HMMWV Lightbar mounting

[Sparky_911]

So my dept. just inherited one of these for use as a snow emergency vehicle in the winter and brush truck in the summer (I belong to an OEM/ESDA agency)

In the winter it will look like this.



Summer it will be like this



My question is in regards to MOUNTING lightbars.  Ours has a full soft top over the cab, the only feasible place to mount a bar (probably an MX7000 or an old Star LED bar) would be on the windshield frame. 

Anyone got any experience with these??  Mount something overhead, or go with a stick that sits flush inside the windshield a-la Feniex Cobra or Microman style??  My worry with that is flashback at night.  OR just skip the bar altogether and step up the warning in the front and on the sides.   All thoughts appreciated.

 

[Hoff]

I have very limited experience with HMMWV lighting. WPAFB had two of the turtle back soft HMMVWs that had simple 5mm on every corner. Where they were located was all fiberglass or thin metal. It was simple but effective. With the advances in today's LEDs you could do the same and have a pretty solid foot print. I would also say that if you are gong to use the windshield as the mount, use a stick type light. You could also try mounting to the hood close to the windshield (remember the hood opens to the front) as it is also fiberglass. Just my  :twocents:

 

[fleetcomm]

I put whelen M6's to the sides ,back and M7's on the front of ours. There is couple of these vehicles posted here one of them is mine the other one i think is tracy pd. The military is now selling 4 older models to the public.

 

[jph2]

The windshield frame is part of the rollover protection, so you probably don't want to drill into it too much. Check with your National Guard field maintenance shop folks to see how they mounted strobe beacons to the soft-top HMMWVs for convoy movements.

 

[fleetcomm]

The windshield frame is part of the rollover protection, so you probably don't want to drill into it too much. Check with your National Guard field maintenance shop folks to see how they mounted strobe beacons to the soft-top HMMWVs for convoy movements.

The ones with a beacon have a bracket in the center of the windshield and inside the windshield frame is the windshield wiper arm so be careful mounting anything to the frame.

 

[Sparky_911]

Thanks everyone for the tips so far.  I like the M6/M7 idea (I have M6s on my POV and love'em).  We really want to do a bar because it has TD's and alleys which we use a lot during SAR calls at night.  We're hoping to score an antenna mount bracket that goes between the cad/bed (think headache rack) that would allow mounting.

A couple of our dept members are in the Guard and are looking into manuals, mounts, etc for us as well.

 

[tvsjr]

Probably also important to know what sort of use this truck will have. Responding? Blocking traffic? Major roadways or smaller country roads? You may be better off with a dash light (Avenger, etc.), a pair of large grille lights (M6/M7), large lightheads on each side corner, and a pair to the rear. Maybe a couple of beacons on pole mounts?

 

[Sparky_911]

In the spring/summer it will be a full on brush truck/extrication rig, so yeah it will see interstate and back roads.  We leave the road blocking up to PD's around here and as stated above it will be used for SAR duties at night so TDs and alleys are a big plus.  Doing separate scene lighting would be great but money is a factor.

 

[fleetcomm]

this is ours HMMWV

 

[Sparky_911]

this is ours HMMWV

She's a beaut Clark!!  What brand/model of 24/12 converter did you use??

And we picked ours up today.  Only thing we had to do was melt the snow off and jump it. We talked about a bar but the going consensus is body lights and maybe a short Cobra in the window (if that).  I'll definitely show that video off.  Thanks for that.

 

[fleetcomm]

I started using these after the first one we didhttp://www.newmarpower.com/Landing/DC_Converters.html

This one is also posted on here and they did great work.

 

[Sparky_911]

Cool.  Thanks for the link. Got some actual pics last night....



Some of the other hmmwv's at the surplus site have a headache type rack that sits about a foot higher than the cab but still lower than the bed canopy cover.  So now theres 2 schools of thought.

1. Getting headache rack from surplus and mounting a bar. (Would look like this and picture it with the bed cover gone).



2. Doing an off road brow type mount with a Cobra 800 on the top of the cab window Similar to this....

 

[jmccarthy]

You could always have a local fab shop build a hard top for it and mount your bar there.

 

[Sparky_911]

We had considered that but $$ is a factor.  The headache mount would be free and the brow brackets would be under 50 bucks (this is all coming out of our pocket not dept. funds).  The lights are already in house.  

 

[proudfirefighter]

I like the idea of the cobra 800 cab mounted. Provides plenty of warning, and you can put another bar in the back as well for rear-warning

 

[acala91]

Would it be possible to use the mounts for what looks like the rubber bumpers on the top of the windshield frame to mount a Cobra 800? 

 

[Sparky_911]

We could. Would hafta bring them out more so the bar would clear the wiper arms. Good idea though 

 

[RescueWV]

Just my two cents, but considering a large part of the intended use for this seems to be off-road, I'd avoid the headache rack with the lightbar, just seems like it's adding a lot of unecessary height to something that's may need to get into some tight spaces..

 

[Sparky_911]

After talking with the higher ups they feel the same.  I think we're gonna go with a brow style light, grille lights, T6's between the front wheel and front door, T6's on the rear. 

One of our DC's had a good point....were not making traffic stops with this thing so TD's and alleys aren't a necessity.  We will add some scene lighting later on.

I'll post up our build in the build forums when we do it.

 

[Storm4200]

If you were to do a Cobra800, you could spec a pair of white TDs in the bar

 

[Sparky_911]

True dat...We've got an 800 R/B it would just be a matter of ordering some heads from Feniex. Didn't think of that. 

 

[Sparky_911]

Soooo come to find out the 800 I thought we had doesn't exist...damn the luck.  Got me motivated to poke around and found these from Strobes n more...



Perfect for our application...some warning and a lot of flood.  Nice thing is they are 9-32v so we won't have to worry so much about converting over from 24/12 for the floods.  Also looking at some of the new Feniex T3's (29 bucks each!!) for grille/side/rear body lights.  Will probably hook it all up to a Whelen ULF44 we have on hand.   My hope is that the powers that be like it and will help cover some of the cost to outfit the cab front (60inches), and the sides (24inches).

 

[tvsjr]

If you're going to run at 24VDC directly, make sure everything in the chain is properly rated. That includes flashers, switches, relays, everything.

 

[Sparky_911]

I thought about that after I made the post...I thought running the floods on 24 and the warning on 12 would work since the have separate positive connections but they use the same ground wire...don't want to risk accidentally frying anything so I'll just run it all on 12v.

 

[Sparky_911]

Bought a SNM EFLOOD 4200 to try out....review and video here:



Hoping to get it installed to try out soon.  Hafta get the chiefs new Tahoe done first.....

 

[Sparky_911]

So we're going to outfit the HMMWV with 2 of these on the brow and then do some small body lights. I'd love to do 2 7200s but 2 4200s will be plenty. Looks like I'll be starting a build thread soon...

 

[Sparky_911]

Install thread started!!