Rack mods...4 lights and 3 bike racks for <$80 (1 Viewer)

[Arya Ebrahimi]

Did some quick mods recently, thought I'd post some pics.

I end up doing a lot of night 'wheelin and wanted some more light around the truck for better visibility.

Solution? 2 pairs of APC brand driving lights for $12 a pair(on sale at advance auto). I know they're not the best lights, but they're cheap and they put out a pretty decent amount of light. They also have a limited lifetime warranty ;p

They came with the majority of the wiring I needed, save for a heavy guage power wire, a relay, and a switch. I already had the switch leftover from another project, so I spent ~$15 on wire, the relay, and some misc. connectors. Total cost $40.

Now onto the pics. The first shows the front lights in their "stored" position. Hopefully this will keep the law off my back about them not being covered.

 

[Arya Ebrahimi]

Now onto the rear. I wanted lights that would serve as backup lights when I was in town, but could serve as side/camp lights when out in the woods. This required a versatile mount that would allow the positioning of the lamps to be changed. Enter Yakima mightymount. I needed to add a small piece of rubber to the inside of the mount to snug it up, but other than that, it was a very simple installation process.

 

[Arya Ebrahimi]

Some more pics showing the different positions for the rear lights:

 

[Arya Ebrahimi]

One more pic of the rear light and a pic of the switch. I had to remove the woodgrain around the switch in order for it to flip back and forth. I don't have any goof-off here, but I'm going home this weekend and will take care of that, so don't harrass me yet!

 

[Arya Ebrahimi]

And finally the bike rack. I started to get back into mountain biking towards the end of this summer and had no way to carry my bike, short of just strapping it to the rack. Once I started riding w/ friends I decided I needed to be able to carry more bikes. I tried to adapt my Yakima steelhead bike tray from my old Yakima rack, but alas it wouldn't work. I looked around for a while until I found these fork mounts. I got them at www.performancebike.com for $10 a piece. If you go to the store they're listed for $20, but they will honor the internet price if you mention it. I picked up 3 for a total of $30 + tax along with the 6 bolts for ~$5. Now I can carry 3 bikes and it cost me less than $40. I just use a ratchet strap through the rear tires of the bikes to secure them.

Here are some pics. You can see my neat wiring job for the lights too. I used over 30 zipties securing all the wiring All the wires are under the metal floor of the rack, so they will not be damaged by items in/on the rack.

BTW, if you're wondering why the fork mounts are angled, it is so that all the handle bars will clear eachother when mounted.

 

[skyshark186]

Should work good. Nice job.

Which rack are you running?

 

[Cruiserhead05]

Its full length ARB