ARB fog light housing replacement

I’ve been on the hunt for an aftermarket non plastic foglight and turn signal housing. All I seem to be able to find is the ARB replacement part. Looking for something a bit more stout. Any suggestions, or is making your own the only way to go here?

 

https://sleeoffroad.com/product/sok0049/

 

That’ll do. Thank you.

 

I like mine. Bear in mind you’ll need new fog lights (pedestal-mount LED pod type) and indicator lights (ARB LED type), which adds quite a bit to the expense.

 

That’s good to know. I’ve been looking at some of the Baja design lights, from what I’ve read and looked at they seem like a good alternative to the OEM ARB fogs. I’ll have to look around for some of the LED style turns though. Nice to hear your opinion on liking em too, makes it easier to pull the trigger on the buy.

 

I would give the Diode Dynamics SS3 LED foglight pods serious consideration. I have the higher-powered Pro version (vice the lower-powered Sport). Their SAE J583-approved beam pattern option is a huge plus. They are powerful enough to completely overwhelm my headlights, which means my next mod is a headlight retrofit to even out the brightness.

The ARB "fog lights" are actually driving lights, from what I understand. They don't emit a SAE-approved fog pattern and therefore won't do the job correctly.

I have never used the halogen ARB indicators, since I fitted the Slee bracket before mounting the bumper itself. I do think the LED indicators made by ARB look awesome, and reduce the chance of system overload errors as an unintended benefit. No weird hyperflash/slow flash issues.

 

Yea I agree the ARB lights aren’t very efficient. They break way to easy, and as far as patterns go, definitely more of an accessory driving light. I looked into the Diode Dynamics light. Any reason you chose those over the Baja Designs? Asking largely in part because I’m not too familiar with the LED aspect of beam output, if that was in fact a reason you did choose them. The Baja design seems fairly comparable, or am I over looking something there?

 

Honestly? Because @crashnburn80 recommended them. If you're not familiar, he is THE lighting expert around here. I could've gone on a deep-dive of his SAE J583 fog light writeup and analyzed the data myself, but I knew I'd come to the same conclusion he did. So I clicked "add to cart" and went about my day.

 

If wanting an actual fog light, and not an off road light which cannot be run on the street, then Diode Dynamics SAE fogs are vastly superior to Bajas SAE fogs.

See the review posts: Diode Dynamics SS3, Baja Designs

Note the comparison in output intensity in the end of the Diode Dynamics post, the SS3 Pros are 2.9x higher in output intensity than Bajas SAE lights, while also having less glare.

If looking for an off road light, Baja has some good pods, but the non-SAE versions lack pattern cut off meaning they will be blinding to anyone else on the street and ineffective in poor weather conditions like fog, making them a less than ideal option for a street driven vehicle.

 

Wow @ardrummer292 i see why you went with the Diode Dynamic lights. Pretty much a no brained there, lol. As far as in depth writes up go @crashnburn80 that was a great read, and thank you for taking the time to respond here to my inquiries. That being said I think I’m going to go with the Diode Dynamic lighting option. The SS3 pro yellow fogs. Now I need to find head light options like @ardrummer292 to better control the LEDs I have in my very hazy factory headlights. Thanks for all this info!

 

Regarding your LED headlights, I'll save @crashnburn80 a bit of effort here and direct you to this thread:
https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/why-leds-should-not-be-run-in-halogen-reflectors.454371/

His observations in this thread are absolutely correct. Even "halogen reflector-compatible" LED bulbs like the Philips Ultinon LEDs (P/N 12953BWX2), while exhibiting less glare than cheaper LED options, fall painfully short in performance:
https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads...ctor-headlights.589465/page-102#post-22068326

If you want a relatively inexpensive (~$200) and simple upgrade to boost your headlights' power, check this out:
https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/the-ultimate-headlight-upgrade-h4-not-led-or-hid.398066/

Otherwise, you're staring down the barrel of a HID retrofit, the highest quality and highest performing (and most worthwhile) of which is a professional $2000+ RX350 projector retrofit.

I currently have the Philips LED headlights, so I can attest that they are no match for the SS3 Pro fog pods. I'm going the RX350 retrofit route, since bulb life is an important consideration for my use case.

 

I was afraid of that, but I’m not surprised of the cost to do a complete HID retrofit for that cost. That being said, I have had a set of headlights I bought off Kickstarter for like 80 bucks I think. They’re a bit gimmicky but useful too. I just know that I’m blinding the crap out of traffic. Even had a sheriff pull over to the side of the road to let me in front, really surprised I didn’t pulled over for that one. But I think if I go with the SS3 pros I can ditch the Boslla head lamps. I was really only using them to cut down on glare from snow and fog, mostly the yellow option of the headlamps.

@ardrummer292 where you live do you deal with snow/fog also? Do the headlamps you have currently help with cutting down on the glare there? Here in Montana, driving in the dark of morning with snow falling I had a tough time keeping my eyes focused with the factory halogen style bulbs. When I switched to the LEDs, it helped enough to drive and not get as bad of strain on my eyes. I just hate being “that guy” with the wonky lights blinding others, not cool.

I’ll be following your posts and checking out what you’re doing with the RX350, something I haven’t heard of but will look into. Really appreciate your input here. I’ll be ordering the Slee fog inserts and LED side markers/blinkers tonight, but will have to wait on funds for the SS3, maybe a week later.

 

It sounds like you might have a color temperature issue. Higher temperature lights tend to emit more light in the blue spectrum, which can cause eye fatigue. I know most halogen bulbs have lower color temperature, but I’ll defer to @crashnburn80 for specific headlight recommendations that will suit your needs.

We hardly ever get snow in coastal Virginia. I have dealt with it quite a bit in the past, since I grew up in northern Indiana. That lovely white powder reflects a lot of light, so I can see where you’re coming from. HIDs tend to have higher color temperatures, so I don’t think they’d necessarily be your best solution. Certainly a better solution than the high temperature bluish-white light put out by the Philips LEDs, but likely not as easy on the eyes as a quality halogen setup.

 

if looking for doing it cheap, take we sell a bracket for baja designs to fit in the arb fog or turn .
https://www.paranoidfabrications.com/collections/toyota-tacoma

 

Hey there @paranoid56 ! I’ve decided to go with the Diode Dynamic fogs. User @ardrummer292 jasa post of how to make the provided brackets work. Thank you though.

 

With the help of @ardrummer292 for pointing me in the right direction of which fog light housing to get for my ARB bumper, along with @crashnburn80 for his detailed, comparative write up of lighting/fog lights, I pulled the trigger on my new setup for winter driving. I went with the Slee Offroad housing as seen here https://sleeoffroad.com/product/sok0049/ per @ardrummer292 suggestion. It seems perfect for durability and longevity. As far as the lighting for the fogs goes, I took the suggestions of both @crashnburn80 and @ardrummer292 and went with the Diode Dynamics SS3 pod led pro yellow fogs as seen here https://www.diodedynamics.com/stage-series-3-sae-dot-yellow-pro-standard-led-pod-pair.html This should help tremendously with dealing with the winter driving, so thank you both for your inputs, write ups, and help. I haven’t been apart of this forum for that long, but it’s people like you that make this community great, I look forward to future posts and conversations. Thanks again!

 

Got the new shroud and LED lights installed today. Slee Offroad nailed it with this kit, looks great, easy install, and priced right. Tomorrow I’m going to tackle the Diode Dynamics fogs. Shouldn’t be too hard. Can’t wait to get those in.

 

Like me, I think you'll rapidly realize that your current headlights don't measure up to these fogs in terms of performance. I've noticed that my distance vision suffers with my new fog lights on, where it didn't seem to be affected at all before. This is partially because of how the human eye works, which is why fogs shouldn't be run in conditions that don't warrant their use. The other reason is because the SS3 Pros are so absurdly powerful.

If you find that your headlights are overwhelmed by your new fogs, I would consider doing the ultimate headlight upgrade to even out the brightness. You could use some lower color temperature halogen bulbs (maybe the Philips 100/90W?) to reduce eye strain.
https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/the-ultimate-headlight-upgrade-h4-not-led-or-hid.398066/

I'll defer to @crashnburn80 for a vetted bulb recommendation since this is not the course of action I chose.

I don't think a HID retrofit would satisfy your requirements. HIDs generally emit higher color temperature light than halogens. One of your primary concerns seems to be minimizing eye strain in snow, which is where higher color temperature options fail.

 

I’ll post my review after driving to work in the dark tomorrow. But I really believe that you’re right, they will be more powerful than my current headlight setup. I’m running factory 8 year old headlights with a nasty case of glaucoma haha, and Bossla led lights. I like the lights in what they offer, but I hate what they do with the factory housing for other drivers. I know I’m not getting peak performance out my current headlight setup, but the whole headlight purchase is a bit overwhelming, with options, prices, and reviews.

 

which DD light did you get? the ones i had wouldnt work with the Slee kit, and i had to custom make brackets for the DD fogs