Installation Time
(approx) 1 Hour
Difficulty Level:
Simple installation for anyone.
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Hey, guys. So, today we're checking out the Deegan 38 by KC HiLiTES 50-inch Single Row LED Light Bar fitting all-year Wranglers. So, if you're in search of some additional lighting on your Wrangler, whether you want that for some extra visibility on dark back roads or dark trails or you're just looking for a boost in style on your Jeep, this option by Deegan 38 and KC HiLiTES is going to be a good choice to take a look at. Now, this is also gonna be for the Jeep owner who's looking for that auxiliary lighting to match any other LEDs that they already have on their Wrangler or just to enhance that OEM lighting.This kit is going to include just the light bar itself, but it is going to be pretty impressive for that single row featuring 30 Cree LED lights that are going to be high-intensity Cree LEDs making for a very bright light and it's also going to have an 8-degree spot and a 90-degree fog beam. Now, that is going to switch it up from, again, the traditional spot and spread beam that we usually see with light bars. Now, that eight-degree spot is going to give you the distance in your lighting, it's gonna shine it far down the road and that fog is going to be a little bit more spread out in comparison to the spot, giving you all of that peripheral visibility that you need when you're driving your Jeep. Now, the light bar itself is going to be very durable with an aluminum housing, a clear hardened lens, and it's also going to have an IP67 rating. That means it's gonna be dust and waterproof, ensuring that it's gonna last a very long time when it's mounted up to your Jeep. So, you don't have to worry about dust from the trail or rain getting inside the housing and hurting those LEDs.Now, with all that being said, this is gonna be put at a pretty average price point for a light bar at roughly $400, but in my personal opinion, I think with KC HiLiTES as the main brand as well as Deegan 38 that that's put at a very good price point. Now, in comparison to some other choices, usually, there are a couple of other options when it comes to light bars with that traditional dual-row light bar like I mentioned before, and then you're also going to have curved options that are gonna be a little bit more expensive because of the different design. Now, if we are taking a look at some more expensive options, you're usually gonna see some choices that are going to either include brackets and or additional lighting and then on the other hand the lesser expensive options are just going to be the more basic setup and they may not come with the wiring harness included like this kit does. Now, I really like that out of this kit. It makes it plug and play, very easy to install, and user-friendly. So, this kit really comes with it all except for those mounting brackets. But that leaves it open to what you wanna do at with your personal style and your Wrangler.Now, speaking of install, this is going to be a one out of three making it very easy to get this installed. You're gonna need a couple of basic hand tools and probably about an hour's worth of your time. So, speaking of that install, let's jump into that now.The tools that I used for my install were an impact wrench, an 11-millimeter deep socket, a T40 and T30 Torx socket, a 3/16-inch, and a 6-millimeter Allen socket, 1/4-inch drive ratchet, and a flathead screwdriver.So, to kick off this install, I would recommend to have brackets pre-installed. Now, these are the Raxiom 50-inch LED light bar mounting brackets, but it will depend on what your Wrangler that you have. We're working on the TJ today. So, then our next step, what I did was grabbed the button head bolts, the Allen head bolts, and I put a flat washer and a lock washer and threaded it in a couple of threads on either side because these will have to slide into the mount. Now, yours on your Wrangler might be a little bit different, but this is how it's gonna be on ours. So, it also may be a little bit helpful to have a friend on the other side. And we're gonna put that flat washer in front of the bracket. And then once that's in place, what we can do is tighten this up in the direction that we want it pointing. Want it pointing down a little bit, not enough to where it's gonna hit on the hood. That looks good. Then we can grab our Allen key and tighten that down.So, what I'm gonna do now is take a 6-millimeter Allen socket and just tighten that up. Now, you also do wanna make sure that you're tightening it up evenly. So, I'm gonna hit it couple times on this side, then we'll go to the other side and do the same thing. All right. So, now that our light bar is mounted up, now we can route our wiring harness.All right. So, what we're gonna do next is pop our hood so we can access our battery and the firewall to run our switch. So, we have our main connector here, this is gonna plug into our wiring harness. And now this step is gonna depend on your model Wrangler or what you have mounted up in this area. What I'm gonna try to do is actually route this wire and tuck it underneath our cowl area here. Now, we can't actually tuck all of the wire, but we can hide some of it just to get it to our engine bay. So, I'm gonna take a T15 Torx bit and remove this screw so it lifts up our cowl. So, I was gonna lift it up just enough so we can get this tucked through here. We can actually take out this bolt and route this behind our bracket here. So, the tool that you use may depend on your hardware. I'm gonna use a 3/16-inch Allen socket and just loosen up this bracket here. I'm gonna take out this bolt. So, we aren't able to fully tuck it but we are able to get it out of the way just a little bit. Now, there is gonna be a little bit of exposed wire here. Now there's a number of things you can do with this. What I would recommend is actually a cowl cover right here. You can just go ahead and mount that over. That's really just going to be for the TJ owners out there. For the JK and JL owners, you will be able to have a little bit of space in here to route that wire underneath the cowl into the engine bay area.So, what I'm doing now is just taking the switch part of our wiring harness, it's gonna be the three spade connectors, and we're gonna put it over to the driver side. So, I'm just gonna run this over here. Now, we are gonna clean up the wiring. I just wanna make sure that it's in position so we know where it's going to go once everything is plugged down. So, this is actually gonna go through this grommet, so we're gonna need a couple of inches more of that wire. I'm just gonna tuck this here for the time being and work on the passenger side.What we can do now is hook our leads up to the battery. So, our negative is going to go to our negative terminal and the red is gonna go to our positive terminal. We're gonna start with our positive terminal. Using an 11-millimeter socket, I'm just gonna take off the accessory nut. Once that's off, we can connect this lead, put the nut back on, tighten it down with that 11-millimeter socket. And then the same for our negative terminal, same 11-millimeter socket. So, once our leads to the battery are connected, then what we can do is grab our plug for our light. We can line this up with the two connectors. Then we can take our collar, thread that on. That is gonna protect the wire and the leads from any corrosion or water. Then what we can do is clean up our wiring a little bit. So, obviously, we have a lot of excess wiring, so we're gonna bunch this up and find a good spot for it. I recommend to take some zip ties and tie this up somewhere. We do have a lot of room in this engine bay, so I'm just going to tie this up right now, stick it right next to the fuse box. Now, obviously, I'm gonna secure that down in just a second, but now we're gonna go focus on the switch over on the driver side.So, what I did was actually disconnected the switch part. So, there is a disconnect there. This is going to make it a little bit easier to put this through the firewall instead of the three leads here. I'm gonna put this aside. Now, on the TJ, there's a grommet and all the other models this is going to be in roughly the same position right next to the brake master cylinder here. So, you're usually gonna have a grommet where you can pass through to the driver side. I'm just going to take a flathead and push this grommet out and back. And then what I'm gonna do is just pry on that and send our plug on through. Then once that's through, we can go into the cab area. So, once it's passed through that grommet, you should see it up on the driver side footwell to the left. Should be near the clutch pedal or the brake pedal here. So, now we can plug in the other side of our switch wire. All right. Once you hear it click, then we can plug in our switch.So, once our wire is connected to the wire that we brought through the firewall, we do need to connect our switch. Now, we're gonna have three prongs. There's gonna be a small label on each prong: one, two, and three. Now, our first one is gonna be white, that is going to be our power or our supply. Our second one is going to be blue, that's gonna be our load. And then our third one is going to be black and that's going to be our ground. So, once all of those are on there, then you can test this. So, our light is on, I can see it up there and the light on our 12-volt switch is on. Now, we can run our wire up on our interior because we are not going to mount it in our interior. Now, you can also do that. This will be able to mount in the interior. If you wanna drill a hole, there are little prongs there to keep this switch in place. We're not gonna do that because I don't wanna drill into our interior for demonstration, but we are just going to run this up and tuck it behind our interior up here.So, what I'm gonna do is just take off this side of the interior. So, I'm gonna use a T30 Torx, remove these two bolts right here. Peel this back. So, it's just gonna consist of some wire tucking. And then when you find a good spot for your switch, just gonna have it mounted up right there. Now, this is just because I don't wanna drill a hole in our interior. However, you can mount it up right here. You could also mount it on the trim right next to your steering wheel. So, that is going to depend on what you wanna do with your Wrangler, but I'm just going to remount this up. And then last but not least, we can close up our hood and test out our lights.So, that's gonna wrap it up for my review and install. Make sure you like and subscribe. And for more videos and products like this, always keep it right here at extremeterrain.com.
Features, Description, Reviews, Q&A, Specs & Installation
CA Residents: WARNING: Cancer and Reproductive Harm - www.P65Warnings.ca.gov
Installation Info
Installation Time
(approx) 1 Hour
Difficulty Level:
Simple installation for anyone.
What's in the Box
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