Installation of KC Rally 800 Hilites on 2005 Jeep Wrangler Unlimited.

Last summer I was on my way home from work and traffic wasn’t bad. I was scooting along the freeway at a much better clip than the usual grid-lock would allow and I took my eyes off the road for what must have been a few seconds. While I was changing the station on the radio, I looked up to see the car-hauler ahead of me was in the middle of rapid deceleration. I slammed on the brakes a little later than I should have and could feel the ABS kick in just milliseconds before I hit him. There wasn’t much damage to the car- hauler as you can imagine and TJ seemed to get the worst of the deal.

The Hi-Lift Jack that was mounted to the front bumper was twisted under the frame and the front bumper was twisted beyond repair. The stock Hella light on the passenger’s side was hanging from its wiring, so I unhooked the light and threw it in the back of the Jeep.

I did a quick assessment of the damage and was impressed at how the little jeep held up.

We exchanged insurance info and were both able to resume our travels. When I got home I started sourcing parts. The Hi-Lift Jack and Mounting kit were easy. I logged in to www.motorweb.com and was able to find them in stock at a great price and started looking for an OEM bumper. I was actually surprised I was able to find it without going to a dealer and added to my order.

I wanted to upgrade my lights and wasn’t sure which way I wanted to go since I had PIAA lights on my last Cherokee. The PIAA Lights were great but stopped working late in their life and I was never able to get them going again.

Fast forward about nine months and I’m starting to look for the lights again . I wanted to go with something a little bigger than the stock Hella lights that came with the truck. I found some nice KC Rally 800 lights on www.motorweb.com that put out 170,000 candle power per beam with 130w Halogen bulbs and decide that would be the best way to go.

When I opened the box I was impressed with the high quality look and feel of the product and was happy I made the decision to go with the bigger 8" size. The stone guards looked a little gaudy at first, but I eventually put them on and they are starting to grow on me.

I wired them up to the existing lighting system activated from inside the vehicle and the came on with the first try.

This was a crazy simple installation since I hooked it up to the existing system and wiring and I really like the way they look. I will be testing them once the sun goes down and will report back on how they do.