Instead of stealth lights, I mounted mine IN the grill

I've been hanging on to these 170mm Lightforce shiners for awhile trying to figure out how to mount them. I didn't want them sticking out in front of the bumper to be first in line in harm's way, and I didn't want to stealth them behind the grill because the style mesh I wanted is only 40% open. I was going to mount the on the bumper and cut out the grill to fit the rear of the lights, but that seemed contrived, and a pain to remove grille in future.

So I got a grill for $49.99 from CustomCarGrills.Com (Toy_Taco_12_PSM-FB), then chopped my stock grill and mounted it as per instructions on their site. I had to bend it in places and dremel some of the grill edges to get it to fit just right.

Then I cut out cardboard circles to represent my lights and placed them on the completed grille. The holes in the grille made it really easy to center the lights exactly, then outline them with a sharpie. I allowed for an extra 1/4" on each side (so an extra 1/2" diameter when I made the cardboard cutouts).

With the dremel I chopped out the circles (take your time and wear eye protection!), and pressed in thin car door protection moulding I got at Autozone to hide the sharp edges and make it look more finished; I glued this in later (DON'T use superglue, the fumes will discolor the powdercoat on the grill...)

I'm a crappy welder, but managed to fab up a mount out of 1 1/2" and 1" x 1/8" steel stock I had lying around. This took the longest of ANYTHING to get the measurements just right. No, I don't have them, I do everything in my head and then flush. In retrospect I shouldn't have been such a cheapskate and purchased the BAMF light bar mount for $73. http://www.bayareametalfab.com/2nd-Gen-Tacoma-Behind-The-Grille-Light-Bar-bracket-05-to-15_p_9.html

I did have to bore out the holes on my mount a little in order to center the lights in the holes, and drill big holes in the bottom of the plastic grill mounting brackets to acommodate the lightforce mounting locknuts. My steel bracket runs just under the grill mounting brackets.

 

pretty slick work!

 

I like it

congrats

 

Looks good!

 

I really like that setup

 

Nice.

 

very cool

 

Awesome, ive been working on something similiar. Something about blocking some of the light just bothers me.

 

I like it! Nice fab work! Cheers