Front bumper switch

[gasouthern02xls]

Been reading the forums for awhile, just never signed up or posted anything. Great place and tons of info.

I found a wrecked black 04 explorer xlt on craigslist, but I have a white car. I've always wanted that front bumper with the fog lights. I have three questions though,
1) Are the bumpers interchangeable? Like can I pop my existing one off and put the new one right on?
2) I was wondering if I switched that bumper with mine and painted that along with the rest of trim with black plastidip, would it look alright?
3) Lastly, is it possible to wire those fog lights to work? If so, how hard is it? I've never done any sort of electrical work so I don't know if I'd be able to do it, but I have a couple friends who do a fair amount of work on cars so they could probably help me out.

If these have already been answered I'm sorry, I searched around and couldn't find these answers. If they've already been answered and I'm just dumb and missed it, please direct me to the thread.

Thanks for any help

[zerodevil]

You can Deffinately get the xlt bumper onto your rig. Wiring the foglights to an aftermarket switch can also be easily done, I believe there is even a kit you can buy from an auto parts store too. Buy your buddy some pizza and beer/soda and you can knock it out in a few hours!

[BigRondo]

Welcome aboard!!

Wiring the fog lights is not too difficult.

I have my lights wired so that they can only come on with the parking lights and I have a switch also so I can shut them off when the parking lights are on. I picked up the relay and the switch at Radio Shack. Click here for the relay. Click here for the switch.

This is the diagram I used for wiring my lights. The relay is triggered by the parking lights, this turns on my aux lights, and the switch allows me to turn on/off the aux lights. I can only turn on the aux lights if my parking lights are on. The switch is only switching the relay and not the lights. This prevents a high amount of current traveling through the switch:




I found a great path for running wires through the firewall on my '02 XLT:

This is the view from the engine compartment. The access is behind the brake booster. Look behind the brake booster and down and you will see it.



This is the view from inside the Ex. Follow the brake pedal up to the firewall and look to the left. The red arrow points to the piece that you peel back and the black arrow points to the grommet:



I tapped the parking lights at the driver's side parking light itself, not a big deal since you have to route wires in that area anyway. The picture is from my how to for installing signal mirrors, the link is in my signature. There is some good info there for routing the wires.

Peel back and remove a portion of the plastic wrap - The red arrow indicates the quick splice connector connected to the Green w/White Stripe wire for the signal mirror - The white arrow indicates the quick splice connector connected to the Brown wire for my fog light relay.



Here is the pic of the grounding points. The red arrow indicates the grounding point for the lights, the white arrow indicates the grounding point for the relay & the switch, the yellow arrow indicates where I mounted the relay, the blue arrow points to the wire run from terminal 30 on the relay to the positive terminal on the battery (including in-line fuse):



My relay wiring is as follows:

Term #30 - wire run through in-line fuse to positive terminal on battery
Term #85 - wire run to ground point indicated by white arrow
Term #87 - wire run and connected to positive wires on fog lights
Term #86 - wire run to switch located inside vehicle

The switch shown in the link has 3 terminals (ground is required to illuminate the LED indicator light):

Line - wire run to parking light circuit at driver's parking light
Load - wire from term #86 on relay
Ground - wire run to point indicated by white arrow
If you use a switch without an indicator light then the ground wire is not required.

When wired as above, the aux lights can only come on when the parking lights & the switch are on. When the parking lights are on you can shut off the aux lights with the switch.

I hope I didn't confuse you too much. Feel free to ask any questions.

[gasouthern02xls]

Wow! Thanks so much for all that info! Like I said, I'm not great with electrical stuff but hopefully my friends can help out. But is there any way that I can just hook them up to turn on with my headlights? I really don't want to drill through anything and install that switch because I figure I'll be getting a new car in a few years, she's treated my right for years but I'm about to graduate college and could use something a little more fuel efficient. and I'll have to switch the bumpers back and don't want to have to have a random switch in my car not hooked up to anything, ya know? I dunno, maybe it's asking too much and I'll just have to bite the bullet and go for it.

But wow, the diagrams and pictures are great and I'll be hopefully installing that before too long. I saw a picture a while back of Kazers ex, he sold it, that had a mesh grille overlay installed. Can I just send him a direct message and ask him how he did it? Like I said, still new to all this.

[Triton8273]

Originally Posted by gasouthern02xls

Wow! Thanks so much for all that info! Like I said, I'm not great with electrical stuff but hopefully my friends can help out. But is there any way that I can just hook them up to turn on with my headlights? I really don't want to drill through anything and install that switch because I figure I'll be getting a new car in a few years, she's treated my right for years but I'm about to graduate college and could use something a little more fuel efficient. and I'll have to switch the bumpers back and don't want to have to have a random switch in my car not hooked up to anything, ya know? I dunno, maybe it's asking too much and I'll just have to bite the bullet and go for it.

But wow, the diagrams and pictures are great and I'll be hopefully installing that before too long. I saw a picture a while back of Kazers ex, he sold it, that had a mesh grille overlay installed. Can I just send him a direct message and ask him how he did it? Like I said, still new to all this.

Kazer "AKA" Steve "AKA" KRAZER Is still around, never got rid of his truck.

[gasouthern02xls]

Whoops, I meant NHarris. He was the one with the mesh grille. I went through all the explorer pictures thread the past couple days for ideas and got the two mixed up because they both posted so much.

[Triton8273]

Originally Posted by gasouthern02xls

Whoops, I meant NHarris. He was the one with the mesh grille. I went through all the explorer pictures thread the past couple days for ideas and got the two mixed up because they both posted so much.

Well Nate is still here as well, just has two second gens now.

[Kazer]

Originally Posted by gasouthern02xls

...got the two mixed up because they both posted so much.

lol, if theres anything you need to know just PM me or ask in this thread

[wheelin'explorer]

Originally Posted by Kazer

lol, if theres anything you need to know just PM me or ask in this thread

I feel that is a compliment.

But on the topic of the questions, I think that you should switch to the XLT bumper and paint the trim and it black. I just repainted all of the trim on my XLT, It is super easy and gives a great end result since it gets rid of that factory grey that is faded and different shades (mine was atleast). Just get your self some painters tape, a bunch of news paper, and some Krylon Fusion!

[gasouthern02xls]

Originally Posted by wheelin'explorer

I feel that is a compliment.

But on the topic of the questions, I think that you should switch to the XLT bumper and paint the trim and it black. I just repainted all of the trim on my XLT, It is super easy and gives a great end result since it gets rid of that factory grey that is faded and different shades (mine was atleast). Just get your self some painters tape, a bunch of news paper, and some Krylon Fusion!

Hahah, no, it wasn't an insult at all. I learned a ton from your postings so thanks for that.

Back to my posting, I called the place and they barely speak English so I decided that I was just going to keep looking around. There are other places in Atlanta parting out explorers so it shouldn't be too hard. I think I'm gonna go with the XLT bumper, it's just always looked better to me. I recently painted my trim with rustoleum trim paint and it's not dark enough in my opinion so I'm gonna go with either krylon fusion or plastidip once I find that front bumper. What would you guys consider a good price for a front bumper?

http://atlanta.craigslist.org/atl/pts/3104945615.html that one doesn't have the fog lights or anything

http://atlanta.craigslist.org/sat/ptd/3100655900.html that one does have the fog lights

Or I could go ebay route? I just don't know how the quality of those will be.

[Kazer]

Lol,

and i'd say get which ever is cheaper. the bezels are $20 a side, and a pair of fogs will be roughly $70, plus wiring

[Triton8273]

Originally Posted by gasouthern02xls

Hahah, no, it wasn't an insult at all. I learned a ton from your postings so thanks for that.

Back to my posting, I called the place and they barely speak English so I decided that I was just going to keep looking around. There are other places in Atlanta parting out explorers so it shouldn't be too hard. I think I'm gonna go with the XLT bumper, it's just always looked better to me. I recently painted my trim with rustoleum trim paint and it's not dark enough in my opinion so I'm gonna go with either krylon fusion or plastidip once I find that front bumper. What would you guys consider a good price for a front bumper?

http://atlanta.craigslist.org/atl/pts/3104945615.html that one doesn't have the fog lights or anything

http://atlanta.craigslist.org/sat/ptd/3100655900.html that one does have the fog lights

Or I could go ebay route? I just don't know how the quality of those will be.

What are their prices with shipping? At least that gives us an idea as to what they are asking an someone may already know of a lower price. So we don't show you prices that are higher.

[gasouthern02xls]

http://www.ebay.com/itm/2L2Z17D957PA...vxp=mtr&_uhb=1 under $100 with free shipping

There are a couple more in the $130ish range and they all have free shipping. Like I said I plan on painting it myself so just being primered is fine.

I think after seeing how much stuff I'd have to order I might have talked myself into just painting my current trim a real nice black, getting a bull bar from truckgeardirect and throwing some lights on that. I'm a college student and I'm moving houses so I'm getting a deposit back and want to make my car look better, but also have some leftover money to buy beer to drink while working on my car.

But I'm gonna keep my eye out for a good deal on a XLT bumper since I now know that I can put that on and wire it up relatively easy, thanks to all you guys.

[BigRondo]

Originally Posted by gasouthern02xls

Wow! Thanks so much for all that info! Like I said, I'm not great with electrical stuff but hopefully my friends can help out. But is there any way that I can just hook them up to turn on with my headlights? I really don't want to drill through anything and install that switch because I figure I'll be getting a new car in a few years, she's treated my right for years but I'm about to graduate college and could use something a little more fuel efficient. and I'll have to switch the bumpers back and don't want to have to have a random switch in my car not hooked up to anything, ya know? I dunno, maybe it's asking too much and I'll just have to bite the bullet and go for it.

But wow, the diagrams and pictures are great and I'll be hopefully installing that before too long. I saw a picture a while back of Kazers ex, he sold it, that had a mesh grille overlay installed. Can I just send him a direct message and ask him how he did it? Like I said, still new to all this.

You're welcome. Feel free to ask any questions you may have!