In July 2009 I installed a set of corner Whelen strobe lights. I started out in the back and moved forward. This is how I did it.

First I had to remove the taillights. For a quick tutorial on their removal, visit here. Once the lights were out, I had to find a good place to install them. Whelen recommends their strobes be placed a minimum of 1 inch away from any other surface. Once I got the taillights out I found a good place to put the strobe heads. Their in the main taillight housing (top) and an inch away from any surface. I drilled a 7/8 hole for the light, and put the bulb in.

 

Next you need to feed the wiring through the sheetmetal. Drill you hole big enough for your grommet, and MAKE SURE you use one. Running your wiring through sheetmetal by itself is a recipe for disaster and is a huge fire risk. Take the time to do it right.

Now that part of running the wiring to the controller box comes next. I routed the wiring under the trim so none of it is seen. While you are running the wiring up to the front from the rear lights, it would be a good time to also do your power. I originally was going to put the strobe controller in the back of the car. You can't, because the cables for the front lights will not reach all the way to the box if it's in the back. I put the strobe power controller box under the drivers seat.

The strobe power controller box needs it's own positive and negative power. I hooked those up directly to the power box in the trunk. As usual, make your wiring nice and neat. Don't forget to fuse it. We used a 20amp fuse.

So at this point you should have your rear strobes installed, the cables run to the middle of the car, your power leads run to the middle of the car, and your power supply location selected and the power supply installed.

We need to run our strobe cables through the firewall. The best spot I found was on the drivers side underneath the windshield wiper linkage.

I ran the cables along side the cable for the hood latch, and along the front end using tie-wraps to keep it all in place.

The headlights need to come out to get the holes drilled. I got mine out following the instructions in removing the front fascia. The only exception is I didn't remove all the small bolts on the bottom. On the headlight are two bolts.Remove them and the headlight assembly can be pulled straight out.

Once the headlights (and bulbs) are out, find the center spot inside the housing. Use visual clues and the lines on the housing itself to help find the center. There's a couple of things you NEED to know.

1: Again, keep the strobe at least an inch away from anything else.

2: The factory headlight housing is TWO layers.

I don't have a good picture of it, but drilling into the headlight housing can be tricky. Drill your hole with your hole saw like you did for the taillights For the first hole, drill it a size bigger than the actual size for the strobe. Once you've done that, you'll see there's another layer to drill through. This is where the strobe actually seats in the housing. Now you have to clean your housing. Use compressed air and blow out all the shavings and filings and get them out the bulb holes. It will probably be dusty inside. If your lucky and it isn't, then compressed air might be good enough. If it's still dusty, you might need to flush out your housing with DISTILLED water. If you use water, you won't be putting this all together today. It will need time to dry out, using a blow dryer and time to avoid condensation inside the housing at a later date.

Once the strobe is in, you'll have a gap between the layers that must be sealed up, because moisture will get in and the system is no longer sealed. For this, I cut out some plastic circles and used that to seal this up, along with silicone. Later on if the strobe needs replacing it will be an easy fix. You'll notice you can't see the strobe head at all. That's because it's hidden inside the housing between the layers.

Installation is reverse from dis-assembly.

Now we need to have the switching system hooked up. We have the power controller already under the rear seat, the power lines run to the rear, and the lights installed. We have two wires that come from the controller that go to your switching system. On my system, one was blue and one was green. They were run to the dash area. You'll also need to remove the lower dash cover. There is one screw underneath, and one on the side near the door hinge area.In the first picture, this lower trim should already be off.

I needed a 12V supply. I tapped into the cigarette lighter power, because I wanted it switched with the key. I ran the power under the dash.

The lower dash needed the switches. I drilled the needed holes and mounted the two switches. The top one if for the front, the bottom is for the rear.

I needed two relays- one for each switch. I mounted the relays on one of the under-dash braces and followed the instructions on the relay and switch schematics to wire it all up.

With that, the rest of the cables that were ran from the front to the power controller were hidden. Use an upholstery tool or flathead screwdriver to pull up the lugs that mount the carpet. Run your wiring and put it all back.

With that, use some tie-wraps to bundle your wires, put your trim back and make it all neat and clean.

Test and enjoy!

In February 2010, we installed two additional strobe heads in the reverse lights and two Sound Off Signals LED3's in the front grill. The front grill lights are synched together and are triggered with the front strobe bulbs.