Suzuki Jimny Mods, DIY Builds & Camping Videos
Suzuki Jimny Mods, DIY Builds & Camping Videos

Installing an LED Light Bar on the Bumper of the New Suzuki Jimny

Geordie Jimny > Jimny Modifications > Installing an LED Light Bar on the Bumper of the New Suzuki Jimny

You can spend some serious dosh on LED light bars and spot lights. I’m sure they’re excellent quality and deliver the experience that people want… but I’m not going too.

In this blog I’ll outline how I fitted the OSRAM LEDRIVING LIGHTBAR SX500-SP – SLIMLINE. Not only is it one hell of a mouthful but it’s also an unashamedly aesthetic mod and I still need some convincing it was a good idea. It cost £165.91 delivered from https://www.4x4ni.com and it arrived within 2 days, packaged well.

All the cool kids seem to be buying rigid lights and they do look the dogs B’s but their light bars were out of my budget for something I’ll rarely switch on. Maybe I’ll treat myself at some point in the future, I do like the idea of a reversing light, the dark windows make it hard to see where you’re going especially in the woods. Perhaps the reversing camera will be enough I’ve not had the chance to try it in the pitch black yet.

Where to mount it?

Like all of my little DIY installs on the Jimny, I’ve not done it before so I headed to Instagram and YouTube to look at other peoples advice.

The first step was deciding where to mount it. I initially assumed I’d mount it somewhere on the middle of the bumper here…

However, I couldn’t figure out a way of securely mounting it there. The plastic grille is held in with tiny metal clips and isn’t very strong to start with. I would need to make some sort of bracket, remove the bumper, fix the bracket to the crossmember etc. It’ll likely to look rather messy too. Additionally it would protrude out proud of the bumper and skid plate which might not look so good.

The second option was to mount it on top of the bumper. That would mean drilling holes in the new bumper and given how long it took me to get it that prospect was a bit of a concern. I didn’t want the added cost of installing a mounting bar that I’ve seen on other Jimnys, even though they offer a more reliable solution.

Truth be told I couldn’t be arsed to remove the front grille and bumper but was left with little choice and grabbed the drill.

Fitting

Several hundred measurements and triple checks later I had the holes marked where I wanted the light bar. The heatsinks on the back of the LED do not touch the grille and it doesn’t block the airflow much in that position.

It looks messy but trust me it’s accurate either side.

Removing the grille to access the plastic clips that hold the bumper on was, as always, a joy. I only snapped one mounting clip this time… urgh. Instead of unscrewing the indicators to completely remove the grille, I taped it to the engine bay with some cardboard so it hung nicely out of the way.

The bumpers on the Gen 4 Jimny’s are easy to remove and soon after I was reminiscing the front bumper install day. It’s nice to see my amateur repair of the damage on the crossmember is holding up well. No rust forming!

Here’s a blurry picture after fixing the first light bar bracket onto the bumper, you can see the small hole of the other side ready for the next bracket.

To help secure the bracket I quickly made 2 flat plates that extend ~100mm across the underside of the bumper to act as massive washers. I considered spraying the light bar brackets black but after a short argument in my head I chose not too. The silver isn’t ugly once it’s all fitted properly.

It took a lot longer than I anticipated to get this part completed but I took my time to avoid any silly mistakes, especially while drilling the holes. Here’s the story I shared on Instagram.

Wiring

The OSRAM light bar didn’t come with a wiring harness. This Eyourlife wiring harness (poor brand name choice if you ask me, don’t do drugs kids) was the one I ordered.

I’ll replace the rocker switch later with one from Stedi made specifically for the JB74. Their LED Light Bar switch is out of stock of at the time of writing this.

The process of wiring it up is straight forward as the harness is all pre configured so this saves a lot of hassle. I ensured good water tight connections and added heat shrinks where needed. It was just a case of shortening the wires, adding some connectors and zip tying the wires in place.

To feed the switch through into the car there’s a big rubber grommet on each side of the car. The wires feed through here to the back of the dashboard. Unwrap the tape and feed the wires through, remembering to tape it up again afterwards.

It’s hard to see but if you tape the wires to something rigid you can easily push wires through to the inside of the car as seen below. If you use the same harness I bought you will need to remove the rocker switch first.

Once the wires are fed through you can remove the plastic cover below the small panel of switches on the dashboard. It simply pops off when you carefully prise it from the top. For the time being I’ve just left the switch hanging until I get hold of the proper sized switch.

UPDATE: JimnyStyle now sell compatible switches.

The last step that I’ve got to do is see if I can solder on amber leds instead of the blue. I’ll update the article if I ever get around to trying it.

Update 2: I broke the stedi switch trying to change the LED backlight. Ended up buying a Toyota switch that had the correct colour and swapped over the Stedi casing. The casing is the closest match to the OEM switches, more so than the Toyota one.

Result

That’s it done. Nice and neat. If not for having to remove the grille and bumper it’s a quick install with limited equipment required.

I’m uncertain if I would have preferred 2 smaller bars or spot lights but for now I’m reasonably happy with the end result. It’s certainly bright and I’m looking forward to seeing how well it lights up the woodlands on my next camp.

Maybe one day I’ll find myself in an off road night driving situation and be pleased I installed this 🙂

Cheers for reading this far.

P.s. None of the items were gifted and no paid reviews. Not that this article is much of a review anyway?

Paul @GeordieJimny
About the author

I created Geordie Jimny out of my passion for the Suzuki Jimny, camping and creating things. I share it all here, on my YouTube channel and Instagram.
13 Responses
  1. Avatar photo
    Nick

    nice!
    May have to give this a go or a light bar/spots on the roof rack (when it arrives, struggling to press order when its just shy of £1k for a roof rack)

    those switches you linked to look wicked, interesting they seem to do USB ports to (bit crap the car only comes with one)

  2. Avatar photo
    Paul W Edgerton

    If you install a smaller light bar you could just have them come on with your high beans. That’s what I’m doing on my toyota sienna, the smaller light bar will come on with the automatic high beams. This way you don’t have to have a switch on the dash.

  3. Avatar photo
    Ian

    Hi Geordie,

    Great article, I’m doing an instal almost completely identical. Can you remember which wire you tapped into to provide the backlighting for the STEDI switch. I’ve put a multimeter on the neighbouring headlamp washer switch but can’t seem to identify the correct one.

    Cheers Ian

      1. Avatar photo
        Ian

        Thanks Geordie,

        good to know it works from there, was concerned there might be Cebus issues lurking there. I’ll make it my mission next week and let you know

        Cheers Ian

    1. Avatar photo
      Jamie Collins

      Hi there Ian, I’m currently doing the same thing to my Jimny. Did you managed to successfully tap in wire? If so, what wire did you use in the end?
      Thank you for your time 🙂

      Cheers, Jay

  4. Avatar photo
    Robert

    Hi Geordie,

    I’m looking at your great instruction and want to install similar LED bar. However I noticed OSRAM id offering same dimensions but different spec of the lights: SX500-SP [spot beam]  and SX500-CB [combo beam]. However, the weight difference is huge: 1.1 kg vs. 4.4 kg. You went for the spot beam, correct? Do you remember it to be heavy? How would you describe the light beam, very concentrated? I’m looking for something universal, for the forest, more like the combo beam but the 4.4 kg weight is substantial to install it on the front bumper. Thank you.

    1. Paul @GeordieJimny
      Geordie Jimny

      Hi Robert, thanks mate. Hope the blogs help.

      The one I have does throw quite a concentrated beam. It’s obviously nowhere near as wide as the headlights but it does significantly light the immediate path ahead to a bit more than the width of the car. Pretty good on narrow forest tracks, etc.

      No experience of any other additional lights to compare but for the price I like it. The real shame is the kind of driving I do rarely create situations where I need to use it. I should try change that at some point 😉

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Paul @GeordieJimny
Geordie Jimny
Best comment on the blog! Would you like to write an even more detailed guest...
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Daniel
Hi There! First, thank you for this blog. We have followed this for awhile and...
Paul @GeordieJimny
Geordie Jimny
Hi, I hear there’s something coming soon to help do that. Keep an eye on...
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roberto
hello Geordie, did you know how is it possible to lock the tailgate in open...
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Dave
Just got my jimny roof bars from front runner and yes they come with rubber...
Paul @GeordieJimny
Geordie Jimny
Glad you enjoyed it! Cheers Paul
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Joelle
Love reading this, thanks for helping me with my new Jimny! ????