Wiring up a set of driving lights has traditionally been a nightmare! But I’m going to show you how easy it is to wire up your new Adventure Kings LED spotlights or lightbar using the Kings Plug n Play Smart Harness. And the best part is – there’s NO cutting, soldering or drilling involved – it’s so incredibly easy!

In fact the only thing you’ll need are some spanners to undo your battery terminals, a handful of cable ties to secure the wiring once it’s in place, and a wire coat hanger and a bit of tape to help run the cabling through your firewall. This is part 1 of our LED driving lights installation guide – where we’ll talk about the Plug n Play Smart Harness and what each component does, plus talk about mounting the harness into your engine bay. In Part 2 we’ll then talk about connecting the driving light wiring to your 4×4 LED spotlights and how to get them wired up extremely easily.

PLUG AND PLAY HARNESS EXPLAINED

First, let me lay out the Plug n Play wiring harness on this table and explain what everything is. It may look daunting at first but don’t worry – once you take a look at it, it’s an absolute piece of cake. You’ll have your new LED spotlights wired up in no time at all!

In the box you’ll have a main bundle of wiring that’s tied together, this smaller bundle of wiring, these two nearly identical wiring pieces here, and one of these black boxes with a metal tab called relays, with ‘24v’ marked on it.

Undo the twist ties off the main harness and lay it out on the table to so you can identify each component. You’ll see that at the very top of the harness is another of the little black relay boxes – it looks identical but has ‘12v’ marked on it. Start by laying out the harness with this relay at the top, spread everything out and you can start to see what the lengths of cabling are. Most of us installing LED spotlights onto a 4WD or a van or ute will only use the relay marked 12v.

The two cables with the forked terminals and the red and black cabling go to your battery, to provide power to your 4×4 driving lights – but not just yet. You can see here the inline waterproof fuse holder – open it up and remove the fuse and set it aside somewhere safe. You can get replacements for these at any car parts store or most service stations if you need to ever replace them – this is a 25amp fuse and should be replaced with another 25amp one if you ever need to.

This here is the switch that you run through your firewall and into your dash. For your LED spotlights or lightbar to be legal once installed, they need to only come on when you hit your high beam stalk and turn off when you go back to low beams, but they also need to be separately switched so you can turn them off and only use your normal headlight high beams.

The next length of cable is this one with the white T-shaped plug – this connects to either one of these headlight adapters and runs down to one of your headlights so the wiring harness can sense when your high beams are turned on, and then turn on the LED driving lights in unison. We’ll go through this in more detail in a moment.

This length of cabling here that goes to the grey plug with the orange rubber seal is what runs down to your 4WD spotlights or lightbar. If you’re wiring up an LED lightbar you obviously only need the one plug, but if you’re installing spotlights then you’ll need this twin plug adapter.

See? I told you there’s nothing to it – installing this wiring harness is no harder than bolting an awning onto a roofrack. Okay, let’s get into the install of the rest of your LED driving lights wiring harness!

MOUNTING THE HARNESS IN YOUR ENGINE BAY

First let’s mount the wiring harness into the engine bay. Choose somewhere the same side as your battery, with a good amount of room. Also keep in mind how you’re going to run the wiring down to your LED driving lights – but we’ll talk more about that in part 2. Typically I’d install this onto an inner guard using an existing bolt or a metal screw, but you can also attach it with a cable tie to any hard surface that isn’t near a hot exhaust or turbo. The only other consideration is you need it to be close enough to the battery that these red and black wires can reach the battery terminals.

Make sure that there is plenty of room underneath the mounting position for the wiring to fall away. You want to avoid forcing the wiring away from the relay at a sharp angle, as you could possible pull the wires out of the relay holder. Ideally leave about 3 to 4 inches of the wiring coming directly down from the relay, and always mount the relay with this metal tab at the top, to prevent the risk of water getting into the wiring. This gives your LED spotlights wiring the best chance possible at longevity.

Double-check that you’ve got the fuse removed from the fuse holder, and you can go ahead and connect the red and black wires to corresponding red and black terminals on the battery. Make sure that the connect is tight and there’s a good fit with plenty of physical contact between these fork terminals and the battery posts.

In part 2 of our LED spotlight installation guide, we’ll talk about how to connect the wiring up to your new 4×4 spotlights and how to finish the installation off – don’t miss it!