Light bars, light bars, lightbars.

Ray

Ray

The Northernah'
SO coming right up Me and Dan Gacki (rangeleyrally_dg) are gunna be building some lightbars, he knows what he wants but im undecided. I want it to hold 4 hellas and be kinda simple (if possible) so anyone have ideas, sketches, or pictures of any? BTW my car is a 2000 OBS. thanks all!!

 
I might do that!! getting that aluminum sheet bent will be the hard part, ya know the "skid" plate that was on it

 
I've got some info that's completely irrelevant to both of your cars!

I made light brackets for my RS before it went tits up.

1/4 STEEL from lows was like 10 bucks. Hammered it into angles in a bench vice.

Tested it up to speed and they didn't vibrate at all.

I planned to get a second piece of flat stock and bolt it across the two brackets so I could add 4 lights, but that wont happen for a while now.

Connects to the top radiator support.

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Good job Dan! I hadn't seen your car with lights yet.

Too bad about the car though
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. You mentioned the trans was cooked?
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Anyway, Jjst don't do a license plate mount like I have. There are two threaded holes under the front bumper where I am planning to build a light bar off of, connected up to the upper rad. support like Dan's. I think when I get around to it, it will be almost push-bar esque, so the lights stay protected by being set back a bit from the bar its self.

I wish I had a welder... and my engineering teacher just canceled our free choice project so I don't know when I'll be able to get the metal and the time
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Dan that is pretty much the way my wife and I did it!

we took large angle brackets from lowes attached them to the radiator support beam and shot them out through the grill as not to cut or bolt into anything (i.e. - bumper) and they have been very sturdy!
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never been a fan of the rallyinnovations bars, the idea is nice but the light mounts are way low for driving lites and very exposed to road damage, esp snowbank hits.

the various brackets that employ the top rad mounts are the way to go. for extra stoutness (esp for 4-light setups) go all the way and fab mounts that also go to either back of bumper (hard to get at) or lower rad support as well.

just make sure lights are mounted as close to the hood as possible, this way the front bumper gives em quite a bit of protection in parking lots etc and they're high enough so minor snowbank hits wont smoosh your nice new Hellas. just leve enough clearance so opening the hood won't mis-align the lights.

 
Yeah, but Nigel, if your lights are below your bumper and you have no FOGS, then don't the hellas or PIAAs count as Fog lights and you can have them on with the low beams?

 
Iboc_C64 said:
Yeah, but Nigel, if your lights are below your bumper and you have no FOGS, then don't the hellas or PIAAs count as Fog lights and you can have them on with the low beams?
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i spoze legally you could dodge that, but gawd help ya if you have PIAA driving lights on with your low beams and a Statie gets blinded by em. you are gona get busted and probably rightfully so.

why would you want driving lights on with your low beams anyway. In consideration of other drivers you shouldn't have brite driving lites on with oncoming traffic at all. most ppl wire the driving lights so they can be switched separately and dipped with just the hi beams. then you have 3 levels of lighting (or 4 if you have fogs)...low beam, low beam w/fogs, high beams, high beams w/moose-nukin Hellas.

lights mounted below bumper are just asking to get broken or at least knocked out of alignment by really minor impacts.

 
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Well, aside from night time rally cross, night time autocross and night time rally racing, why on earth would you want driving lights? They are illegal to USE in this state on the road. And when you talk to the sherrif, the border partol, or the warden, they seem hell bent on the definition of road as being anything that you can drive on, whether it be private or not. I know people that say they got in trouble for using them in the woods in Rangeley so now they can't use them anywhere except thier driveway. The only time they aren't illegal to use, as I understood it, is if you have them serving as your fog lights.

 
I could be wrong, but my understanding of the law is.....You can have no more than 4 front facing lights. I am also a$$-u-ming that means 4 lights ON/LIT.

I had driving lights on my RS(now Nigel's), have them on the Forester, and also on my truck. Wired to be on with high-beam only. I'll jinx myself, but have not had any problems with law enforcement. I DO try very hard to dim my lights before I can actually see the on-coming vehicle.

And I want all the light I can get to illuminate moose and deer when I am hooning along the roads to and from New Hampshire or Vermont ski areas before and after dark.

Sorry for the thread-jack, Ray!

 
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sounds like that might be slective enforcement. never had a bit of trouble after 10+ years of running a nose-full of extra lights. only being able to run "fog lights' as an excuse for running driving lites is exactly why some laws are so stupid they deserve to be disobeyed. there are a couple law enforcement types on the forum here, maybe they can weigh in with the 'real word.' my sense is, officers often take it on themselve to enforce stuff becasue certain ppl's actions (running brite lites against oncoming traffic) has pissed them off.

main reason to want extra light is that stock subie headlights suck and Maine if full of nassty stuff to run into/over/through.

I want to --NEED TO -- see what's out there @ night. moose are dark brown almost black, esp in the rain. their beadly lil eyes do NOT shine. deer travel in semi-suicidal packs, always on the wrong sie of the road so they have to cross NOW. black labs run out in the road. hitch-hikers wear dark clothing. black cats try dumb stuff outside of crosswalks. etc etc

 
also for me the main reason I want some more light is because traveling between Farmington and Fort Kent. Lots of moose on route 11 and the interstate make for hazzardous traveling. Also ive run hellas on front of all my subies and never had a problem. I used a 3-way switch so I could have the fogs on with just high beam, or always on for back roads cruising. I was cautious about other drivers and always dimmed them as I saw them approaching. accidentaly left em' on while passing cops but they didnt seem to care. so like Nigel Said its just selective enforcement.

either way.. i want lights!!!!!!
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Lights own. Cops don't care as long as you're not a numpty with them. They are a tool and there is a time and place for them. If you don't understand this, don't put them on your car, it's pretty simple.

I also agree with Nigel about keeping the lights up high. I've had a stone shoot through my oem fog glass. Keep them as close as you can to your stock headlight position.

 
I also had brackets something like Dan's on my RS. I had to bolt them to the radiator support. The radiator bolts were not centered. I suspect that is the case on your OBS, Ray. I managed to have mine come out, exactly between the grill and the bumper cover. It was a little tight and I had to be careful clipping the grill back in, but it worked. I think that placement also gave some support, hence no vibration.

 
the brackets that 4wrxter fabbed for his RS are really schweet. they're stout enough to support a bar with 4 8" lights. I just haven't done the conversion yet cuz I'm lazy and don't wanna frig with the spacers and stuff to make it work.

2 aux lights have proven fine...so far

 
The two that I can think of off the top of my head that have had problems with this law are PapaGak (RangeleyRallyDG's father) and MikeD. Mike D got stopped while using them on the regular roads if I recall because his were above headlight center, therefore they did not count as fogs. Also the lights cannot be brighter than the headlights themselves, and his where. PapaGak was on some back road somewhere and I think it was the Border Patrol that gave him sh*t. He has 4 hellas across the roof though. Obviously its not discrimination against young folks because Dans father is in his 50s I think.

Here is th link to all to the related sections of the Revised Statutes of the Maine State Constitution. This is what the police base thier vehicle lighting decisions on.

http://www.mainelegislature.org/legis/statutes/29-A/title29-Asec1909-B.html

http://www.mainelegislature.org/legis/statutes/29-A/title29-Asec1909-A.html

http://www.mainelegislature.org/legis/statutes/29-A/title29-Asec1904.html

 
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