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Aux. Remote Fuse/Relay Box, Aux. Loom and Switches
Cobra 75 WX ST CB Radio and Wilson Antenna
200W Inverter
Underbody LED Night Wheeling Lights
Procomp Driving Lamps
Bluetooth on MyGig
GARMIN GPSMAP 60CX Windshield Mount
In-Cab Winch Control
Rear Facing Camping Light on Tire Carrier
In-Cab Winch Control
Map Light

While waiting for my JK to arrive I came up with several elaborate electrical ideas and I decided that I wanted to learn to do things correctly and not just slap things together like I did on the last truck.

I had several goals for a core electrical system:

• Isolation, I didn’t want any of my auxiliary electronics to interfere with the stock electronics
• Safety, I didn’t want the Jeep to catch on fire so spent a lot of time thinking about fuses
• Install the switches, wires, etc. once so as to avoid continually taking trim and dash parts off and running new wires every time I bought a new accessory
• Install an auxiliary relay and fuse housing under the hood to keep everything neat and protected
• Make everything look as professional as possible by creating wiring looms and cable management
• Have 120V accessible household voltage outlets available from a permanently wired 600W inverter
• Enable the quick installation of as many electrical planned accessories as possible by pre wiring
  
  

With these goals in mind I realized I needed to spend some upfront time researching and planning. When I started this project I didn’t even know what a relay was, however the web is a great place and I quickly started to learn about relays, fuses, voltage, AMPs and wire etc. This was not a single weekend project and was spread out over a few weeks (it probably took a total of 25 hours of working time)

I failed to keep track of cost accurately but this is an approximate breakdown:

One of the first things I did was to create a wiring diagram/blue print. Admittedly I changed things as the project progressed and I learned more but the basic design didn’t change much.

I spent quite a while searching for some type of relay box and eventually spent about $200 on a system sold by a company in the UK (Vehicle Wiring Products). I tried to find something from a US company but gave up after a couple of hours searching the web. If found a good place to mount the housing system on the passenger side of the engine compartment near the battery and figured out a way to run enough wires to power the switches and the trigger wires, so I went to work.

There is about 5 inches of dead space in between the front of the battery and the factory relay box. The relay housing system was 5 inches wide, so location was fairly obvious.

The first thing I did was make a mounting bracket out of some 1/6th steel I had laying around. It’s held in place by the 10mm bolt securing the front of the battery.

It’s a snug fit so the single bolt is enough to keep it secure.

This picture shows the location.

Another picture of the relay housing in place.

I created a loom with 1/2" inch split tube for 4 relay trigger wires, two hot wires and a wire that will be hot only when the ignition is on.

I ran the loom via the hole in the firewall on the passenger side near the vent.

I then ran the loom through to the center stack where the center right vent is located and zipped tied everything up.

I decided to mount 6 SPDT switches with illuminated LED indicators to control the electronics on the center stack. I don’t have power windows so that seemed like an ideal location.

I daisy chained 6 hot terminals (protected from the relay box under the hood with a 10 amp fuse) and 6 ground terminals. I also terminated the 4 trigger wires.

Everything connected to the back of the switches with insulated terminals.

I ran the ground wire back through the loom to the passenger side vent and then down to the place near the door where a bunch of factory wires are grounded. I also grounded the CB here and will use this location for anything else I need to ground on this side of the interior.

It looks cool at night

The 3 blue switches are for driving, underbody and rear lights, the amber switch is for the CB/GPS, the green switch is for the air horns and red switch is for the inverter.

The two bottom two relays are triggered by the ignition via the M9 fuse in the Jeep fuse box. I cut a notch in the Jeep fuse box for the two trigger wires. M9 is the fuse for front heated seats.

The two circuits are for a 200W inverter and the other will be for map lights, extra 12 volt sockets etc. The 40 amp fuse is shared to protect the two relays and each relay has a 30 amp fuse.

The 20 amp fuse is hot all the time and protects the switches and my CB and GPS.

Power for the housing is via 6# directly wired directly to the battery.

I wired the 4 trigger wires from the switches to the remaining 4 relays, power and ground wires. The box is easy to unbolt and flip upside down so when I am ready to wire things like lights it should be relatively fast (one wire for the output power and I'll find local grounds).

I’m happy with how this project came out. It looks nice and clean, should be trouble free and will make adding accessories easy.

Fuse/relay housing sticker

My Cobra 75 is over 5 years old and still runs like a champ. This is a great CB for wheeling and very compact and easy to install.

The CB is power from the auxiliary powered “amber” switched circuit so I can leave it on while the ignition is off.

I mounted the microphone on the right hand side of the dash using a home fabricate holder mic holder

The junction box is installed behind the glove box zip tied to the dash supports.

The antenna cable runs under the carpet on the passenger side to the rear cargo area.

I found some pictures on one of the JK forums showing how to fabricate an electronics mount which I thought would be a good place to hold my Cobra 75 WX ST microphone. I used some 1/6” steel plate because I wanted it to be sturdy when wheeling and a $3.00 microphone clip thingy from radio shack.

First I made a cardboard template.

After drilling mounting holes and holes for the microphone clip I made two bends (as show on the template). Then I screwed the microphone clip, cleaned up the sharp edges and then sanded it off ready for paining.

To install the finished holder:

• Pop the top of the dash off (from the back)
• Remove the two screws holding the dash fascia on and pull it out a few inches
• Remove the two screws holding the radio in (right side only)

Using the original screws from the radio attach the holder and then put the dash back together.

I installed the CB antenna to my Rockhard bumper since it had an antenna mounting tab built in.

I typical carry several devices on long trips that use battery chargers and have never seen the point in paying for 12 volt adapters when low wattage inverters are so inexpensive.

I found an inexpensive 200W inverter at Wal-Mart and decided to hardwire it and mount it in the center console storage bin. I picked the storage bin because it’s easy to access and most of the battery chargers I have will fit inside the storage bin while charging.

The total cost for this modification was less than $50

The inverter also has a USB charger which is handy for the iPod.>/P>

It only draws 15 amps and is fused at the relay box.

I drilled a hole through the back of the console though to the bottom of the storage bin and then ran power and ground wires through some ½" spilt loom.

I fished the loom up into the center console plastic, behind the front bracket and up into the glove box area.

The new loom was then spliced into the main auxiliary loom that runs from the glove box area to the auxiliary fuse box under the hood near the battery.

Velcro was used to secure the inverter inside the console. I mounted it as low as possible so there was enough room for plugs when the top is closed.

I put 5 bright wide LED lights under the Jeep for night wheeling. Typically on easy trails you don’t need underbody lighting but when things get tricky it helps spotters to have them. Headlight blind spotters and underbody lights help them.

Each light was securely fastened to the frame or underbody with self tapping screws. I pre-drilled and put a dollop of silicone to prevent rust or stop water from getting where it shouldn’t be.

Two rear lights were attached to the frame about where the shocks are to provide light on each rear wheel.

I fished the wire towards the front of the Jeep through the frame.

A single light was installed in the middle center of the Jeep. I ran the wire over the top of the gas can to the frame on the passenger side and tapped into the wire in the from the passenger side rear light.

I fished the wire towards through the front towards the rear of the Jeep to an existing hole located just below the front doors.

I ran power/ground wires in ½” split tube on either side of the Jeep from the engine compartment down to the frame. There are convenient holes in the top and side of the frame near the front door where I connected the wiring.

The passenger side and driver side wiring both terminate to the auxiliary fuse box.

The power wires were spliced and then connected to the appropriate relay in the auxiliary ruse/relay housing (fused to 10 amps).

The ground wires were spliced and then grounded to the frame (near the factory fuse/relay box).

Lights in action

These photos were taken in the garage with a 30 second exposure.

I added some 7” driving lights to my homemade front bumper. For only being a 7” light I am impressed by how bright they are.

In their infinite wisdom Jeep did not install a microphone on Wranglers thereby disabling the voice recognition and Bluetooth functionality that’s built into the MyGig system. There were some aftermarket solutions but I really didn’t want to spend $250 to enable this when I had so many other things I wanted first. I’d discounted even worrying about this until I found some forum posts about a new version of software from the manufacturer Harmon Becker that could support this. After tracking down a BETA version of the new software I determined that I could enable this functionality cheaply via a microphone for about $20.

I bought the microphone from a company called Coastal Tech for $20.00 plus shipping

I updated my MyGig software to version 9.705. The install was easy I simply burnt the files I downloaded to a data CD (cd_Info.cdi, config.cdi and a folder named BECKER), instated it in the MyGig and followed the instructions on the screen. It took about 15 minutes.

The VR and Bluetooth functionality is enabled via the engineering menu. Press seek up, seek down and menu simultaneously and then page down to the new JK VR/HFM option and enable.

After enabling VR/HFM two new options appeared on the system setup screen and I was able to pair my Samsung SCH-A990 cell phone.

Installing the microphone was straightforward. Remove the top plate, remove the screws holding the center stack in place and then finally remove the radio. The Coastal Tech microphone simply plugs in the middle connector on the back of the radio.

I placed the microphone in the gap between the top of center stack and the dash.

I tested and an inbound call and this microphone and new software work great together. Outbound dialing was just as easy.

The voice recognition functionality also worked well.

Updated 6/5/08: Installed version 9.715 and a few annoying bugs disappeared.

Even though the Jeep has MyGig and a GPS I also like to use my GARMIN 60CX for the trail maps and for recording waypoint that I can upload to my computer.

I mounted the GPS antenna towards the rear of the hood near the wipers. I ran the cable in the a split loom running through firewall on the driver side

The GPS is mounted to the windshield using a GARMIN windshield mounting bracket. I ran power cables up the A pillar are routed over to the passenger side main auxiliary loom. The power is switched via the same circuit the CB uses so I can leave the GPS on when the ignition is off.

I added in-cab switches to control the winch. The switch on the left SPDT controls the momentary on off on (DPDT) to the right on it. The momentary switch is wired directly to the winch control in the engine compartment.

I installed a rear facing camping light on the swing away tire carrier. The light is a cheap farmers equipment dispersed light type of light vs. a driving light. For some reason this took a while longer than I thought it would to install.

I stated out with some scrap steel. In this case one of the OEM bumper supports.

I drilled a couple of holes on the back of the tire carrier and tapped them.

I bolted the bracket on to the back of the tire carrier.

I added a new relay to my auxiliary fuse/relay box and ran a wire than can handle 30 amps back to the rear of the Jeep.

The relay is triggered buy a switch on the center stack that I’d installed and wired up months ago.

I only have one unused relay left (for a planned train horn ;)). Maybe I should have planned for more than 6?

I ran the wire through the firewall and on to the cargo area of the Jeep in split loom. Since I was going to this much hassle I added 3 extra power cables (for some unknown future use) and ran the existing CB antenna coax through the same spit loom.

I ran the power for the light through the existing tire carrier wiring loom (used for the CB antenna, 3rd brake light and license plate light). You can’t see from this picture but I cut a large notch into the door surround so the cables don’t get squished every time the tail gate door is closed.

The finshed product

I installed an Able2 Sho-Me - 8½" Permanent Mount Map Light which I bought here http://www.swps.com/13-0508.html for $27.95. It took 10 minutes to screw it in the side of the center stack and wire it up because I already had wiring free from other electrical projects.

I only installed a single light since in this location it can be used easily by both the driver and passenger.