Good lord that's a lot of wiringToday was the culmination of several long term projects. The first was removing rattles from my American Adventure Labs drawers. When I had the panels out, I also added some Kilmat to the cargo area. For the drawers, there was a loud rattle where the drawer would bang against the floor. I added a layer of washers between the base drawer and the floor. Then I realized the top drawer was banging against the bottom, so another layer of washers took care of that. I also lined the inside of the drawer fronts with a layer of the soft side of velcro to remove the last metal on metal contact. All rattles are gone!
I also put the finishing touches on power distribution to the rear and added the Dometic hardware kit. The power distribution is absurd overkill, but it gives me lots of future options for additional power back there. It runs off the aux battery for my Genesis system, with 2 gauge wire all the way to the rear. It's right now on a 60amp fuse, but I plan on adding a switch in the future. The mount is MDF, so I consider this sort of a beta that I'll come back and refine.
Fantastic Idea to tie it to the dome light. I might have to rewire mine like that.My @ORACLElights cargo light finally arrived from USA.
I don't know what's up with Quadratec and their international orders but it takes them over a week before anything even gets dispatched lately. Anyway!
Like a lot of members here there was no way I could live with this plug sticking out. Either I'd break it, or my dog would break it. Plus, it wouldn't have worked for me anyway because I have this 12v outlet to only be hot when the engine is on because I've wired a dashcam to the back of it too.
I was really keen not to have wires visible everywhere so kudos to the members here too that advised running the wire for the Oracle light through the existing window trim.
It came off easy enough with the usual trim removal tools but a top tip for refitting it? Put your new wire inside the trim first, then press it down over the top of the existing wire.
Wanting to continue the OEM look, I needed to route the wire through the same holes and panels the existing wiper motor wires go through. I also have a dashcam attached to the back window so I took the opportunity to tidy the wiring for that too and route everything at the same time.
The black trim coverings on my Overland are just held in place with Velcro and a trim removal tool soon popped out the OEM wire hole "thingy".
I poked a length of net-curtain wire through first (it's a bit like fish tape I think?)
Then I just taped both my wires (dashcam + oracle light) to the white curtain wire and pulled them through.
I had to use cable ties to attach the wires to the OEM braiding.
Got a bit annoyed afterwards because if I had thought about it a bit more I could have probably fed my two wires through the same braiding
Anyway, it's as neat as it's gonna get really.
It's similarly tidy on the inside too.
At the other end then I took another recommendation from people that have fitted the Oracle cargo light previously and used some quick disconnect plugs/connectors - for the one day a year in the UK where it does actually stop raining and I can take the roof off. I also fitted another connector for the dashcam so both things will disconnect very easily.
Another tip... have a male / female connector for each device going in opposite directions. This way when you disconnect them they'll only ever connect back to the other connector and you won't get them mixed up. You wouldn't want your dashcam powered up only when the interior light comes on eh?
That was half the job done there.
The other half of the job was to then tap in to the power that feeds the existing light in the rear. This way my Oracle cargo light is only powered up when the interior lights are on (ie. when the tailgate is open). Don't forget, my 12v socket has been wired to ignition-on-only so I needed an alternative power source/supply. Broke one of the clips off trying to get this light out, I should have taken out the dog guard first really
More trim removal required in order to run the power from the light and down towards the rear corner of the Jeep.
Job done, time for a cup of tea and a biscuit.
And here now we have all the dis-connectable connectors in one place
I'm sure you know how this works but now as soon as I open my tailgate, the interior lights come on, which in turn feed power to my cargo light.
I probably need to take a better picture, my street is well lit so this photo doesn't do the cargo light justice, I'll take another pic from an empty car park or something.
Just wanted to say thanks again to everyone who has fitted this light before and posted details of it elsewhere, your ideas and inspiration were great! I'm very grateful to you, it makes for a really nice, clean, OEM-looking installation.
Thanks everyone
Poor poor poor Jeep.A few cosmetic and structural changes here and there.
"Say, is that a new trail camera? It has a bigger nose than the last one!"
"What do we have here? I know that this guy's already shown us his sequential turn signals. And there's his halos again with that custom RGB controller he built. WAI... WAIT A SECOND. It's the grille. It's the grille, isn't it? He got that strange steel HDX grille from Westin that had a light bar in it. And he painted it, right?"
"OK. Now what's that monstrosity hanging down in front? That steel bumper has got to weight at least 150lbs! How does he expect to go rock crawling every weekend when he suits up his vehicle for crushing boulders?"
"WAIT. Are you telling me that he can actually store recovery gear in a lockable drawer AND still mount a winch on top? I don't believe you. They don't make bumpers like that. And why didn't he get a stubby, dammit!?"
