SR5 BHLM Retrofit

Alright I finally finished my BHLM retrofit project. I originally was going to just black out the housing and add RX350 projectors. I decided that wasn’t going to be good enough and it just snowballed.
I wanted to black out the high beam and turn signal reflectors without spending the money on a full quad retrofit and trying to align them. I ended up buying the cheapest set of 2.5 inch projectors I could find on Amazon, they cost around $25. They did exactly what I needed them to do; hold some halos and look better than the high beam reflector.

BHLM - Krylon matte black


DRLs - Diode Dynamics 70mm and 80mm switchback halos.



Parking Lights - I decided to add Profile Pixel amber demon eyes to the cheap 2.5 inch projectors wired to come on with the parking lights and headlights.



Headlights - RX350 projectors clear lens and tuned. Morimoto 35 watt ballasts and 6k Morimoto Elite bulbs.



Turn Signals - I originally wanted to have just the inner 70mm halo as the turn signal. But since the SR5 is wired with the DRL and turn signals as one, it would have meant wiring a separate LED circuit. I decided to just leave it as both halos as turn signals tapped to the rear signals so the halos stay white when the signals are not activated.


A big shout out to @Puppypunter for working on building these custom harnesses for me that connect to the DRL/turn signal and parking light OEM connector. These harnesses allowed me to connect both halos on each side to the DRL and parking lights without using t taps. This eliminates the mess of wires, provides a much more stable connection and makes the installation look professional.
If I didn’t have the demon eyes, I wouldn’t have had any t taps making for as clean of an install as possible.

Drivers Side:


Passenger Side:


Before:


After:



It was a lot of work, but well worth it in the end. The overall look is so much better and the light output is night and day compared to the stock halogen.
Shout out to those who let me pick their brains @caribe makaira and @no vtec 4me.
Thanks to @Puppypunter for the harnesses. Fee free to reach out to him if you would like something similar for your retrofit.

 

sweet.
nice work.

 

Nice!

Been considering doing it myself since there are rarely any sr5 lights in stock in @no vtec 4me's thread

Perhaps I will take the plunge or bite the bullet and get a second pair of SR5 headlights but regardless, how long did it take?

 

Looks awesome!

 

I did this working a few hours off and on over 4 days. The time that took the longest was getting the 2.5 inch projectors seated properly in the high beam reflector. I also should have left the painting until the very end when I had all the cutting, jamming and fitting done. I painted first and ended up scuffing it all up while fitting the setup. So I had to paint a lot of parts again.
If you were to just do the BHLM and RX350 retrofit, it would take no more than a weekend. It’s the halos and extra projector that took the time.

 

You forgot to paint out your license plate in this picture. Better jump in there and edit it.



Damn...too late now.

 

Awesome, thanks for the info.

I might just do the BHLM so hoping it won't take more than a few hours to take them apart.

 

That's alright, honestly not a big deal.

 

nice! I like these way better than the TRD headlights with the white LED strip as DRL

 

I agree, I'm not personally a fan of the TRD LED strip.

 

Edited to add a custom harness by @Puppypunter

 

Wish I had the balls to do something like that. Looks most CooL.

Hell...I'm afraid I'll fuck something up changing out my interior lights to blue LED's.

 

Thanks, it’s not too bad, once you get going it all starts to fall in to place. There’s a lot of helpful TW members to help.
The hardest part was taking off the bumper to install them.

 

How did you manage to set in the second projector? Im currently in the process of doing this and im not entirely sure how you got the second projector to stay in place.

 

This is rad dude. I was going to go a similar route but got so pissed off trying to open the housings I just ended up buying the XB's lol. I have retrofitted other vehicles before, but these were the most stubborn set of headlights I've ever come in contact with.

 

I had to dremel out the high beam bucket to make space for the projector to fit in the high beam space. Then used a lot of JB Weld to hold the projectors in place, it was a PITA.
I actually re-did my headlights using an easier method for the high beams, I posted that here https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/3rd-gen-bhlm-and-light-mods.450984/page-49#post-25423401

If I were you I would just buy the Profile High lens 2.0 for the high beam bucket instead of trying to modify it. So much easier and I think it looks better and will last longer.

 

So the highbeam projectors arent actually functional? Just placeholders for the halos?

 

Correct, in this setup they just held the demon eyes and 70mm halos. Since the RX-350 projectors are high/low beam, a dedicated high beam isn’t necessary.

 

One last question. How did you tap into the rear turn signals for the halos to flash yellow? I tried finding how to but i cant find anything on it