New Baja Designs Cowl Lights

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Sep 26, 2010
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My lights and cowl brackets came in today. BD High Speed LED Spots and their mounts. Now to build the wiring harness and get them mounted!
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I don't get it. They hate their customers enough to charge over $100 for basic brackets?

 
I don't get it. They hate their customers enough to charge over $100 for basic brackets?

Check the other vendors and you will see that Baja's cost is inline with the market. The ones that you linked are actually the dual mounts and the ones I bought are singles. I had a forum discount I think I paid $70 to the door.
 
Nicely done on the mounts. Question... I’ve done bumper and roof lights, never cowl. What’s the advantage of cowl? Can’t get them on the ground, and you’d get a lot of light off the hood, like with roof lights. What does the cowl give you?

m
 
Nicely done on the mounts. Question... I’ve done bumper and roof lights, never cowl. What’s the advantage of cowl? Can’t get them on the ground, and you’d get a lot of light off the hood, like with roof lights. What does the cowl give you?
As with everything else, it can depend on what you are doing and what terrain you are in, but I find they (when aimed properly) provide lighting on the edges of the path and can help you see obstacles and drop offs that you cannot see with the headlights or the bumper lights. They tend to fill in the gaps between those tow sets of lights.. Cowl lighting has far less reflection from the hood (versus roof lights), particularly when mounted on the edges of the hood versus a light bar spanning the hood.
 
The terminations are complete on the lights and the harness is roughed in.

Weatherpack connectors, heat shrink tubing, braided PET sleeving, and 14 gauge THHN wiring was used.

I have to create the fuse side of the harness with a weatherpack fuse holder and connect all of it to the relay and battery.

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Cleaned up the wiring that I previously did for the LED's on my rock sliders in preparation to wire the cowl lights. I am going to have another relay mounting plate milled with more gap between the two relays so that I can have the wires running parallel with the fender (with the exception of the one wire that ties into the battery.

Making progress!!

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As with everything else, it can depend on what you are doing and what terrain you are in, but I find they (when aimed properly) provide lighting on the edges of the path and can help you see obstacles and drop offs that you cannot see with the headlights or the bumper lights. They tend to fill in the gaps between those tow sets of lights.. Cowl lighting has far less reflection from the hood (versus roof lights), particularly when mounted on the edges of the hood versus a light bar spanning the hood.

Nice explanation. and a good point about light bars. I’ve never used them and being “Old school” prefer something that looks like a good ole 1980s spot light. I dig what you’ve got going on there.

m
 
I finished roughing in the wiring and mounted the lights today. I am having a new relay mounting plate machined so I will wait until I receive it to complete the terminations, but here are a few photos:

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Very singular looking Jeep you have there. It's sporty and personalized. That vehicle is a "smiler".

As always, best of luck with it.

Super post BTW. Is paint abrasion a worry in pic 12 (wire of right light against windshield frame).
 
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Very singular looking Jeep you have there. It's sporty and personalized. That vehicle is a "smiler".

As always, best of luck with it.

Super post BTW. Is paint abrasion a worry in pic 12 (wire of right light against windshield frame).
Thanks Kira. I still have a little tweaking to do on the wiring and that is one of the things I need to adjust. The other is I need to run the wire from the driver's side behind the factory harness instead of in front of it.
 
Just completed the last of the wiring. I used one relay for the lights on my ROAM sliders and used the inside lights as the trigger. The second is for my Baja XL-R Sports cowl lights. The AUX 3 switch has a very small gauge wire and so it is the trigger for the relay.

Both relays pull power from the battery via 12 gauge wire that has weatherpack fuses and the underside of each relay has thermal paste for heat transfer (the area under each relay is polished) I think it turned out nice.

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So with a relay … you were able to use the lower 15 amp aux amp switches ?
Yes, the lower amp aux switch is the trigger (to engage the relay) and the main power is pulled from the battery.
 
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