Orange headlight markers? Instead of white

I keep seeing other 3rd gens with the marker/halo part of the headlight orange, instead of white. The part that flashes with the turn signal. How is this done?

 

Morimoto aftermarket lights. The DRL is amber instead of white as an option.

 

^ yes. On the flip side ive also heard they arent as bright or good as the oem ones

 

The OEM definitely look cleaner. There has to be some way with the wiring to make the orange only on then blink with the signal

 

If you fund out let me know. Id persoanlly love that

 

I've been wondering if anyone has done this. I just happened to catch a pic with the hazards on to see what they would look like orange. Definitely like the look better.

 

I’m going to look into it this weekend. It could be as simple as splicing a couple wires. The fj cruiser was extremely easy to do electrical mods, hopefully the taco is the same way

 

You’re welcome to hack away, but I’d search the forum first as there’s lots of posts about this. You’re looking for “amber DRL” as a search term.
I’m assuming you’re talking about halogen assemblies with LED DRLs, but be careful because the terminology gets ambiguous, like I think the post I linked is talking about OEM LED assemblies.
IIRC there’s no easy way to do this

 

@Puppypunter and @daveeasa you guys are both Taco headlight wiring gurus, no? Any insight?

 

If we are talking OEM LEDs, there isn’t a way externally to do it. If you feed the turn a constant signal (which is what make the amber light up), the headlight won’t like it. You will get one amber flash, then nothing. It won’t stay on amber.
If we are talking about the halogen TRD headlights, it can be done by swapping the LED board itself.

on the OEM LEDs, you could open them up and swap the white LEDs for amber ones I suppose. I believe Meso did that? I haven’t really looked at the internals to say for sure there though.

 

And this is why we ask the guys that know!



There you go @gumbine

 

MESO was cryptic about that. This topic has been answered many many times. Basic searching should find it. And the answer was right there in the second post. If you want amber DRL on a third gen go Morimoto. It’s nuts to spend big money on cracking Oem halogens, they are terrible performing headlights. Morimoto’s at least have massive output, just that they are morimoto so you get the poor execution, poor build quality, poor adjustment / breakage and lack of uplight. But you get your amber DRL that you can’t even see when driving unless you pull up to a wall or mirror.

 

@airforceb2cc deseves credit for the correct response on post 2.

 

I couldnt find anything in the search here which is why I started this thread. And I guess there are alot of upgrades/mods that are purely aesthetic and cant see while driving, but thats not the point

 

Use google instead of the search bar on the site
“amber drl site:www.tacomaworld.com”
But there’s no point in digging now as the experts have chimed in. Options are replacing with morimoto or baking your headlights (assuming they are halogen). Maybe buying something from @no vtec 4me?

 

Mine are like this from the factory. I have the LED light package, comes with LED headlights and foglights, and the halo style DRL surrounding the headlight. The DRL/halo serves double duty as a cascading front turn signal. I, personally, think they look better than the aftermarket ones. I have seen some on FB marketplace as take offs for not a lot of money; I'm sure you could swap them out.

Edit to add- I am not 100% sure, but I think you can also find the TRD Pro version, which are exactly the same, but say "TRD Pro" in the bezel.

 

What were your search terms?

I just searched the 3rd gen forum on amber drl which is likely the problem with your search terms if you used "orange"? I guess you'd need to first run through google to figure out what the common consensus is for the appearance you describe, in this case as I understand, you're talking about amber DRL vs white DRL. Morimoto has some language about this:



But I guess you'd have to know about the existence of this product (referenced in the first reply to your original post) to know that's the "industry standard" term for the color, rather than orange. And not to further split hairs b/c I'm not really good with colors at all but I'd personally say the amber turn signals look more yellow than orange to me.



Prior to your thread you'll see this discussion from Wednesday where I went into more detail:



Knowing what term to search by is a skill that takes time to develop. I think orange was the problem here. That sort of shows that you haven't yet read through any of the wonderful threads on headlights available here, notably the third gen headlight thread:

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads...11-projector-headlights.589465/#post-19689308

If I'm increasingly hostile on this subject, I do apologize somewhat, but it seems like it's gotten a bit out of hand and I kind of wish DOT mandated white for DRL just to get us past this one because as a driver I really don't like the ambiguity. However, given how front parking lights are already amber, I see how the cat is out of the bag given that there really isn't much of a distinction between white vs amber during the day, both tell you to "make sure you don't get hit".

Some good info on wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daytime_running_lamp

With all that said, I'm a schmuck running amber grille lights for the aesthetics and I can't even see them so I am mostly the world's biggest hypocrite. But I do believe that it's nuts to crack open expensive headlights just to change DRL color and it's even more nuts to choose a low performing headlight like the OEM halogens just to get an amber drl after cracking them open.

 

I got davessas raptor light harness to also have amber grill lighting.i have the 4 lights. Evenly across looks cleanest to me. Ill stick with my white drls.

 

Didn't mean to make you go nuclear... Thanks for the help!

 

easier for "ME" to use google and type tacomaworld and whatever you are looking for