Is that you, Tom? I can hear you but I can't see a dang thing... :hat:
I would like to post all the great pictures I took except...I didn't take any... :hidesbehindsofa:
I work from home and kept running out when I had five minutes here and there and didn't - uh, well, lame excuses won't help. Here is what I did and you can check it for yourself easily:
1) Open the driver's side front door. You will see a fat piece of rubber (about 3" wide) on the chassis of the Jeep under the door running from up near the front mount of the roof rail all the way down to the hood area. It is just pressed on there (like a ziplock bag seal) and you can peel it right off.
2) Underneath is a flat piece of metal trim covering the same area. Five or six screws and that comes right off.
3) Remove the inside grab handle and the molded plastic piece that covers the inside of the driver's side A-pillar.
4) What I did was to run the wires along a channel that was there until it got down almost to the bottom of the metal trim plate and rubber door seal I removed in steps 1 & 2. This is also where my lack of experience made things a little harder than it should have been.
*
5) There was a hole already present in the cabin side of the A-pillar. I drilled a hole opposite it on the outside of the A-pillar. This allowed for a clear shot from the outside to the inside. I then trimmed a notch in the flat metal trim (the piece that has the groove where the rubber seal sort of snaps onto) so it wouldn't pinch the wires. The rubber seal will prevent any leaks (do NOT trim IT). I know this for a fact because when I went down to the farm a couple days later on Labor Day I drove 130 miles home in the heaviest rain I have seen all summer. Not. One. Drop.
Once the wires were routed through the outside hole (the one I drilled) and the inside (factory) hole, I ran the wires down through the little open corner under the A-pillar trim and - voila - had them all down below the dash right next to the existing firewall pass-through. The rest is up to how you plan to route the switch(es) and where you mount the relays, etc.
*The mistake I made was in trying to drill the tiniest hole possible. The wires all fit, but it was a royal pain in the keister feeding them through. As I recall, I drilled a 3/8" hole. A 1/2" hole would have saved me a lot of frustration. (I am guessing as to the sizes here, just allow yourself plenty of room for the wires.) I had three pair (six wires) since I ran the pair of spots, pair of floods, and the pair of rear work lights all together. Do yourself a favor (I did) and mark each pair so you don't have to guess which ground goes with which each hot wire. I used three separate (but identical) wiring harnesses which I wish I had not bought:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06XPJJNST/?tag=p--20
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The harnesses worked great, but I intend to replace the switches, and since the wires were not long enough to use as-is I bought a big spool of both red and black 14AWG wire which I used instead. All I really got out of it were the three relays. The next Jeep I do I will buy it all piecemeal and save some money.
This all makes perfect sense to me on writing it out, but I realize that some pictures would help anyone starting out blind. If you beg me enough I may get ambitious and remove the trim so I can show you a picture or two. Let the plaintive pleading begin!
ics-****:
