Auxiliary or Driving Lights Mounted to Cabover Overhang?

Since I had quite the gap between the camper and the cab, I decided to add a prinsu rack to act as a air deflector. Subsiquently installed a pair of visionx adv series driving lights.

I hate sharing a trail with anyone that is using LED light bars. Maybe I need one of those grill mounted 50 watt CO2 lasers that ckent mentioned.

A long time ago (i.e. had to buy a copy of the Vehicle Code from the DMV) I researched KA laws on forward facing illumination lights. What I came away with for pavement use:
1) If they are "Fog Lights" they can only come on with the low beams.
2) If they are "Driving Lights" they can only come on with the high beams.
3) If they are "Auxiliary Lights" they can come on with either.
4) KA limits lights lit on the front of the vehicle to 6 total elements (this was WAY before LEDs or HID's). I never could determine if the marker lights counted in that total or not, so I've always assumed so.

Consequently the forward facing marker lights on a couple of my vehicles in the past, notably my old '67 Ranchero with it's four headlights, either didn't work at all or went off with the headlights turning on. And ALL of my lights are "Auxiliary Lights" no matter where they are mounted or how they are used.

At the time of that research a covered switch, i.e. one with something like those mil-spec red covers over the toggle, was an acceptable alternate to having covers on the lights themselves.

Something that I learned in my days of pre-running Baja with LocosMocos is to have a Master switch when running multiple sets of Aux lighting. Can turn on and off each set as needed, but only if the master switch is on and they all go off when the master switch is turned off. This is so that even when off-pavement if you meet on-coming traffic you can reduce your lighting and resume it when past the traffic with one simple move.
Another trick was to put different lengths of vacuum hose over the toggle. This allowed ID-ing which switch was which by touch rather than sight. In that truck's case the master switch had the longest piece of hose on it.

If the lights are mounted far enough back, the cab roof shields the hood from reflecting glare into the windshield. KC used to sell a stainless steel 'scoop' that mounted under their lights to act as this shield in the case of more forward mounted lights. Though I wondered at the time if they were long enough.

To my eyes the light of the cool color of most LED's looks "Hollow." Like it's there, but not really. I'll find out more as like Craig my CTD's headlights are some of the worst that I've ever had. I've order some Baja Designs Squadron Pro combo lights to put in the place of our non-existent OEM fog lights. And like the OP I have a set of lights that I have considered mounting to the leading edge of the camper. the lack of a clean routing and protection of the wiring solution has so far stalled that from happening. As such I am considering having a "light bar" made to fit tightly to the front of our OEM front bumper. I've yet to see an aftermarket front bumper that I wanted. The OEM front bumper is rather flimsy, so my thought is to make the "light bar" serve double-duty. It will rigidly mount the lights and it will function as a real bumper.

As an aside, if you're bombing around at night with an overhead array glaring, and encounter fog, dense dust, or worst of all, snow you WILL instantly be driving half blind.

camelracer said:

I hate sharing a trail with anyone that is using LED light bars. Maybe I need one of those grill mounted 50 watt CO2 lasers that ckent mentioned.

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If I'm following someone close I'll just turn my headlights off. Same goes for campgrounds and such.

Thirty something years ago I had some yellow fog lights on the front bumper of my pickup truck. In the fog I thought they were awesome. How do the new LED lights do in fog, rain, snow! I see some driving around on the streets early in the am. If they come up from behind kinda blinding they seem pointless with all the street lighting, I'm sure they help if the only light out there comes from your vehicle.

Russ

The OP wants lights for finding camp spots and such. A flood light beam pattern is ideal for this.

What I see too often is LED or HID bulbs installed into headlights that are supposed to NOT be flood lights, but targeted beams with sharp cutoffs. With a change in bulb they lose focus and suddenly flood everything, including oncoming drivers.

I've got HID's in my headlights, but I bought real HID projectors, hacked up my lights and glued/screwed/aimed them so they look great and work super, with SHARP cuttoffs. I bought my stuff from this guy - https://www.lightwerkz.net/ He will also take a set of your lights and modify them for you, for a price.

For all the info you could ask for regarding lighting, check out Daniel Stern - https://www.danielsternlighting.com/

Interesting how this thread got a tad off topic.... with the talk of LED and other light sources I do not believe anyone has mentioned E-Code lights....Puts the light on the road where you want it rather than up and out. I have had them on my vehicle for 5-6 years and they make all the difference, I think i have 60-90 yellow hella bulbs , so for the pacific northwest they are ideal. Running the E-code with aux lilghts is the norm for me and never been questioned about a yellow hue headlight. (it was a concern at first)
Happy Lighting

I have the E-code lights on my Jeep and love them. If I could put them in truck I would. If you're not lucky enough to have round of rectangular lights you're out of luck.

I did not realize that they were mainly rectangle/round...looking around I found ''Valeo-Cibie of Brazil"" manufactures E-code lights for you mainstream N. american trucks.. From the Ford site''''[SIZE=13.33px]They make several versions of the headlight, roughly similar to the US-market styling variants, and for the early 2-piece design they offer both amber and clear turn signal lights. Their Ford truck models are named differently down there; they've got the F250-F350, but also "F1000 - F4000". Fortunately there are photos so you can see which front-end variant is which. Their catalog and new-releases supplement are here and [/SIZE]here[SIZE=13.33px], respectively (PDF). You can see the various headlight options as well as the F-series European rear lamp (with amber turn signal). As for actually [/SIZE]getting[SIZE=13.33px] the lamps...that will be a bit of a challenge. In the early 1990s I got a set of the big square European-code H4 headlights and the 3-color rear lights from Cibie of Brazil for my '88 F250. They fit right in place of the original US lights, they made a giant improvement, and for the life of me I cannot remember how I got a hold of them! Although Valeo is a European company, their European operations don't/can't/won't supply lights made by Valeo Brazil :-( But if you're determined enough, it shouldn't be impossible to find a way to get them.[/SIZE]
The links do not work but here is a link to the english page..https://www.valeoservice.us/en-us/lcv/lighting-systems-lcv/headlamps

Years ago had KC driving lights on my '77 Blazer, great pencil beams went a long way. I really don't drive my camper fast enough that I need more light. Now riding my motorcycle is different. Added PIAA 910's on my Honda ST1300 BIG light but when shut off you would experience what riders call shut-down blindness. Have factory LED's on my Ducati and really do not need extra lights. IF you want bright light, look at Clearwater lights. Big light and big $$$$. Several friends use Clearwater's fantastic lights.


Disclaimer, all the lights listed are off-road use only ;-)

rando said:

Has anyone mounted auxiliary or driving lights to the underside of the cabover section of their camper? At this time of year we are often driving on back country roads and looking for campsites well after dark, which can be challenging. I am thinking about adding some extra lights for this sort of situation (strictly off highway), and don't have or want an aftermarket bumper bar. It seems that many folks mount lights to their roof racks, and it seems like it would be pretty straight forward to mount lights in a similar position by attaching them to the underneath or front of the cabover (red arrows):

IMG_1107.jpg

The advantage of this would be an easy and stable mount (without a bumper bar), and good angle to minimize the shadows and get good peripheral coverage. The disadvantage would be possible glare off the hood. Any experience with high mounted lights, or recommendations for a particular light?

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Sorry didn't mean to hi jack the thread. If looking for camping spots would you be better off mounting the lights to the sides so they light the potential camp spot. I get the concern about the glare from forward facing lights..
Russ

The plug and play Baja Design fog light replacements are looking promising - I like how discrete this are. But wandering around the train wreck that is tacomaworld I see that there are simple brackets available to mount a light bar behind the lower grill. Maybe I could handle a light bar if it were sufficiently hidden like this - any thoughts on light bar vs two led pods (Baja Designs Squadron Sport) in the fog light spot?

I think "ditch lights" may be a little too bro-dozer for me.

DieselShack said:

I think Baja designs has lights that will replace your fog lights that can give you more useable light. You can also look at ditch lights, they mount at the base of your a pillar, at the corners of your hood. You can point these in your preferred direction. I feel like when hunting for campsites at night, the ditch lights pointed to your sides would be most beneficial.

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craig333 said:

I have the E-code lights on my Jeep and love them. If I could put them in truck I would. If you're not lucky enough to have round of rectangular lights you're out of luck.

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That's why I used the parts from Lightwerkz. I cut up my lights and stuck in real HID projectors. I did this on my BMW e46 M3, using another set of real BMW bi-xenon projectors, of this page - https://www.lightwerkz.net/index.php/complete-retrofit-kits/application-specific-kits.html
I now run quad-bi-xenon... 4 low beams and 4 high. LOTS of e-code goodness.

And on my 2002 GMC I bought a set of these and cut out the existing plastic reflectors and stuck them in
https://www.lightwerkz.net/index.php/complete-retrofit-kits/universal-kit/bi-xenon-morimoto-mini-stage-3-d2s-4-0.html
Again, great e-code bright lights that don't blind oncoming traffic.

AND, back to rando's original query about "ditch lights", I did stick in some HID bulbs into my stock "fog" light locations, and yes, they would no longer function as fogs, since any pretense at having a nice low cutoff is gone, but wow, they flood the "ditches" nicely.

AND, I see these https://www.lightwerkz.net/index.php/off-road-lighting/diode-dynamics-ss6-white-pair.html and suspect they would work quite nicely stuck on either side of the cabover and wired into your "fog" light switch. I use something much cheaper but similar for my rear flood lights, and they are very nice indeed for backing up in the dark.

I tried to buy lights from Stern once. All I got was a week's worth of run-around. I lost a lot of respect for him after that.

I've been running H4 E-Code lens/reflectors in various vehicles since the late 80's. The best that I ever had were a set of Polish made 7" rounds that came from JC Whitney in the middle 80's. Had them in three different vehicles before they came apart. Next best 7" rounds have been Marchal's. Can source those from bajabronco.com
Worst E-Codes that I've had, and they are still much better than any sealed beam I've ever driven behind, are the large rectangular Hella's that I've had in a range of Toyota's. Were it that I could buy such a lens/reflector for our CTD I'd do so in a heartbeat.
I've run Hella's 55/100 bulbs for decades. Legal lows with more punch on high. Dark desert nights are about the only time the highs are needed when the lens/reflector is well designed & made.

One trip coming home from College for Winter Break I ran into Valley Fog North outside of Stockton, CA. It was so bad that I turned off the headlights (only!) and ran on just the bumper mounted Bosh driving lights. Fell in behind some trucks and worked to just barely keep their tail lights visible. It such slow going that at Santa Nella I bailed over the hill and got on the 101.

France used to, and may still require headlights distinctly in the yellow output range. I long thought that odd, but with my aging eyes I'm now understanding why.

I guess ditch lights aren't quite the same as "rock lights". My fog lights work well enough for ditch lighting, at least at low speeds. I know what you mean about Mr.Stern. Quite knowledgeable but a bit a ***** also.

This thread has been hijacked but in the typical good WTW fashion. Really makes you wonder why truck manufacturers can't/won't make better lighting.

Checked the Valeo site, still nothing there for my dodge. Had my hopes up for a bit. I don't trust anything made in China to do anything but blind oncoming drivers. Vic, you have pics of your mod?

As for side lights, I have a pair of Bosch flood lights. Excellent pattern but for some reason very hard to find. I got them from a guy that was selling them to farmers.





Another source for lighting products I've used for years is http://www.rallylights.com/

I will second www.rallylights.com
Good service/people?prices

Oddly I got exactly the same run-around from Susquehanna as I did from Stern, right after giving up on Stern. Ended up finding used lights close to what I wanted on Expo.

Going back to the PO's question, I think that any mount would need to tag into camper structure in such a way that the leverage of the pendulum-mounted lights would not cause trouble down the road. In my mind the front of the camper is a sensitive area, particularly don't want to do anything that might cause a leak up there.
If an "anti-pendulum" mount were to wrap down both sides of the camper along the top tube ("header"?) then wiring routing and securing could be built into or attached to that and run down next to one of the front jack brackets.

After all of that, the camper does move differently than the cab of the truck. Could it give the appearance of lights on a less than rigid mount? Dunno.

Never actually tried to contact them, just order what I want. The front of the camper is a solid piece of aluminum. Just use some silicone in the holes like normal. As for movement I can't say. I never actually use mine. The tiny little lights are worthless. Even though I won't it in an auction I hope they went out of business. I did have someone say when they saw me coming down the road they thought I was law enforcement. I can't see that myself. Musta been after 5:00

rando said:

The plug and play Baja Design fog light replacements are looking promising - I like how discrete this are. But wandering around the train wreck that is tacomaworld I see that there are simple brackets available to mount a light bar behind the lower grill. Maybe I could handle a light bar if it were sufficiently hidden like this - any thoughts on light bar vs two led pods (Baja Designs Squadron Sport) in the fog light spot?

I think "ditch lights" may be a little too bro-dozer for me.

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I have a 30" set of lights from Baja Design and love them. If you blow up the picture below you can barely see the light bar in the top of the grill. BD sells a kit to allow placement of the light recessed in the grill to protect it and be discrete at the same time. When I get my annual inspection I put a piece of painters tape across the light and my mechanic passes the truck. It is switched separately from the trucks regular lights.

I strictly use it off-road unless some "character" thinks it's ok to blind everyone and then I show him the light (pun intended). These lights are extremely bright and I can reccomend BD lights...