1st gen led light bar ideas

Where did you get those little lights in your grill?

 

They are bolt LEDs from superbrightleds.com

 

Finished product!

 

How did you mount those pods up beside your mirrors?

 

There called ditch light mounts

 

I bought the brackets from CBI Offroad. They're solid, and I don't feel like they get in my line of vision at all.

 

Nice I might look into that. Just finished installing a 20" incher in my bumper valence. Looks pretty clean I think.

 

Ive been pronouncing your name SEMENster

 

How creative. My last name is Seamon and that was funny for like 5 mins in the 6th grade. Some people never grow up I guess.

 

Nope.

 

I thought I'd contribute to this thread. I've attached several photos of my truck as I added lights.

The bar in the grill mounts to the metal cross bar. I did have to trim the valiance to get it in but it turned out very clean and even. It's a 29" bar with 10watt crees off of Amazon. I can find the link if your interested.

The amber triangular lights on the grill are actually turn signal lights off a gsxr crotch rocket. I did go through about 3 pairs of these cause the LEDs kept shorting out from water getting in there so I used clear silicone and made them water proof. These were wired to the running lights.

The switch panel was really fun to make too. It's a lid off a Tupperware container cut to fit the din size, drilled out the switch and indicator light holes and then wrapped it in vinyl wrap. Turned out awesome. I wired it up to an aftermarket fuze box with dedicated relays for each circuit. The relays were triggered by the switches in the cab by switching/providing ground to the relays.

The rack has two 40watt spots on the front and 4 18 watt lights one the front, back and sides. Underneath is 4 18 watt LEDs that are wired into the alarm system so they would turn on for 30 seconds when you unlocked the truck or when you press the aux putting the the key fob. The truck originally came with manual locks, but I installed lock actuators and presto! Keyless entry.

The last couple photos were taken with a drone, the one photo at 200'. Pretty rad.

Hope you like it.

 

Noice!! How you liking the single row with 10watters? Pretty good spread eh? Love mine.

And duuuuude, loving the aerial shots. I wanna get a drone with a camera just for that purpose. Not TOO knowledgeable regarding drones.. Looked up a few. What do you have?

 

Thanks bro. The 10watt crees were great, but the bar wasn't a great design. It didn't have a breather port so they fogged up and one of the LEDs eventually quit. Im still looking for an alternative single row.

The gsxr lights had the same issue but I think they looked pretty bad ass so I just kept buying them and trying different ways to seal them up. I haven't seen another first gen with lights in those slots and those gsxr light fit almost perfectly.

The drone was a DJI Phantom 3 professional. Look them up on Craigslist for a good deal. Fun and super easy to fly. 12mp camera, 20min flight time.

You should post a pic of your switch setup. I'm looking building another 1st gen with a double din deck so my bad ass switch panel design ain't gonna cut it.

 

Post a link to your bar. Lemme take a looksee. I'm using vision x evo prime clones(they make a 30"). No issues with these. Probly costs a lil more than yours did tho. Then there's also their newer xpr design (they make a 29" iirc), single row but optic-less. The evo prime design is better tho.. Then there's the Baja designs types too which I hear are also great, but haven't seen them in person.

And, I don't have any switches.. Ha. They're all wired to my high beams

And, I also looked up the phantoms b4. Probly be one of those if I get one. Little out of my price range atm. One day.

 

I did my lift this weekend. Check it out.
https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/old-man-emu-setups-on-1st-gen.141055/page-150#post-14332670

 

I threw a 32" (31.5" actual) LED light bar in the bumper. The distance from outside to outside of the frame is 31.5" so putting a 31.5" bar there was a simple job.
I cut 2 pieces of 90 degree aluminum (~ 4 inches) and screwed it to the frame and mounted the bar from Amazon ($36).
Works great! I wanted something that filled up the space and brightens up the darkness!

 

Looks good man! I like that spot for a bar. Did you have to do some trimming of the plastic to get it to work? I remember that I had to trim off about an inch on the top inner lip to get it to fit.

I was think about putting this 31.5" white/amber bar on from Amazon. Thoughts?
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00W...3_1?ie=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=QAB2ME1H9HEY5ENHGNJ8

 

Bump. I'm in the market for some lighting and I was wondering if I could get a quick lesson on how much I would have to drill cut and whatever else to mount a light bar up top (~42"). Thanks.
This is what I'm working with 2001. Completely stock besides suspension and tires.

 

And what are some options for the front bumper if I don't want to remove the license plate.

 

Well, most light bars all mount the same up top. I'm guessing you'll need some prefabbed brackets. There's a few companies, as well as members here that's all them. They all need to be drilled into the door frame and nutserts put in. Or rivets. Or some people used self tapping screws but I don't suggest that. However itd be the easiest.

There are some exceptions on how some light bars install. With mine, the vision x evo prime, it didn't come with those nutserts in the end caps. So I had to get a looooooong 1/4 threaded rod inserted through the bar, with nuts on the ends after I snipped it to length to have the threads sticking out just far enough.. It also has bottom mounting pieces, but those won't work. Some of these clones have the nutserts, some don't. Its the only bar I know of that is hit or miss with those. Vision x did make some small threaded rods that insert into the end caps though. As most of their older designs did not have nutserts. If you're really interested in my bar, I can give you more details. Its about $200 now iirc. Plus your mounts. Plus hardware if you'll need to get any depending on which version you get. There's lots of other options though. As far as cheaper light bars less than the clones. The clones are typically a bit more expensive than your average generic budget bars. But are worth it.

Otherwise, I'd suggest a Baja designs clone. Should be an easier install. They all should have regular mounting options.

As far as your light bar in the bumper goes without removing license plate, not a lot of options there for ya. You could get the universal bumper bar pictured at the bottom of this page. Not sure how practical itd be for ya. Otherwise I've heard of people relocating their plate. Or just getting a ~30" bar behind valence and just dealing with the plate blocking the center. Thatd be easier than trying to mount two smaller bars in the sides..

Anyways, if I can help more I'll try. But some of this has already been covered. Just keep searching and reading. You'll find some useful info.