2014 Explorer Sport - Emergency Light Upfit

[tsawyer]

My first post to go along with my first project on my new (to me) CPO'd 2014 Explorer Sport. I am a volunteer firefighter and will be adding LED emergency lights to my Explorer, along with a light/siren controller. As I can't take the vehicle out of service for a long time to do everything at once, I'm breaking the project up into manageable chunks and will be posting photos as I go along. I welcome any comments and suggestions!

Part 1: Power and front light/speaker wire loom. Running a single 10 gauge power lead from the battery along with a 5 conductor, 14 gauge wire bundle that will provide connections to the front light pair and siren speaker. There will be two Feniex Fusion 180 degree Blue/White LEDs located in the center grill and the speaker will be mounted ... well, somewhere TDB. Right now, I'm just running the wires from under the hood to under the drivers seat, where the power distribution block and controller will be located. I considered the trunk as a mounting point as well, but under the seat seemed the most accessible and centrally located. For getting the wires into the car, I considered both the existing washer line grommet behind the glovebox (too small for what I need to run) as well as the existing grommet that is in the floor just a bit behind the driver seat. That was eliminated as well, as is not round and wouldn't play nice with the grommet I planned to use and more importantly, it meant running the wires straight down and then perpendicular to the direction of travel for about 10" till I could secure it somewhere to run it forward. I figured one stray branch would be all it would take to get caught in there and rip things up, so I reluctantly got out the drill made a nice fresh 13.5mm hole in the floor on the angled sheet metal that is basically at the seam where the carpet splits behind the drive seat. From there, lots of zip ties along the bottom (I lifted the car to make it easier to move around) and up through the engine compartment to the battery.

Here is the first round of pictures ....

 

[expoman55]

what electronic horn are you using for your upfit

 

[tsawyer]

what electronic horn are you using for your upfit

Hi expoman55,

I am using an AS 100W Federal Siren Kit AS71005-SPK0021, ordered from Amazon. I would delve into the full specs here ... basically it is siren controller and two 12v switched outputs for lights all from a wireless remote. Pics coming up now in the next post.

Tom

 

[tsawyer]

Progress ... siren mounted and front lights mounted, and wiring is run. All wiring runs up to quick connects up by the battery which then tie into the previous wire that I ran from under the driver seat.

 

[PDExplorer]

Came out great. I used the existing hole that was under the seat, aaaaannnnddd guess what, I forgot a wire. My grille lights are dual mode and I only ran 1 wire . I used the same grommet as you, but I fortified it with a decent amount of silicone anyway so the minimal gap wasn't too bad. I also put silicone inside it as well since I had 3-10AWG and 3-18AWG wires.. You make a good point with things getting snagged, so Im going to see how much it hangs. I think I got it fairly tight to the underbody but If I don't like it, I may do it the way you have it, once I run the new wire.

Its just a pain making stupid mistakes cause I have it run inside the frame rail and once it gets up near the engine bay, I have it zipped nice and tight out of the way inside a nylon flex sleeve and then wire loom. I may just have to zip tie the wire to the outside of the harness, its GXL wire anyway so it can withstand the heat.


Did you do any rear lights?