Mounting spotlights on existing bumper

Ben Up North

Ben Up North

can only hope to improve
Joined
Oct 1, 2017
Messages
2,115
Location
FNQ
Car Year
2004 | 1992
Car Model
SG Forester X MY05 | 92 SVX
Transmission
5MT D/R | 4EAT
Sorry if this has been discussed before - if you could point me at the threads that would be great!

Looking to mount 2 or 3 large (Blitz 240/Super Oscar) spotllights that I have onto the front of my SG forester.

Due to the emptiness of my wallet, and the insistence of the trouble & stife I'm not able to replace the bumper with something serious, besides tyres come first

So... I'm looking at some way of attaching a mount to the existing bumper. I was thinking of bolting something through the plastic to the big steel bit underneath. Not fussed about the plastic so much as it's got a few dents and scrapes already, am perfectly content with chopping away large pieces of plastic if need be and it doesn't void insurance. Not sure if attaching anything to the steel would affect insurance either - perhaps I could bold something onto the mounts for the front bumper?

I'm pretty sure I saw a picture somewhere of someone who essentially had a bit of square tubing sitting on the existing bumper with their lights mounted on that, which would suffice for me.

Not concerned with looks in the slightest as Jack is a bit of a rat, but am concerned with solidity :ebiggrin:

Any thoughts, suggestions or pointers would be greatly appreciated.
 
Ben, the bumper support bar on the OEM bumper of my series II SG is a very profiled, curved alloy section. Not sure you could even bolt lights or a mounting plate to it.

That bar is replaced with a very heavy 50x50mm piece of structural steel box section when fitting a SubaXtreme bar.
 
Ratbag said:
Ben, the bumper support bar on the OEM bumper of my series II SG is a very profiled, curved alloy section. Not sure you could even bolt lights or a mounting plate to it.
Click to expand...

Ahh. I took the grill off and had a bit of a poke around yesterday. I thought there seemed to be a pretty chunky box section piece of steel under there, but perhaps not.

I'm going to investigate a bit more, doesn't seem overtly difficult to remove the plastic part of the bumper, if a bit fiddly with all the plugs or whatever you call those plastic dohickeys. Mind you, a few of them are missing here and there, I should get some more. Or not, nothing's fallen off yet. :lol:

I might even take some pictures.

If I can't attach some sort of mount on the existing bumper. the other alternative might be to bolt them to the roof in front of the racks *keep them lower than bolting them to the racks), but I don't think SWMBO would approve of me drilling holes in the roof and I'd be paranoid about them hitting something.
 
Not sure about the legality of roof lights for any on road vehicle. NSW is banning/has banned lights mounted on the top of roo bars.
 
Recently I was surprised and disappointed to discover that roof lights are legal for on-road; there may be a post about it here somewhere? This potentially means that with the lights being above the driver, the lights will hit oncoming traffic before the driver sees that traffic! Great! :shake:
 
Kevin said:
Recently I was surprised and disappointed to discover that roof lights are legal for on-road; there may be a post about it here somewhere? This potentially means that with the lights being above the driver, the lights will hit oncoming traffic before the driver sees that traffic! Great! :shake:
Click to expand...

Mmm. That certainly is a downside I'm well aware of. I've been in numerous situations where that's occured to me. Last Friday even. They're pretty popular amongst the yahoos up here. - being able to do it back to them is on my list of positives. :lildevil:

It's my last choice - if mounting them on the frount is a no-go, I'll see if I can sell them. If nobody buys, then...
 
Well.. I'm a little more confident now.
You're right ratbag, the bar is quite a curved profile - except for the back of it! that seems very straight and flat. I'm thinking of some L shaped steel/alloy that I can bolt to the back of it, coming up and over the metal piece whose function seems to hold the plastic of the bumper on.
Something like this:
DOzy4A4.png

To go above the grotty metal but here:
p3IK5AT.jpg
 
Kevin said:
Some have mounted them behind the grille which is then replaced with a mesh grille.

Here's a thread re mounting (unfortunately the pics are gone): https://www.offroadsubarus.com/showthread.php?t=1760
Click to expand...

Ahh. can see the pics now I've installed that photobucket extension. That build gives me a couple of ideas. the lights won't fit behind the grill, so I'll be taking the dremel to that once I work out the mounting as they will sit sort of in the grill a bit.

I can see it being a bit painful with gettign the grill on. I'll have to mount and line up the lights without the grill, take the lights off (can separate the light from its mount without affecting horizinal direction luckily), put the grill on then put the lights on. The shape of the lights should allow plenty of air through, which seems to concern many people.
 
? because
lefty said:
My latest project - Hella Comet 500 spotties behind the grill
CKuH8eV.jpg
Click to expand...

I guess that is better than drilling holes in the bumper
 
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I remember a post on SubaruForester.org where the bloke welded some bar together and mounted it in front of the radiator off existing bolt holes
 
That's pretty much what Left has, afaict. I think it goes on to the existing bumper mounts. This would mean it might be able to be fitted without removing the entire bumper.
 
My mate Eric has finished plasma cutting the old bull bar I'm using for mounting the lights on (chopped out a section of it anyway). Tha bar will sit behind the grill, with two tabs coming out, ending at just about the front of the grill that the spotties will bolt to. It's 4mm thick right angled aluminium, shouldn't wobble.
Even more hopefull, is I've got the height right.. too high and the top of spots will be above the bonnet (which is a no-no, from what I can tell).
I've got a little bit of height adjustment, but not sure enough.
Will post progress picks of it from here, once I get it back!
 
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