Just finished doing all the mechanical stuff (cut drilled/painted & mounted the bracket, mounted the rear facing driving lights, Hella FF75s, to the bracket, ran the wiring in the split loom along the roof basket, etc). Now all I gotta do is run the wiring into the cockpit, out the firewall and to power and ground. Taking a short break from working in the sun before I tackle pulling apart the interior trim and poking into the firewall. So far the hardest part of the install was getting the d@mn split loom to behave, and of course, it's like 3 inches too short.
Pics when done.
Edit: All Done!!! Whew!
Gave in and pulled the footwell trim back and ran the wires through the firewall. I wanted to avoid having to do this but others suggested it wasn't a good idea to tap the fusebox like I wanted. Plug in the firewall came right out when the 1/2 drill bit grabbed it. What a pita to get the cordless drill up under there! Though once it was out, I fished a piece of coat hanger through from the inside, bent a small hook in the end and pulled the wires right through from the engine compartment. The part of the install I was dreading the most turned out to be the simplest!
Slapped some silicone into the hole when I was done. I don't recommend trying to do this from the engine side though! Unfortunately I had already closed up all the trim on the inside when I found the tube of silicone. I had to glob some on the end of an old yardstick and fish it down to the hole as I couldn't reach it in the narrow space.
Ran the wiring to the relay/junction block in front of the battery. Of course, since I was installing these in the rear, almost all the wires were too short. Most of my time was taken up w/lengthening wires, running to the store for heat shrink & split loom, etc.
I left the relay under the dash. Ran the wires down into the weather stripping right in between the top of the rear and front doors. I poked a small hole in the stripping, poked the wires into it and then tucked them under the stripping that goes around the TOP of the driver's door down toward the fender. Then I ran them behind the fender mounting hardware behind the hinges so they won't get caught in the hinges. Ran em right across under the door wire plug/accordian to the fuse box area and tucked everything behind the trim panel near the hood release. Also, this keeps the relay inside out of the weather.
I used the stock trim panel for the switch like others have done but since I have the Renny light bar there is already a switch there. When I opened the panel I found that there is solid plastic behind it with no room for the switch body to stick through. I grabbed a pair of wire cutters and butchered out that whole area (I was tired or I would have used the Dremel) as it was covered by the trim plate anyway. So anyone thinking of installing a spare switch in that panel, pull the panel and check it first before drilling your switch hole as the left side has an opening behind it for the wires/body of the switch but the center to right side under the trim panel doesn't. You may be able to avoid cutting out this area if you keep your switches toward the left most area of the panel.
Anyway, all that's left is to add an inline fuse to the relay's energized wire as I ran it directly to the junction box so I can power the lights even with the key off for working behind the KJ.
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My pics!!'03 Rennie w/all Tupperware
Custom Roof Basket
Mopar Tubular Brush Guard
Garmin GPS V & Laptop w/Nav software
RAM products laptop mount
Maglite w/mount
Rear cargo bay tool cabinet
AllJs Rear Shelf
Rear receiver
250k miles!
LOST #CR051230
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