Like many others I was disappointed in the stock aux. lights in the grill of my Grenadier. I'm sure there were various regulations that limited what could legally be mounted there from the factory, but the light output is just pointless. I don't think I would ever use them, especially with the hassle of putting the car in offroad mode first (I'm in North America).
I decided to find a way to mount a modern high-power pair of LEDs in the stock location, without the need to do any cutting of the grill. I've seen a few kits out there but they all have hefty price tags and require cutting. I don't want to hack up the front end of my car if I don't have to.
Turns out the aux. lights installed at the factory are a PAR46 style lamp, which is a standard 5.75in diameter light housing size. The Grenadier lights are a 7.4Watt lamp, which is literally 10% the power of many modern LED pod lights. No wonder they are useless. There are a million aftermarket headlights available in this PAR46 size, and plenty of them are LED. However the Grenadier aux lights feature a unique triple mount boss in the rear that snaps into some grommets in the grill buckets (plastic dish behind the lamps). There does not seem to be any other light available that will mount in this same way.
I considered fashioning a bracket that would secure a modern PAR46 lamp in there, but ultimately decided that I didn't really want a redundant set of headlights on the car. I wanted something more powerful like a off-road pod light. The problem is that 5in (127mm) is a slightly unusual size for round pod lights.
After way too much time searching I found a good candidate in a 5in round pod light rated 80W per lamp with a combo (spot + flood) lens. These rugged lights include wiring, nice sealed connectors, and relay as part of the package, all for an unbelievable $80 on Amazon. Note that this pair of lights draws >13 amps, so the standard ceiling-mounted 10 amp upfitter switches will not work directly, requiring a relay in the circuit to switch the high current.
After some measuring and CAD work, I created the sheetmetal bracket design shown in the pics attached here. This bracket secures the light pods at their designed attachment/aiming points, and bolts directly into the holes that mounted the original aux lights in the Grenadier grill bucket. No cutting required. Best of all the original bezel fits around these lights and attaches right back into place. The final result looks like it could have come from the factory, in my opinion.
View attachment 7848899
In use these lights are bright AF. They provide the overwhelming light intensity I was looking for and switching them on from the ceiling-mounted 25 amp switch makes me feel like a helicopter pilot every time. They don't seem to generate a worrisome amount of heat.
The lights I used: Exzeit "LML-5064B"
I want to make a few more tweaks to the bracket design, then I will probably have a batch made. I plan to send a few sets out for people to try.
These lights are an amazing value, but honestly I was hoping to find a good light pod from a well-known quality brand like KC HiLites or Baja Designs or Diode Dynamics. Maybe someone can do some research and find one that fits the criteria:
- 5 inch (127mm) outside diameter or a little less
- 3 in (76mm) total depth or less would be nice
- mount bosses near rear of light (not protruding from bottom)
- 120 Watts or more power rating is ideal
I hope to find another light model (or two) to design brackets for. If people don't mind losing the round bezel around the lights then there are lots of options that will work. There are some downsides to that, though.
If there is sufficient interest we might talk Stu into running a batch of these mounts and offering kits to forum members through the forum store.
