I'm Ryan from extremeterrain.com and this is my review and installation of the Rugged
Ridge Windshield LED Light Bar, fitting all 1997 to 2006 TJs.
Today we're gonna talk through the installation of this light bar but also talk about the
construction and a few of the features.
Some of you may be looking at this and thinking, "This doesn't look like any light bar I've
ever seen."
Well, this isn't a light bar in the old school sense of the word.
Now when you hear the term light bar, and especially LED light bar, you think of the
actual bar that produces the light.
A while back before LED light bars were even a thing, a light bar was this, a bar where
you would mount auxiliary lights, and of course, this one goes over the windshield.
Now this is a little bit different than those traditional light bars because those generally
had single post light mounts for you to fit anywhere from three to five individual lights
on them.
This is set up so that you can actually mount small LED light bars on this light bar mount.
This is set up for three 13 and a half inch light bars.
And there are a few benefits to running individual light bars in this position as opposed to
one 50 inch light bar all the way across the top.
This will allow you to run different colored lights if you choose to run yellow lights
on the outside and white on the inside.
It allows you to run different light patterns so you can have spot on the outside and flood
on the inside or vice versa, or really any combination of different light patterns.
And finally you can switch the lights independently.
A lot of the times there's no need for a 50 inch light bar's worth of light.
If you have each of these three light bars switched independently, you can turn on just
the outside, just the inside, or just one on either side, however you have it wired
up.
This just gives you a lot more flexibility.
I think for the price this is a very well put together and well thought out light bar.
As far as the construction goes this is a steel light bar that of course has the formed
brackets that will go directly onto your factory windshield hinges, it has a bit of a wind
deflector built right into the top of it which will help with aero a little bit and also
help keep the noise down.
A lot of times when you're squeezing a lot of air through a small space like between
the light bar and the top of your windshield frame, you can end up with a bit of a whistle.
So this piece here, this wind deflector is designed to help with that.
And then of course you have your brackets for your 3 individual 13 and a half inch light
bars.
One of the other things I really like about this bar is right here there is a hole drilled,
here's another one, another one, and finally a 4th hole for your wiring.
This will allow you to tuck all of the wiring for your three light bars inside of your light
bar mount, run them down to get them into your engine bay, keeping everything hidden
and nice and clean.
Getting this installed on your TJ is going to be a very simple one out of three wrenches,
however after you get this installed you will have to do some wiring for your light bars,
which can get a little bit more complicated depending on how comfortable you are with
automotive wiring.
But right now, we're just talking about this light bar mount, so again, a very simple one
out of three wrenches.
To get this bolted up you'll wanna first install your 13 and a half inch light bars on this
cross bar section.
Then put your down bars on the cross bar so that you have one completed piece.
Finally remove four bolts from your windshield hinges of your TJ, hold the bar in place,
and reinstall those four bolts.
And that's it, as I said, very, very simple installation for this bar.
The whole thing shouldn't take you more than an hour to get done and you won't need any
specialty tools, but you will wanna have a Torx bit handy so that you can loosen up those
factory windshield hinge bolts.
I mentioned before that I think this is appropriately priced for what you get, and that's absolutely
true.
There are a lot of 50 inch light bar mounts that don't have as much material as this and
those can be right around the same price as this light bar.
So when you get a light bar bracket, you're gonna wanna look for a few different things.
One is pre-drilled holes for hiding your wires, the other being the wind deflector, this really
has all of the features that you would look for in a light bar mount, and again in my
opinion I think this is properly priced.
So if you're looking to add some auxiliary lighting above your windshield, but you don't
want a 50 inch light bar that's either just on or just off, having the ability to mount
3 different 13 and a half inch light bars and have them switched independently, have
different beam patterns, or even be different colors is a really nice option.
And if you're looking to do that, this is a great light bar bracket that requires zero
drilling, is an easy install, and looks good.
So that's my review of the Rugged Ridge Windshield LED Light Bar, fitting all 1997 to 2006 Wranglers,
that you can find right here at extremeterrain.com.