I'd procrastinated enough so between rain storms today I wired up the KC Rally 400 halogen lights previously installed. They are 4" lights, which I felt would be plenty, and not overly out of place on the X5, but they may be a bit small. Fortunately the hard work is done and swapping them out should be easy. I like the 4" lights as the bodies are powder coated aluminum. Most other 6" lights by KC, Hella, etc. have plastic bodies.
My initial thought was to have someone 3d print an insert for the ashtray that would hold a rocker switch and the two USB plug ends to/from the audio head unit that currently terminate in the ash tray. A bridge too far for my one brain cell. Fortunately the switch that comes with these KC lights fits perfectly in the cigarette lighter frame, once it is drilled out.
The wiring harness for the Rally 400 lights doesn't have a relay (initially I thought it did), but rather a 15 amp fuse in line. The harness has a convenient plug in the middle so I was able to route and plug in the lights, then route the other half of the harness from into the car via a convenient hole (plug had long ago fallen out) next to the hood latch cable firewall hole.
Staying on this side of the car allowed me to connect directly to the battery at the terminal post by the brake booster, and the negative jump terminal by the oil filter housing. Then it was just a matter of plugging the two halves of the harness together and doing some clean up with with zip ties and wire conduit. I ran the wires out of the cowl at the rubber plug on the left side that allows a large wire bundle and the hood cable to exit into the engine bay. Still a little clean up to do with the routing and tiding up under the hood.
(wire conduit cleans it up somewhat, but I need to sort out that ugly power wire. Its not quite long enough so I will splice in a longer length and route it out of the way I think)
Pulling the covers under the steering wheel and the carpeted cover along the tunnel allowed me to run the harness up to the back of the cigarette lighter and make the connections. with the bottom of the metal housing completely drilled out, the 3/4 switch and 3x connections fit nicely.
They are on a hot bus right now being wired directly to the battery terminal. the switch lights up though when the are on, and I also ran a wire to the passenger side cigarette lighter (which I think is switched power) so I can more easily wire a relay in if I want larger lights or the added protection of no power with the ignition off.
05-18-2024, 06:21 AM
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