- Joined
- Sep 16, 2008
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- 96
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- 2,930
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First-gen pickups are my second love, following the venerable FJ40, and my preference was always toward the older pickups with the round lamps: they remind me of the 40, but still have a little of their own unique bracketry to make them look like a good, classic truck. However, tech-wise, the 1983 is the most solid first-gen to own as a daily driver, since it has a stock 5-speed that's stronger than the L50, comes stock with the 22R, which, while almost equal in power to the 20R, offers more parts availability, stronger smog compliance, and the potential for a 22RE upgrade, and the front axles leave the factory with 4.10 diffs and gussets. A few technical reasons for this purchase. Were I made of money, or just building a trailer queen, I could live without any of those, and build it up as needed, but since I'm a poor college student who commutes 300 miles a week, I needed to hit the ground rolling.
so, after hoarding many of the parts to perform this mod, the time has come for me to swap in the round lamps and assemblies, but with a little twist.
This is The Mule, Pre-op. The front bumper's off so I can chase down some of the PO electrical hackwork. I lost my driver's side signal lamp to a deer earlier, and has wired in an emergency LED pigtail (I make pigtails, for those who want them for spares), but the stock plug had gone away because the PO was a hack. The passenger-side lamp was so cracked up and tired, it no longer had it's mounting ears, and I had to bailing-wire it onto the bumper.
Here are the plastic bezels, I bought them a year ago, and kept 'em stored, but now, it's time to get my act together:
I sized them up with a sacrificial lamp:
attacked them with a hole saw:
Now, when these were assembled, Toyota just gave the insides of the running lamp bays a light dusting of some vaguely metallic-ish paint, but its reflective properties were nil, and got painted over. After pondering it, my late uncle's brake-line insulation on his race car came to mind: Foil tape!
Purdy.
I stopped by the local tractor shop, picked up some ultra-bright LED pigtails as you might see along the sides of a trailer, and set them into the holes:
On the reverse side, I stripped off the connectors, and soldered the newly exposed wires into a signal lamp plug, and zip-tied all the wires together. I like spaghetti, but not in my truck!
the tape-work looks ugly, but that was just an external wrapping to brace the connections.
I also cut the wires to the marker lights off my old brackets to modernize the older lights.
Disassembled the stock light assemblies:
Turns out, Toyota never fully "modernized" the hardware of this truck. The radiator support still had the holes set in it for the round light brackets, but no nutserts, so I just had to get in behind the support, and tighten a few nuts. Pretty cool news for those who seek to do this swap.
Bolted on:
I installed the sealed beams from Phoenix, my 40 (she ain't usin' 'em right now)
sorting out the wiring, old LED in the background:
And finished product:
this is with the lights and flashers on. This mod effectively integrates my running lights and my signals, and was inspired my the FJ60.
Dave, AKA Peetescoffee, also introduced me to this fix for the rapid blink. LEDS have such little resistance that, as signal lamps, the relay reads them as a dim lamp, and flashes faster to indicate it's time to change. If you follow this pic, it fixes that. thanks Dave!
This is the conclusion of part one.
I have new lenses on order from Toyota, and I'm gearing up to get some LED replacement lamps for the marker lights. These are yet to come.
I've also found an HID BiXenon conversion kit for 7" sealed beams that's going in in a month or so.
Stay tuned!
so, after hoarding many of the parts to perform this mod, the time has come for me to swap in the round lamps and assemblies, but with a little twist.
This is The Mule, Pre-op. The front bumper's off so I can chase down some of the PO electrical hackwork. I lost my driver's side signal lamp to a deer earlier, and has wired in an emergency LED pigtail (I make pigtails, for those who want them for spares), but the stock plug had gone away because the PO was a hack. The passenger-side lamp was so cracked up and tired, it no longer had it's mounting ears, and I had to bailing-wire it onto the bumper.
Here are the plastic bezels, I bought them a year ago, and kept 'em stored, but now, it's time to get my act together:
I sized them up with a sacrificial lamp:
attacked them with a hole saw:
Now, when these were assembled, Toyota just gave the insides of the running lamp bays a light dusting of some vaguely metallic-ish paint, but its reflective properties were nil, and got painted over. After pondering it, my late uncle's brake-line insulation on his race car came to mind: Foil tape!
Purdy.
I stopped by the local tractor shop, picked up some ultra-bright LED pigtails as you might see along the sides of a trailer, and set them into the holes:
On the reverse side, I stripped off the connectors, and soldered the newly exposed wires into a signal lamp plug, and zip-tied all the wires together. I like spaghetti, but not in my truck!
the tape-work looks ugly, but that was just an external wrapping to brace the connections.
I also cut the wires to the marker lights off my old brackets to modernize the older lights.
Disassembled the stock light assemblies:
Turns out, Toyota never fully "modernized" the hardware of this truck. The radiator support still had the holes set in it for the round light brackets, but no nutserts, so I just had to get in behind the support, and tighten a few nuts. Pretty cool news for those who seek to do this swap.
Bolted on:
I installed the sealed beams from Phoenix, my 40 (she ain't usin' 'em right now)
sorting out the wiring, old LED in the background:
And finished product:
this is with the lights and flashers on. This mod effectively integrates my running lights and my signals, and was inspired my the FJ60.
Dave, AKA Peetescoffee, also introduced me to this fix for the rapid blink. LEDS have such little resistance that, as signal lamps, the relay reads them as a dim lamp, and flashes faster to indicate it's time to change. If you follow this pic, it fixes that. thanks Dave!
This is the conclusion of part one.
I have new lenses on order from Toyota, and I'm gearing up to get some LED replacement lamps for the marker lights. These are yet to come.
I've also found an HID BiXenon conversion kit for 7" sealed beams that's going in in a month or so.
Stay tuned!
Jason
was another story...
Ok your crazy!! Just kidding but I vote for the rounds
