Running lights

I like the look of running lights on a big truck as long as they are done tastefully. I don't like a hundred lights plastered everywhere. Sometimes running lights are called 'chicken lights'. Not sure why. Photo courtesy of RV Haulers. A common place to mount running lights on Volvos is the trim strip on the lower fairings as shown above. This is where I initially considered putting them. One day I saw a truck on Ebay that had the running lights on the filler strip between the cab and the fairings. I liked this idea better. I liked the look. It had a more stealthy, glowing look. I also think it would be easier to mount lights there. There is some bracketry behind the fairing trim strips. I started with the driver's side. It is the more difficult side due to the receptacles. I measured the available space and used some computer modeling to determine the spacing that would work. Next I cleaned the area and laid out some tape to mark on. The first three lights will be 23" apart. The last three will be spaced to fill the space between the receptacle and the end. It ended up being ~22" or so. Close enough they all looked equally spaced. The lights I'm using require a 11/16" hole in the center for the wiring bung. I marked the center locations and drilled a pilot hole. A step bit quickly drilled the large hole. Literally took about 10 seconds. Next I used self-tapping screws in the actual mounting holes. Working with the plastic filler strip was a breeze. A finished light. One side finished. I removed the lights and the tape and moved to the other side. The other side took less than an hour. I'll actually mount and wire the lights at a later date when I wire the rest of the truck. Update January 2018: I was able to finish the installation of the running lights. Looks good to me!