I installed the light bar last weekend. Let me start by saying this is a nicely engineered product. It is well thought out and it fits where it is supposed to.

The build quality of the bar itself and the wiring harness is first rate. It looks great on my car. I used Hella 500 driving lights on the outside and a pair of Hella 500 clear fog lights on the inside. The front bumper cover is certainly reinforced.

Now for a few issues. The directions are inadequate for the typical shade tree home mechanic with limited tools. It is not a simple, easy install. You need patience, the right tools, patience, and plenty of time. Did I mention patience?

I am going to attempt to give a step by step instructional from my experience. I have several pictures and I hope to make it a logical progression.

Get a reasonable work area set up. Gather up your torx bits, Phillips screwdrivers (shorty will be handy) and your metric socket set. A portable drill and bits will be necessary. Other tools will come in handy, but you will figure out what else you need while working. Be sure to have a good thick packing blanket or quilt to lay on and to rest the front bumper cover on while you work on it. A jack would have been handy to raise the front of the car, but it is not necessary. Working without a jack makes it impossible to have an unintended jack related accident.

First remove the splash shield under the car. There are three bolts in the front near the edge of the bumper cover and there are two retained Philips screws in the rear most corners. Turn the steering wheel hard to one side so you can get under the wheel wells easier. Get under the wheel well and in the upper front corner you will see one of the retaining screws for the bumper cover. Use an extension on your ratchet and remove that screw/bolt. Look along the underside of the bumper cover where it attaches to the side molding. Remove that screw. Go to the other wheel well and remove the same two screws. (more to come)

 

Now stand up and work out the kinks in your neck. Look along the upper edge of the bumper cover. You will see three clips that slip into the frame. These are built into the cover so there is nothing to remove; they just slip in and out as the cover is rotated into or out of place. On the left and right side of the center section, there is a torx screw that you will need to remove. At this point the front bumper cover should be loose and ready to remove. Not so fast…… Be sure to remove the temperature sensor bulb from its clip. Disconnect all the lights. There is a small release on the bulb holder that you push in and the connector will come apart. Once all the wires are disconnected, you can gently remove the cover!!!. Use your blanket to place it on. Don’t want any unsightly scratches on the front of your beautiful MINI.

The Template is very accurate. Trim it out of the rolled up sheet it is printed on with a pair of scissors. Fold up the tabs where indicated. The tabs serve as a good reference against the grill. It goes on the lower edge of the lower grille if you are facing the front of the car. Take some Scotch tape and tape the template to your front bumper cover. Be sure the template is centered on the bumper cover. Use a 1/16 drill and drill pilot holes through the center of the eight holes. At this point you can remove the template or leave it in place. I used a woodworking brad point bit to drill the holes. The brad point fits into the pilot holes and allows no wandering of the bit to scar your bumper cover. Be sure to remember the correct hole sizes as indicated on the template. Use minimal force and drill slowly and carefully as the drill willl want to “pop” through the bumper cover.

There is a small apron attached to the bumper cover with Phillips head screws. Remove all the screws and take off the apron. You will have to do this to get enough access to put in the light bar and the associated light mounting hardware.

 

Now for some fun. Open up you light kit hardware package that came with your fog/driving lights. You will find the light mounting bracket, a bolt that will be contained within the bracket, a lock washer and a nut. Now take the light bar and place it into the bumper cover. The holes you drilled earlier will serve as a guideline to gain correct alignment. At this point a second person would be a great help. (At least I think it would since I did mine alone) Feed the bolt through the light bracket and push it through one of the mounting holes and through the corresponding bracket hole on the light bar. This is where tiny hands would be nice. You have to figure out a way to get the nut onto the end of the bolt you just fed through. I held it between two fingers and gently turned the bracket to engage the threads. Turn the bracket while holding the nut until the bracket contacts the bumper cover. At this point, take an open end wrench and SLOWLY tighten the nut. You can only get a quarter turn at a time. Don’t fully tighten until you have installed all four brackets. At that point go drink a beer or something. Come back and retighten. This is a tedious process and you will have a tendency to say “its tight enough” when it really isn’t.

Get out the wiring harness and stretch it out. Lay out the ends that correspond with your lights. Pull each section through the smaller holes you drilled earlier. I found the section at the very end to be slightly short. It works, but barely

This is probably the time to post my one gripe with this otherwise well engineered product. The wiring harness is not long enough!! An inch or so short on the very last connector but it could still be “stretched”. The section of the harness between the bumper cover and the relays should be extended several inches to allow for better integration under the hood. As it is, the harness has to be pulled tight across the area where a lot of owners put their “eye” decals. No way to pull the harness to one side or the other and tie wrap it down neatly. Once in the cabin, the harness is not long enough to reach the recommended switch location. I had to make an extension harness to go the last six inches.

 

Now back to the front bumper cover. You now have the light bar fixed in place with the brackets and bolts from the light kits. The wiring harness is stretched and fitted through the holes you drilled. There is a ground wire that exits the wiring harness as it leaves the bumper cover and passes the front of the chassis. There are a pair of nuts on the frame ends on either side of the radiator. Remove the lower nut on each side.

Now for the second phase of FUN. It’s time to put the bumper cover back in place. Again I think this would be a good place to have a helper. (or maybe a couple more beers). Hold the cover up nearly in place, reach behind and reattach all the lights you unplugged earlier. Put back the temp sensor. Put the ground connector from the wiring harness over the bolt from which you just took off the nut. Thread the wiring harness up through the opening into the engine compartment. Carefully place the bumper cover into the upper clips. The two torx screws will help with alignment, but don’t tighten them just start them in their respective holes to help keep the cover from falling off. Now get out the flashlight or shop light and start checking to see if the frame end bolts are lining up with the mounting holes on the light bar. This part is a juggling act. The ground lug wants to fall off, the temp sensor will come unattached from its clip, etc, etc. Once the bumper cover is in place, you get to do the fun part. Its time to put those nuts back on the ends of the frame members. The only way I could really see what to do was to sit outside a wheel well and shine my shop light up into the area. You can just twist you poor hand up to the vicinity of the bolt end. Tease the nut on as best you can. It will probably fall off one or twenty times, but eventually you will get it started. Turn it on as far as possible by finger pressure. There is almost no room to get a wrench into this space. I used my trusty Craftsman box end wrench with its offset to barely engage the nut and turn it about an eighth of a turn at a time. This takes a long time and you will get a crick in your neck while straining to tighten it up. Go ahead and do both sides. Go take a break and then retighten both nuts, cause you probably didn’t get them tight enough the first time.

 

Take the remaining length of wiring harness and pull it up toward the fuse box area. You will see what I am talking about that the harness is a little short to allow an elegant routing. There are two wires that extrude from the harness at the fusebox. One wire is a small black wire with a small connector. I followed the Palo Uber suggestion of grounding to the sheet metal over the shock tower. I drilled a i/8” hole and used a stainless steel sheet metal screw and washer to connect the ground to the body. DO NOT CONNECT THE LARGE RED CONNECTOR AT THIS TIME. When you remove the cover from the fuse box, you will see the large red cable that provides current to the box. The red connector will be fitted to this terminal later.

 

Remove the rubber seal in the general vicinity you are working. It just lifts off very easily. Lay out the harness to see how the relays will mount on top of the air box. I mounted mine side by side close to the rubber seal. Trace the harness back toward the fuse box and see where the harness “wants” to come through. I used the angled portion of the walll. At this point, cut a notch in the plastic so that the harness can go through and not interfere with replacing the rubber seal. I made the mistake of using tin snips. The material is brittle and I created a small crack that extended beyond my intended cut. Hope the whole car doesn’t crack in half!! Anyway, fish the harness through your new notch. Work the harness over to the air box area. Place the relays beside one another on top of the air box housing. Make sure they are where you want them, nice and symmetrically placed, close to the rubber gasket. Mark the mounting holes with a marker through the small mounting bracket on the relay. Drill a hole through the plastic big enough to accommodate your mounting screw. Be sure not to ram the drill into your air intake!! I ran a screw through the hole with its head on the bottom, put on the relay and then run a lock washer and a nut down from the top. This makes a nice, neat install. Now take the harness and route it under the brake fluid reservoir. There is a nice “little” grommet that is hiding back behind the reservoir. There are several wires extending through this grommet already. There is also a pretty good sized loom already going through. That said, this is the place you will fish the harness through the firewall.

 

I used an old coat hanger straightened out as a fish lead. Take some electricians tape and wrap the connectors on the end of the harness to protect them from damage while working them through the grommet. Create a “tip” with the tape so the lead end will pass through the opening in the grommet. You may have to open up the grommet with a screwdriver. Just be very careful not to damage anything else coming through the grommet. Work the coat hanger through the grommet. Be sure to see where it is going once through the grommet. Lower the inside panel under the steering wheel or just go ahead and remove it for now. Reach up and get the end of the coat hanger and be sure you know where it is. Get a foot or so of coat hanger out into the cabin so you can get a good grip on it. Wrap the wiring harness and coat hanger with multiple turns of the electricians tape. Now start the process of “fishing”. Gently work the tip up to the grommet hole while pulling on the other end. (Another good place for a helper) Once into the grommet, start coaxing the wire loom harness through the grommet. It may take more than one try ( maybe 10!!!@@#$$) to get it through. Once you get the lead end through and the first part of the loom through, it is cake. Just slowly feed the harness through the grommet until all the slack is out under the brake reservoir. This ladies and gentlemen ends the tedious, annoying, (did I mention you needed patience to do this) and difficult part of the installation.

 

Now its time to see how the lights will look. Use the mounting instructions included with the Hella kits. Remove the light assembly from its back assembly by removing the single Phillips head screw in the front of the light. You will find a hole in the back of the light for the wires to enter. The hardware package has a nice little cone shaped grommet. Use an Xacto knife to open up the hole so you can fish the lead wires and the loom through the grommet. I found this easier when the grommet was already installed in the light housing. Keep trying, it will go through and make a nice seal. It makes a very neat installation. Connect the wires onto the connectors and reassemble the light. Use the included hardware to push the through bolt and tighten the nut down. Will aim the lights later. Install all four lights, stand back and admire. Go in the house and get the wife to tell you how nice they look.

 

will do the in cabin install over the weekend. will post remaining experiences and photos.

Hope this will help others
drdk

 

Awesome write up . Very concisely explained. I have removed and re-installed mine a few times and best tool you can have for part 4 is a ratcheting 13mm wrench. It makes it so much easier. Also i find it easier to put the car up on ramps and get at the bolts from underneath.

 

Remove the shroud under the steering column and put it out of the way.
Take the harness you fished though the grommet and feed it over the top of the steering column area. Avoid any moving parts associated with brakes, clutch, steering, etc.

Remove the four torx screws from the sides of the two columns flanking the center section. Some owners can remove their columns by using a downward force on the column and then pulling forward. My car required removing the console. Take out the two screws in the bottom of the cup holders. Gently lift the mirror control panel. I used an xacto under the lip and then a small screwdriver. Goal is to lift it up without scratching anything. Underneath the mirror control are two more screws. Remove those. Grasp the gear shift boot trim and lift up. It will come up with little force. Just pull it up and inside-out. Now pull backward on the console and push down on the columns, they will slip out of their dash recess easily. Be sure to note the orientation of the foam inner liner on the bottom of the columns. Shift the console to one side. It is not necessary to totally remove it.

 

more pix

 

There are four screws holding in the radio. Remove the four screws and the radio will slide right out. There is a thumb screw on the back radio harness that will allow you to have more freedom to move the radio out of its opening. You will also have more room to get access to the purple wire with a blue stripe that you need for switched power. As I mentioned before, my harness was a little short. This red wire is about 15 inches or so back from the terminal end of the harness. I went ahead and cut a 6 inch piece of red wire and spliced into the red wire that comes off the main wiring harness. With the extension, I could easily reach all connections.. Take the supplied splice connector and join the red wire to the purple with blue stripe wire on the radio wiring harness. I put the connector on the side of the bundle behind the friction tape holding the bundle together. This is also a good time to splice in extensions to the entire harness if you need to. I added six inches to the harness by clipping off the connectors and splicing in the same color and gauge wires. I then added a small length of black loom and electrical taped the addition to the wiring harness.

 

Fish the harness down through the left side of the heating controls. There is a nice little tunnel there to fish the wire through. You will need to remove the trim panel at the bottom of the toggle bank. Remove the one torx screw, flip the two small clips in the front and gently work the trim panel out of the way. Reach up into the cavity behind the toggle bank and pull down the wiring harness.

Do a trial fit of the switches in the mounting bracket. I had to ream out the holes (dremel) a bit to get the switches to seat in the holes. Its easier now than when the bracket is mounted in the car. Take a drill and create two mounting holes in the top edge of the bracket. The holes were cut about 1 ½ inches from each end and ½ inch from the back edge of the bracket. Use a bit slightly larger than the mounting screws you will use. I used a couple of 10-32 screws 1 inch long with matching washers and nuts. Best way I could find to mark the holes for mounting was to put some carpet tape on the top of the bracket and tack it in the ideal mounting location. That location is just behind the lip created by the toggle bank. It offsets the bracket and still allows the illumination from the bottom of the toggle bank to work. Be sure to center the bracket carefully.

Carpet tape the bracket in place and mark the mounting holes. Note the distance from the back edge of the bracket to the access opening in the trim. There will be about an inch of space into which you will drill for the wiring harness. Offset this hole so that the harness exits behind the actual switch location. I drilled a small hole that would allow my reaming bit to get in. Open up that hole to the size of the wiring harness. You will feed the harness though after mounting the switch bracket. Remove the bracket and drill the mounting holes you marked on the plastic housing. Be very careful and feel behind the location you are drilling to be sure there is nothing critical to drill into. Do not let the bit pop through and go deep into unintended stuff!! I used a right angle drill to do this. It is tight to drill holes in this location.

 

Take the bracket and feed a screw through the hole you drilled in it. Stack 3 washers over the screw where it extends through the bracket. (I liked the look better to have the bracket spaced down a little bit) I added a strip of foam weather stripping on the front edge to avoid squeaks and to make assembly more stable. Now juggle the assembly over to the area where you drilled the mounting holes. Extend the screws through the holes in the trim. Hold everything in place while you reach through the access opening and catch a nut on the end of the screws. Now tighten up the bracket screws. This will give the bracket a nice solid mount.

Feed the wiring harness through the large hole you drilled. Pull one red, one black and a blue wire through the left hole. Pull one red, one black and the yellow through the hole closer to center. Take the blue switch and connect the black wire to the brass colored terminal. Attach the blue wire to the center terminal. Attach the red wire to the remaining terminal. Now do the same with the yellow switch only substitute the yellow wire for the blue. (black- brass colored terminal, yellow to center, red to remaining)

 

Push the switches into the bracket mounting holes until they snap snugly in place. Be sure the same terminal is up on both switches so they will be symmetrical.

Go under the hood now. Take a dremel and open up the connector that is attached to the two red leads from the harness. It is a little too small to go onto the bolt at the back of the fuse box. Remove the cover from the fuse box. Look at the back and remove the large bolt that holds down the large red wire that feeds the fuse box. This wire has a direct connection to the battery, so don’t ground it!! If you want to be totally safe, you could disconnect the battery first. Place the wiring harness connector under this bolt and then reinstall the bolt. You will need to dremel out a small area in the fuse box cover to accommodate the added thickness of the wiring harness so that its cover will go back to place. Be sure you have installed the second ground wire. It’s the black wire that exits the harness with the two power wires. I drilled a hole over the shock tower and used a sheet metal screw and washer to hold down the eye connector.

Get in the car, insert the key, think positive thoughts and turn switch on. Flip one of your new switches, it should illuminate in the on position. Go out and be sure the correct lights are turned on. Now check the other switch and its corresponding lights. Congratulate yourself on a brilliant installation.

Once everything is working. Turn off the ignition and put your dash back together. Just reverse the order in which you took it apart. Check to see where you can put a couple of tie wraps under the dash to keep the harness from shifting. Go under the hood and put on a couple of tie wraps there as well. Make sure there are no tools left anywhere. Vacuum up the mess you made in the cabin. Go in the house and get the wife again. Make her congratulate you on your brilliance.

 

If you have time, go ahead and aim the lights to your satisfaction. The brackets are very adjustable. I am still working on this. I did the original aim onto a brick wall to get them in the same plane. Now I am trying them out on the car while driving around. Don’t want to blind anybody, but want to get my money’s worth out of the lights.

I hope this treatise will make installation a little easier for the next NAMer who wants to install a Palo Uber Light Bar. By all means I would buy it again. Just be sure to allow twice as much time as you estimate you will need!

 

How much is Palo Uber going to give you for these great instructions ??!!

I wish, that you would have done them before I did my install !
And nice choice of lights those are the same that I used. I have just added some yellow bulbs to the center fogs.