great way to simplify wiring – the switch panel connects by one wire to a control unit that gets installed in the engine compartment, and all of the electrical accessories get wired to that control unit.

The switch panel is fairly small and there are several places that it could be mounted. In the JK:

A few TJ options:

The operation of each connected light or device can be controlled from a smartphone via Bluetooth and the functions of each switch can be configured through the Bluetooth interface.to one of three modes of operation – simple On/off, Momentary (useful perhaps for something like a horn) and Pulsed (can turn a light into a flasher, perhaps for first responder use). This video shows the operation of the switch panel and the different modes each switch can be set to:


Also using the Bluetooth interface, the backlight color of the switch panel can be set; you can choose any color you like, and many people set the color to match the illumination of their dash lights.


I included a few other photos in the articles I sent to Auxbeam, and some additional description, but I've kept it brief for posting here.

 

[Zeep]

I've read where LED bulbs in halogen housings, are bad for on coming drivers. Did you make any attempt to test this?

 

[jscherb]

I've read where LED bulbs in halogen housings, are bad for on coming drivers. Did you make any attempt to test this?

I've had the Auxbeam GX-Series LEDs in my JKU since about April. I've never once had an oncoming driver flash me to tell me my lights were bothering them.

I believe this is because the beam with the LED is the same as the beam with the Halogen because the beam is shaped by the reflector in the housing, not by the bulb. It may be that on some other vehicles the reflectors don't do as good a job, but the JK housings seem to do a fine job of focusing the beam properly and not bothering oncoming drivers.

 

[Zeep]

I've had the Auxbeam GX-Series LEDs in my JKU since about April. I've never once had an oncoming driver flash me to tell me my lights were bothering them.

I believe this is because the beam with the LED is the same as the beam with the Halogen because the beam is shaped by the reflector in the housing, not by the bulb. It may be that on some other vehicles the reflectors don't do as good a job, but the JK housings seem to do a fine job of focusing the beam properly and not bothering oncoming drivers.

That's the problem I have. I have KC housings, so I think I'll be shopping for complete LED housings

 

[jscherb]

That's the problem I have. I have KC housings, so I think I'll be shopping for complete LED housings

If you're talking about your TJ/LJ, why not get some used JK housings? They're a direct replacement for the sealed beams and then you can use any H13-spec LED you like. That's what I did for the test in the pickup. For now I put the sealed beams back in, but I probably will go with the JK housings and GX-Series LEDS to replace the sealed beams.

 

[Zeep]

Complete LED housings can be had very cheap nowadays!

 

[ihatemybike]

Complete LED housings can be had very cheap nowadays!

But many of the cheap ones are absolute crap.

Headlight Revolution does a lot of LED testing and shootouts. I haven't seen any company do more tests than them. Here are their videos that cover 7" round headlights. Definitely select the Watch on YouTube button.
8m

 

[jscherb]

I have the very common factory "RBK" AM/FM/CD in both of my '06 Wranglers. I pretty much never use the radio or CD functions, but I always use it with either Sirius on my phone or with my ipod (both through an RF modulator). Over the past few years, the volume controls in both Jeeps have stopped working properly - adjusting the volume resulted in random volume numbers showing up on the display and it was almost impossible to adjust the volume reliably.

I removed and disassembled one of the radios to see if I could fix the problem. The fix turned out to be pretty easy, something even someone without any electronics experience can probably do. Since this happened in both of my '06's, it may be a common problem, so I'll document the repair procedure here.

1. Remove the radio from the Jeep.

2. Remove the 4 screws holding the faceplate to the body of the radio using a T-15 driver:

3. Gently pry up the 4 tabs holding the faceplate in place (two on the top and two on the bottom) and remove the faceplate.

4. Pull the volume control knob off its shaft.

5. Remove the connector between the faceplate and the body. I pried each end up with a small screwdriver, alternating sides until it was loose enough to remove.

6. Remove the 6 screws holding the circuit board to the faceplate using a T-10 driver and remove the circuit board from the faceplate.

7. Spray contact cleaner on the volume control. If you look closely you'll see that the control is assembled as a sandwich of several parts, spraying the cleaner into the joints between the parts will allow the cleaner to get where it needs to be. Once it's saturated well, spin the shaft a bunch of times to clean the contacts.

8. Reassemble in the reverse order of disassembly and reinstall in the Jeep.

Now that I've got one working, I'll remove the one in the other Jeep and perform the same procedure on it.

 

[jscherb]

This morning I posted photos of some new spare tire bags on the JK in my JK thread; I planned to check them out on the LJ as well but it started snowing so I couldn't get to that until this afternoon. Here are the results.

Tactical Spare Cover:

Plus two SpareSide bags:

Plus two Weather Resistant MOLLE bags:

Removing all that, the MOLLE Wrap installed:

Without the spare cover but with the MOLLE Wrap for the tire, two SpareSide bags:

Plus a SpareHopper bag:

And here's why I needed to check this on the LJ...

Because the TJ/LJ tail lights are spaced closer in than those on the JK, and because the factory spare carrier positions the spare slightly towards the passenger side, a SpareSide bag on that side interferes with the visibility to the tail light. It would be worse on a stock TJ/LJ because even though I have a stock spare carrier (on a MORryde reinforcement), I've modified my spare carrier to move the spare 1" towards the driver's side.

For the TJ/LJ, one of the Weather Resistant MOLLE bags would work fine on the passenger side and wouldn't interfere.

 

[jscherb]

This is auxiliary gauge/switch panel I've been posting about in my JK thread, in these photos it's posed in the LJ, just setting there and not screwed down.

It could also be installed on top of the instrument panel, but this probably only works for tall people like me .

 

[jscherb]

I did a quick test this morning - the same panel can easily be mounted on the a-pillar of a later model TJ/LJ. Don't mind my hand holding the panel in place, I didn't want to actually screw it into the a-pillar trim for this quick test .

A bit smaller panel might be better there, this next one is a crude photo-edit.

The "edited" version would still support up to 6 switches, here's another photo edit with 4 switches and a dual USB outlet. Without the outlet, 6 switches could be installed, spaced a little closer.

Or even smaller, a 4-switch version:

I could make an "edited" panel in the same mold, because it's fiberglass it wouldn't be hard to cut a slice out of the longer part and splice the two halves together and have the result look seamless. If I were to make a few of them, I'd make a long part, slice/splice the part into a smaller version and make a new mold off that modified version. Pretty easy to do.

 

[jscherb]

Sometimes I get a random idea and I just have to make one to see how the idea would work out. This morning's idea - what if I made pulls for the TJ/LJ doors out of leather. So I sewed one just to see, in this photo it's installed on a spare door I have in the storage room.

I like it. One pull takes about 10 minutes to make. I think I'll make a few more to install in both of my 06's.