Thread: Has any body mounted lights on roof racks

Here are mine. Sorry the photo is not close up. I have 4 hella 181's mounted onto an aluminium pack rack that is mounted to rhino racks. I just drilled a hole through the roof to run the cables. I used a rubber grommet and silicone to keep water/dust etc out.

Unfortunatley I do get reflection off the bonnet...so I am considering doing a matt black section on the bonnet

Cheers

Andrew

Everything is legal unless you get caught! I got done with lights on a roll bar up near Gympie. The problem being is that as they are above your eyesight, oncoming traffic see the light first before you see them therefore blinding them momentarily. In this case the copper was blinded and he let me off with a warning. No one has ever picked me up just because they were there.
On the roll bar they were Awesome. I did have an old paddock bomb that had a light drilled through the roof, but caused too much glare. You don't want the front windscreen or bonnet lit up, and I would make up a test light to see where the best spot is to fit them. As for the wiring, .............. Good luck

here"s my set up, bar mounts into holes drilled in gutter, wiring runs down snorkel and into engine bay, still get some reflection on bonnet from the IPF's, hence the half covers.

Assuming the legal stuff is all out of the way........and also I think these will be going on a Discovery Series I ?

There is a removable stripe running down the side of the windsheild seal which you can run a few wires under.
Alternatively you can run the wires through a protective sleeve and run them down the outside of the windsheild pillar secured by rubber lined 'P' clips screwed into the rubber surround. I have this set-up on my Discovery for the past 8 years and it's a very neat and practicle solution.
I was a tad doubius if the self tapping screws would hold in the rubber but so far everything is just fine.

Then you'll have the issue of glare on the bonnet to contend with! I found the matt black sticker/paint is the best solution but still it's distracting. If you can get the lights far enough back then the shadow from the roof should help overcome to problem....thats the beauty of the Disco's stepped roof.

I did read on another forum that fog lights which normally have a sharp top cutoff, mounted upside down, help in preventing glare on the bonnet. I guess thats not a lot of use if you're determined to have driving lights up there too
I'd always thought that roof bar lights were primarily for relatively slow going off road when the extra height helped to pick out dips & hollows, thus being caught with then on, on the highway wouldn't be too much of a problem. Bumper mounted spots have always given me all the range I needed on road. As someone above said wire them thru the dip beam. Include a separate on/off switch & use a relay for each pair & run an earth wire back down to the chassis rather than relying on the roof bar & its mounts to give a good earth. I have to point out that I haven't done this yet but it all made sense to me.
Steve

I once mounted lights on the roof rack of a Defender. Looked ridiculous and were useless as lighting. It was impossible to prevent glare on the bonnet which had the opposite effect of what was wanted! And with the 'slack' in the bodywork, they jiggled around quite disturbingly.

I needed some way of giving a good spread of light to the sides, for manouevering left and right in lowrange at night. What worked the best was Hella foglamps on the bumper - angled slightly outward.

Rooflights are just a misguided pose, I reckon, and now I am going to duck under the table!

my understanding of the Vic Roads rules are;

you can add up to two pairs of additional driving lights (high beam only). They must be in pairs and can only work when in high beam mode and must be wired so when in use a lamp is illuminated on the dash. There is no restriction on height for additional lighting as there is for normal 'low beam lights' which I think is no more than 1300mm high. Each light in a pair of additional lights must be of the same size/watts etc.

Check out www.VicRoads.vic.gov.au

cheers

Originally Posted by crump

here"s my set up, bar mounts into holes drilled in gutter, wiring runs down snorkel and into engine bay, still get some reflection on bonnet from the IPF's, hence the half covers.

Love your 'fender mate.