Mirror-mounted Baja S2 DIY

Sure you can! If I can do it, you can too. Truth be told, I didn't cut into my factory mirror caps because I wanted to be able to put them back on and cover everything up in case it all went to shit!

 

nicely done. might have to do this in the future.

 

What if you can fabricate by adding another side mirror motor so you can move the light pod left to right; up and down??? hmmm

 

Very nice work Rob! Loved this idea ever since I saw Meso's 1st attempt with the Rigid ignites.

Super clean finished product! Nice job @mesojdm and @robmpii for paving the way for these different options! I'm going to take the plunge, pick up some mirrors and caps, and see if I can't do as clean a job of getting some BD S2's in there. Not having a good cornering light for tight work in the pinion-junipers and canyons at night just sucks balls, and I can't bring myself to put pods on my daily driver which I'm trying to make very capable, but clean and understated. I also like the idea of being able to pull the mirror in and use it as an area-work / side light when desired. Final benefit I see for me is it gets a couple decent lights up high and out of the mud splash the front end receives, yet still below line of sight. Serious PITA to stop every few miles on a muddy trip in to clean lights because I can no longer see a thing. This mounting gives several great reasons for doing it - and none against other than the tinkering time and expense to do it.

I certainly enjoy dickin' around with detail work like this, so it should make for a pretty decent project, and hopefully the finished product comes out as clean. It seems like a high value project where the end result has a far greater cost-time benefit than can be calculated by the parts ($$) and work involved. Trick, clean, very useful, and not common. I like it. Parts on order!

 

Man that looks fantastic.How many hours did that take you to do just one of them

 

Great do-it yourself mod! Props to you! Baja Designs should drop some swag your way!!!

 

@robmpii would it be possible to slide the lights deeper into the housing and cut a oval out of the cover instead of the whole rectangle.

Thanks for posting.

 

I'm psyched to hear that you're going to take it on! Make sure to post some updates and pics! Most importantly, please ask any questions that come up. I'll be happy to help.

 

It's hard to put a number on it as I just chipped away at it when I had the time. Also paint drying times and what not. If I had to guesstimate I'd say 6-8 hrs per side of hands on stuff.

 

Thanks @TacoTacoma16! @KanPanic There's very little extra room there. It is possible to get a little more through modifying the bracket, but we're talking millimeters. Certainly not enough to be able to mount the face of the light behind the mirror cap./

 

again very well done!

 

Well done! I have to ask for a night shot though!!

WAAAAAAY cleaner than the typical ditch lights IMO.

Fantastic job!

 

Ask and you shall receive. Not a great distance test, but these pics show the illumination and aim. Also to note is that the glare off the hood is a fraction of what hood-mounted ditch lights put out. The pictures are headlights only followed by headlights and ditch lights.

 

Very Nice. Looks like it will fill in those dead areas to the sides quite nicely.

My mirrors, covers, and S2's should be here by the weekend, and I'll get started on mine. Going with S2 Sports in wide cornering to start (I see you went with the combo). If not bright enough I can up them to S2 Pro's and use the sports elsewhere (have another idea for those for cargo / area lights)....but I imagine the sports should do just what I want them to do. But it is one of the main reasons I decided to go with the S2's over the Rigid Ignites. Should I want more light, I'll have the option and can more than double up on the lumens by going with the pro's.

I'm sure it's going to be several weekends of screwing with it before I get them on and functional, but looking forward to the tinkering and final results.

Most consuming thought right now is satin black mirror covers, or back to quicksand!

 

Mate those look fantastic! Thanks for sharing all of this with us

 

Cool idea and write up. I would worry about the mirror body filling with water. The top of the light will be a ramp.

 

What if you hooked them up to the automatic high beams... Just a thought, maybe it wouldn't work right

 

On the tail end of this mod myself now. Were it not for just barely getting through the clear coat on a small spot during wet sanding, they'd be buffed out and on the truck. As it is, I need to re-spray, re-clear, and wet sand again this coming weekend. Doubt anyone would notice but me, but I'm re-spraying anyway. Not a project I was in a hurry on.

Water shouldn't be an issue. The mirrors are in no way even remotely weather resistant. And there are drainage holes in the bottom caps for any water that does work its way into the housing.



(Light not following mirror cap bottom contour line on purpose. Figured I'd try and get the light a bit more level to the ground and see how that looked. Struggled with that decision for a while, mocked it up with the S2 face covers and some double stick tape on the truck both ways, and decided to try level. Will soon see how they look once on the truck. Hopefully I'm happy with them, because I'm not doing this again!)

Can easily do that. Tap off hi-beam power via "add a circuit" fuse to power the relay. How I used to run all my off road lights before I put the SwitchPros in. Add a circuit tap through auxiliary light switch, and back to relay. Switch off = lights off regardless of hi-beam activation. Switch on = off road lights activate when hi-beams on. Instead of grabbing relay power from a constant or accessory 12v source, you're just grabbing it from a hi-beam source.

 

You're a genius

 

Didn't take progress pics since robmpii pretty much had all the bases covered.

Returned the S2 sports and decided to go with the S2 Pros. Trying out the sports at home and wasn't convinced they'd give the light output I was looking for. Besides, can't recall ever being in an off road situation where I thought to myself "ya know, I could really use a little less light here". So the Pros in wide cornering it was.

Took the factory mirrors off the truck and put on my replacement mirrors and factory mirror caps. Wasn't in a hurry (obviously since I've been tinkering with this for going on two months now on and off) and worked on this when I had some time to kill over four or five weekends, including painting, wet sanding, wiring, etc. Used the replacement mirror caps instead of factory caps, so I did have to paint the caps I cut up. Even if you were to use the factory mirror caps, you're still painting them otherwise the white plastic underneath will show when you cut into them.

Thanks to robmpii's pics, I knew just where the cutouts in the mirror caps needed to be to fit the lights within the housing, but with the twist of getting the lights more level versus following the bottom mirror cap contour line as rob did. Struggled with that decision for a while, but mocked it up with a couple S2 faceplates and double stick tape on my oem mirrors, and decided "what the hell, let's try them level."

Situated the light face plates on the caps, scribed out the cuts, and then outlined with masking tape. Got a rough cut out in the caps (about 1/8" shy of finished size), and then worked slow and patiently with a small battery operated Dremel on low to lowest speed and some small hand files. Using the S2 faceplate (grind, try to fit the faceplate in the hole, grind and file some more, repeat), finished up the fit until the lights just fit the opening, with just a hair of a gap or reveal around the lights so I wouldn't be possibly damaging or chipping paint pulling covers on and off to make final adjustments once installed on the truck.

Finished the cutouts, fitting, and painting of the mirror caps a few weeks ago. Was really happy with the fit and overall outcome. Unfortunately while wet sanding I slightly exposed an area of basecoat on an edge. Hardly noticeable, but being anal about such things and knowing this would ruin my enjoyment of the little project, had to start over, re-spray, clear coat, wet sand and polish the caps. My first attempt at a automotive finish with rattle cans, or really any automotive painting at all, but got them to come out right on the 2nd attempt.

Let the caps dry for two weeks, put them back on the mirrors, and got the mirrors installed and wired up today. Will wax them in a month or so. Very pleased overall.

The paint match for quicksand from automotivetouchup, well, not perfect. But it's pretty close, and I'm not re-spraying them again. I have some experience in finishing (fine woodworking), but I'm not a painter and this was my first attempt at a rattle can automotive finish, so after two attempts (1st one I wet sanded through the clear), I'm satisfied with the finish on this one, if not the color match. It is what it is. I'm more concerned with the fit and finish than I am the fact the paint is not quite a spot on match.

Picked up a can of the Rustoleum Gloss Khaki, and that was close as well, but a couple shades off on the lighter side. Seemed more "off" than the automotivetouchup was. Plus, that paint (Rustoleum) seems to take forever to dry to touch and off-gas, so I wasn't going to risk it. I may try that paint on the bumper caps though.

Not exactly an "easy" bolt on type project, but fairly easily doable if you have time, are not prone to rush things, like to tinker, and have patience. Very much worth the expense and effort (at least to me) to get a couple of lights on to light up the sides without resorting to a-pillar pods. Plus, once I saw robmpii's pics, I knew I HAD to have those!

Lessons learned;

1. Use enough coats of clear to be able to wet sand! I'm a newbie to rattle can and base coat / clear coat painting, so I wasn't aware of just how many decent coats it would take to give enough depth for wet sanding and finishing.

2. Remove BD S2 face plates when installing and removing modified mirror housing covers. The faceplate is slightly larger than the light body, and has a fairly sharp edge on the back of the plate which can mar or chip paint on edge of cutout. I found this out after my 1st paint attempt. But because I had to re-paint anyway due to sanding through the clear, no lasting harm done.

3. Get the light aim and orientation of the lights in the housing right before removing covers for last time for painting. This will help prevent accidental damage to paint from pulling and reinstalling cover multiple times trying to adjust the light aim, and also adjusting the light fit within the covers.

4. Once painted, wet sanded and polished, allow paint enough time to cure before messing with it again. I gave the covers 2 full weeks to cure out and harden before they even went anywhere near the housings again so I wasn't dealing with "soft" paint trying to get the covers around the lights and back on the housings. Took some patience to be sure because I sure wanted to see how the final product looked all finished up. But knew it was best to be patient and wait it out.

Thanks again to @robmpii for a great idea and write up. Would not of thought fitting these awesome little lights in that tight space was possible without him forging the way. Really enjoy the look and function of these. Enjoyed working on them, and they've got to be my favorite "cool mod" now.

Looks like I nailed the up / down aim right out of the gate, and won't have to mess with them again. And the wide cornering pattern seems like it will definitely give me just what I want out of these.

Now for some pics!




















Again, super pleased. Different, and look like they'll be very functional and give me exactly what I've been wanting for a long time....some good cornering lights!

Also ordered up and threw in some of Meso's ultimate turn signals while I had the mirrors off the truck. Tried to snag some puddle lights, but we all know how fast those went. Another time for those.

One of these days I'll be able to get back out in the sticks and put them to actual use. Until then, it's on to the next lighting mods....BD S2 Pro's in area / work scene pattern in the rear bumper and another pair for area / work lights in the bed of the truck. Got an idea for those!