How'd you swap the Lexs emblem over? Thats the one thing I have left to doAt this point, once I dry fit everything and made sure everything fit to my satisfaction, I installed the LC hood and off to the body shop it went for paint. You don't need to have the fenders painted, but I had the body shop feather in the paint and throw on a couple layers of clear to match up the colors. If you don’t have the body shop paint the fenders, this is where the clear spray comes in, just make sure to mask the fenders off and spray the trimmed areas with clear to prevent it from rusting. Throw on a couple coats and let cure and you should be good.
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The LX at the bodyshop for some paint!
Once I got the Cruiser back, it was straight forward from there. It’s basically a plug and play bolt in; headlights installed easy peasy, the filler panel extensions, and hood mounted with ease, using all the factory mounting hardware. Reinstall all insulators, rubber seals, windshield washer plumbing, etc etc. I had all new clips ready to go, as I broke most of the old ones trying to remove the insulator and seals from the LX hood. The safety latch for the Land Cruiser hood installs easy, there is a predrilled hole, that you will need to have purchased one (1) additional 10mm bolt as listed above. No drilling or tapping required, the hole is already there. The safety latch uses one of the 10mm bolts for the hood lock/latch as well. See picture below.
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The new LC safety catch will mount using these holes. As stated before, one bolt is shared with the hood latch and the other is a pretapped hole for an additional 10mm.
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Dry fit everything one more time before bolting everything down nice and tight. Make sure all clearances with the hood alignment are proper as well..
IMPORTANT: I liked the ‘05 grill design better than the ‘06 and so decided to use it with the ‘06+ headlights. I can attest to the fact that the 03-05 grill is NOT compatible with the 06 headlights. I assume the mounting points on the 03-05 headlights are in slightly different locations than the 06. When fitting the 05 grill to the 06 headlights, the mounting holes did not line up, and there were uneven gaps at the lower corners on either side of the grill. I used zip ties to hold the grill in place, and had to enlarge the hole in the filler panel so the grill could be adjusted. I also had to dremel parts of it away to clear the headlight mounting brackets. And even then, it's not a 100% factory fit. I will be changing out to the ‘06 grill down the line.. Once you have the front facia installed, the LX bumper can be used with the LC front clip. All holes line up and the pop up clips can be reused (provided you didn't break any of the old brittle clips when uninstalling). See pictures below.
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Almost done! Still need to install the hood insulator and seals and clips etc. But pretty much 90% done. The body shop stripped my hood shock mounting holes, so I had to retap the holes before installing new cylinders. . I also noticed the adhesive between the hood skeleton and the outside panel had come apart resulting in severe rattling when driving. This was easily remedied with clear silicone, that I reapplied in all the exact same factory locations.
Wiring is pretty simple; although it is important to note that the LX and LC use different headlight and indicator bulbs and sockets. The LX indicators are in the lower bumper while the LC indicators are in the headlight housing. I bought the indicator bulb sockets from my local Toyota dealer and drew leads from the indicator in the bumper up to the corner lamp of the new headlight housing. The indicator bulb in the LC is a double filament bulb, one for parking lamp (which the LX has) and one for the indicator. And YES it does matter which filament is used for the indicator and which for the parking lamp. I had them reversed initially and I had the indicator trigger wire wired to the parking lamp filament, and it was so dim you could not tell it was blinking… reverse them and good to go! This is also where the 3 prong pigtail from Amazon comes in. The LX uses a two prong since only the parking light is in the corner housing. The LC has a 3 prong as it has both an indicator and parking light in the corner housing.
For the headlights, the LX uses an H4 halogen bulb while the LC uses a 9006 bulb; the female plug will not work. For this, I was able to buy a 9006 female pigtail off Amazon and wire the new plug to the existing LX headlight wires. Pretty simple, just one power, one ground. The LX and LC both use the same high beam bulb, so that's just an easy plug and play, and the LX bulb plugs right into the LC 06+ headlamp housing.
Once you’ve got everything wired up and mounted, you’re done!
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All done! (Yes I know this is probably the most controversial front facia ever... but LX, LC, basically the same right? )
Hope this helps, I had fun with this little project.