Customized 3rd Gen Tail Lights Build Thread

Hey friends, I've been working on making some custom tail lights for a bit now and wanted to share progress for fun as well as to get some input and ideas from y'all along the way. It's been fun but, definitely a passion project cause they've been a pain in the ass before even getting to the wiring portion of it.

I started out wanting to retrofit better components into some aftermarket lights from Spyder and make some tail lights that would better match the sweet Meso BD-4 3rd break lights I installed on my truck.



After some considerations, I decided to customize the actual housings as well. I think the big white outlines for the running lights are pretty gaudy, so those will be replaced with some clear acrylic. I'm also modifying the design of them, I think the L shape will look good and a little similar to the stock DRL shape in the headlights. Plus it'll help cut down ever so slightly on the cost of the LEDs.

The underpowered LEDs will all be replaced of course. The plan is to use Baja Designs red rock lights for brake lights, same as the Meso 3rd brake of course, and have the running lights/turns be Diode Dynamics red and amber LED strips. Side markers will be 1" DD switchback strips so they will be side markers and additional turns. Reverse will be white KC Cyclone rock lights mounted in the bottom bucket. Definitely not a cheap way to go about improving on these things, but they're going to be sweet.

Here's a super rough cut/test fit plastic welded together with LEDs mockup.




And here's a little better filled in version with some primer.

 

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Some concerns -- I want to keep them street legal, so I'm a little worried that the rear reflector might be too small and could be missed. They'll be sealed with stock tail light lenses which have a bit of a distortion effect on the bottom of them. Might be necessary to add another reflector in there somewhere...not sure just where yet.

Since the lenses going over the L shape for the running lights will be clear, I'm toying with the idea of having both red and yellow LED strips in there. I can't think of a good way to wire that up though so the red running lights will power off while the turn signal is active. If anyone has ideas let me hear them!

 

Best of luck with your Hobby/Project looks like fun and good work.

 

Sub'd.

 

What’s the plan as far as paint?

 

Flat or semi gloss black, just have it primed for now. Needed to see how smooth the surfaces were after filling in the gaps, got lots left to do haha

 

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Here are the side markers, milled out some slots with the router and sanded it down with the dremel so that the light would shine through. Gunna be running lights and then flash with the turns.

Put the stripe outline on with some lens tint, makes the cut look cleaner imo.



And testing out the 1" strips, they fit just right! Gunna look nice.

 

This should be awesome! I eventually want to do something similar to my 2nd gen. It will be a passion project over months as well. haha

 

So I think I found the solution to having red running lights and amber turns. These morimoto drivers might be the answer.

This should turn the red running lights off when signaling, flash amber, then turn running back on after the signal turns off. I was thinking something like a custom SPDT relay setup might be necessary, but this should keep things much simpler.

 

Nice. Can’t wait to see the final product.

 

Well with the quarantine I've had a little time to work on these a bit. Got most of the plastic work done, it's been a pain to get things looking smooth and uniform, a few bits bothering my OCD, but we're 95% of the way there.





I decided to put the additional reflector on the top of the housing. I think it's probably the best looking spot for it, plus easy to get in there.

I ordered some clear polycarbonate sheeting from Amazon that I'll cut for the L lenses. It's going to take like 3 weeks to get here though cause of their shipping priorities. No rush though except for my own impatience! These are getting close.

 

Aww yeah, trick. Looking good!

 

Well it's been a while since last update, made quite a few revisions. Haven't really made this project a priority for a while, but I'm trying to get it polished off sometime this decade

1st thing, I learned how to design parts in Fusion360. So that opened up a lot of possibilities that I've been exploring -- namely designing and printing lenses for the LEDs rather than trying to mill out plexiglass which would have looked awful. So the designing spread to other parts, like baja designs mounts, side marker housing, and it'll just look so much cleaner and less homemade. I'm pumped!

Reverse lights were going to be KC hilites, but I think they'll be super underpowered. So I'll be using the new Diode SSC2 LED Pods, which will fit perfect.

Unleeeess....putting the BSMs in there would be feasible? I took the computers out tonight to get measurements and they'll fit with some modifications -- but I'm really wondering if it would even be worth it. The amount of work to MAYBE have them work correctly seems like a waste of effort and likely to end in failure. And that's not even taking into account figuring out how to make sure they're aimed right, stretch the wires without just...clipping them and soldering in extensions which I don't know if that will even work. Then the steel mounting plates are integrated into the computer housing so that's yet another hurdle with making them fit. That makes me nervous as well. I dunno, what are y'all's thoughts? Would be pretty awesome, and it'd make the functionality stick around for eventual rear steel bumper, but it's a shitload of things to figure out for it. I dunno, I hate adding in mods that remove functionality, ya know?

Here are some pics!!

 

doo eeet. The calibration is outlined in the service manual. It's just uses a corner reflector at a specific height and Techstream does the rest. Probably have to move that up the same amount the sensor moves up. I've wondered if what we have is compatible with what other makes have like what Jeep & Ford have with their tail lights. I doubt it's anything unique. Toyota just goes to the OEMs and says we want this to fit here.

 

That looks pretty sweet

 

So you're saying there's additional parts it uses besides the computer? Like a plastic reflector in the bumper housing? That makes it sound less practical since the sensor itself will be squished into the tail light housing, wondering if there's a focal distance needed and if that's possible to fit in the tail light as well.

 

no. I was just saying that the calibration procedure has you place metal corner reflectors xx feet away. Corner reflectors guarantee the microwave signal emitted by the BSM reflects back to the BSM. Techstream tells the computer that you wish to calibrate and it does it's thing. When the test is done the reflectors are put away and the truck is ready to detect traffic in the blind spots and cross traffic.

You'd want to recalibrate the sensors if you're going to relocate them.