I like the look of the Recon Air Dam lights, yet $200 for an established appeared pretty absurd to me so I did some research study and also found that they seem re-packaging Maxxima 3/4 LED lights. I had the ability to get a set of 15 of the clear lens, brownish-yellow LED ones, consisting of wiring harness for under $100 from R&P Carriages via eBay. As well as since I just needed 7 items of LEDs for my vehicle, I’ll be offering the rest to redeem several of the expense. Reconnaissance does include chrome bezels with theirs, but as I really did not desire them, I did not bother to invest the extra $1 each to get them from R&P.
All 15 pieces of LEDs only use 0.75 amps so power is not a problem. I recently added wires to the TIPM in my truck from the unused F79, F97 & F98 fuse positions. F79 is the one used for the cab lights on an HD truck and it has power whenever the running lights are on so it seemed to be the perfect one to use here.
The only concern I had with mounting these lights as air dam lights was that the backs were transparent and some light came out of the back. A few minutes with a bottle of Testors black model paint solved that.
Due to the climate as well as my aging back, I had actually meant to remove the air dam and also bring it inside to install the lights. When I went to take out it, the four bolts and 6 clips came off fine, however, I discovered that there was a rivet at each end that I was unable to take out. I might not obtain any clippers, and also I had neither a dremel tool therein to remove them so I wound up doing the entire task with the air dam still connected. This image is not the best, but it shows the rivet on the vehicle driver’s side.
I used blue painters tape to give myself a surface to mark and, starting with one in the middle directly below the middle indent on the air dam, I marked out one every 10 inches to either side, halfway up the flat portion of the air dam. This turned out to line up with the indents on 5 of the 7.
I then drilled 3/4″ holes using a step bit I purchased from Harbor Freight for $8 with a coupon. I had to run the bit in from both the front and back as the step was just a tiny bit too shallow to do it all from one side.
The rubber grommets fit in snugly. It was right around freezing when I did this and I found that warming up the grommets and air dam with a heat gun made them much easier to install.
Insert the lights into the grommets, paying attention to the “top” marking on them.
Plug each light into the harness, black to black and white to white. This picture shows the lights wired up and test lit before securing the harness up behind the bumper.
As I mentioned above, I wired mine to the F79 fuse in the TIPM. Your exact power hookup may vary. All wired up, but turned off:
And turned on:
And on after dark:
