mounting spotties on an ARB roofrack

The guys in the blue light taxis will have you, spot lights are not meant to be higher than your headlights

I will second that. We had to have a stowable folding light rail on our 4wd comp trucks. Reasons were that they had to be road registrable to enter competitions (except for tyres) and this meant that the light bar had to pivot backwards so that the spotties were below the line of the roll bar and not facing forward.

Check your local regulations though as some states will accept light covers on them as acceptance that they will not be used on the road.

Aside from the legalities, I have seen antenna mounts (c-clamps or wrap around types) used to fix the spottie to the roof rack. Better than welding tabs on and wrecking the powdercoat.

Can also buy a single roof bar like Rola or Rhino and mount them to that. That way they are easily removed if need be (if asked by the Police) and stowed. Bit harder if mounted on the roofrack.

Regards
David

Yeah! Ok Rod, you got me and what are there, if any, reasons to have spot lights on the roof?? Or do you want to join the rest of the dill bricks. What? your normally mounted spot lights are no good? Use your head maybe some brighter bulbs would be a better idea

andy

Firstly, the lights will be illegal if used on the road.

Second, if you do use them, you should paint your bonnett matt black, roof lights create a terrible reflection and really take a lot of getting used to, to the point of being a serious distraction.

Happy trails, Mike

"The lights will be illegal."

Nup! can't agree with that one as there are vehicles now imported with just that configuration.

JEEP for one.

Its no problem placing the lights up there as long as they don't interfere with the drivers forward vision and are firmly fixed to the vehicle.

The PROBLEM comes into play when you turn them on.

There are a few rules and regs re the turning on thing, which if you don't comply with then you may may find yourself knee deep in chit, and words like 'un-roadworthy' being bandied around.

OK sorry, I should have added that they will be removable, not permanantly mounted, the reasoning behind the use is I will be doing an all nighter with a trailer & 4 drivers over to Oodnadatta. More like a 2 & 1/2 day'er. Once we leave the leafy confinds of the city I want to be able to have good night vision for obvious reasons, Yes I know the lights will be above the 1200mm height requirements for NSW, but once we get away from the busy streets of most country towns there won't be many people to dazzle, I have a pair of twin hella work lights on the roof of our truck & they give great views of skippy's country cousins lurking in the table drains way out west.

I want to get the same security for the 100 on this trip,
Now for the upgrades, yes I have HID lower beams & have retro fitted my IPF's with a kit as well, but you still cannot see into the shadows in the drains where most strikable objects appear from, forget for a moment that I may, in your view be terrarising the mertopolitan area at night blinding people, hell my cruiser is not even a daily driver, I just want to have good vision on the long "outback" night haul.
One may ask if I'm that worried about hitting wildlife to 1, not drive at night, sorry but we do a lot of night driving, hence the HID upgrade, it's a good way to travel many 100's of boring miles, 2, fit a shoo-roo, sorry again but I've seen the result of people driving with these thing blindly into the night thinking they are protected only to slam into a bullock, goat, sheep or other animal that was too stupid to understand that the noise meant they should have been running for the hills.
I don't want to offend anyone, blind anyone or cause an accident, I just want to protect my investment & friends who will be assisting me in my journey.

Thanks for your input.

Hi
Many years ago, I mounted roof rack spotties on a Mini Moke for a trip around Qld.
The higher mounting gave a better perception of the depth of potholes and ruts than the lower mounted lights, which tend to show shadows in much lesser depressions.
The lights has stone mesh protection and I had to stuff alfoil in the bottom to block out light on the bonnet and a couple of metres in front of the vehicle.
Can't help in your specific query on the 100 series, but I found the concept and practicalities of high mounted lights well and truly worth the effort.
Cheers

Driving, Spot or Fog lights are illegal to operate if mounted on the roof. If you are relying on what you see in magazines as a guide to what is correct and legal THINK AGAIN. Just because someone else might do it is a pretty poor reason for you to decide to break the law. If someone else kicks their dog, beats their wife, abuses their kids, steals from their boss, and so on are you going to do it as well? If you consider wildlife and wandering cattle a likely hinderance to you, then you always have some choices such as slowing down and not driving at night. Mate most vehicle with a decent pair of driving lights mounted down on the bull bar have more than sufficient light to provide them with an excellent view down the road.

This is how I do it.





If necessary and when I am back home its a matter of undoing two nuts, dis connect a single electrical fitting ( all of 3 mins) and remove them.

These are Ironman Supa-Nova HID's which turn night into day by frying a gnats eyeballs at 500m.

The other noticeable effect is that the roo's in particular just sit there staring and to date haven't made any effort at all to move into the path of the vehicle.

They are operated by the headlight h/beam switch and also have their own isolator on the dash.

Reflection has been taken care of by painting the top of the bonnet black.

If it is so important to have multiple driving lights, why is it that the vehicles that do most miles at night in the Outback, ie. Road Trains, usually only have one set of driving lights?

Just as an aside to the hysteria this post has caused to the forum 'haroldites', I have just returned from the local shopping centre and whilst there purposefully took notice of what driving-light set up the 4WD had.

Over 50% had some sort of arrangement up on the roof, and a lt of others had the bull bar arrangements with the new plastic fantastics all having these 'murderous' fog lights.

Rod there was a 100 series there with an ARB roof rack with 4 low profile driving lights fitted between the top and bottom front rails of the r-rack.

All this dude had done was drill a hole (approx 8mm) in the sheet of steel that leads back from the bottom front rail, just in behind the rail.

The Light fitted in there perfectly.

No idea how he controlls them though.

Rod,

Have you tried to use the work light mounting brackets for the rear of the ARB roof racks. They seem to be low profile so you should be able to fit them under the air deflector

see pic below they are front mounted Light force lights



Hope this helps

Cheers Kev