Tampa Bay Area Tacomas BS Thread

I still think there may be a problem with the light bar but I just read that fords have a problem with that. Something to do with the wiring in the truck effects the light bar and makes it buzz very loudly.

 

Kidsss. I'm thinking about ordering some vinyl stickers for the IG page, would anyone rock one of them to help me get the word out about my page?

 

Simple check would be to hook it up to just a battery...either unhook the Furd from the battery and use that one or use a 12v or better cordless drill battery. I ops checked my light bar with my 18v cordless battery and it worked fine.

---

On the subject of light bars, I just got back from testing mine out. Conditions were damn near optimal. The roads were wet from rain we just had so they absorbed light more than reflected it. At first, on the access road behind my house, I didn't think I was going to be terribly impressed. Yes, the light bar lit things up better than my headlights, but it didn't really turn things into day light.

But then...then I drove over to this retention pond complex over by the Rec Center and pulled up to the entrance used by maintenance crews when they bush hog the area. It was amazing. With just my headlights, I could see almost nothing, especially since I was parked at the top of a short incline (5-8 ft drop I'm guessing). I could see a small yellow line of light from my headlights on the trees that lined the berm between the ponds that I was pointed along. Then I turned the light bar on...Wow! Now I could see the entire berm, the trees, from top to bottom, and everything. My headlights were a joke in comparison.

A Rigid light bar would probably be a thousand times better. It probably would have set the trees on fire with the intensity of the light beam it put out, but this cheapo light bar is definitely not useless and I'm happy with it...for now (which is good considering the effort It was to get all that wiring installed).

Edit: the pictures actually tell the story better than I thought they would, but they don't really do justice to how much was lit up...

With just my headlights:

With the light bar:

 

Believe it or not, this page I was reading a while back was saying that mostly all light bars will put out the same amount of light, and you're actually paying for is the quality of the light bar.

 

Eh, not really true. Some light bars have different chips, reflectors, and of course quality materials that really make a difference.

 

Well yeah, they run different reflectors for the kind of light you're wanting and different wattage LED's for brightness. But if you compared a higher up 20" 3w flood to a lower end 20" 3w flood, they'd be pretty close. Now, in quality, they'd be far off.

 

Yeah, not so much. We had an object lesson in the difference between a Rigid light bar and a cheap light bar at the Annual Citrus meet a couple years back. Dirtymike pulled up to the edge of a clay pit with his Rigid and Thorny Mike pulled up with his cheap light bar. The results were: Thorny Mike's light bar lit up the other side of the pit with a gentle illumination, while Dirtymike's Rigid lit the other side of the pit up like day light. I'm pretty sure the sand in the clay of the wall where the Rigid's beam was hitting was turning to glass and the trees were starting to smoke. It was literally a night and day difference.

That crap you were reading was clearly anti-Rigid propaganda.

 

Granted though, you still have to put the wattage into play. An 8w LED is going to be much much much brighter than a 3w LED

I'm not talking so much rigid though. There's a difference between expensive and outrageous. I'm talking a $250 22" 3w and a $35 22" 3w. They'd be pretty close in brightness but not quality. IMHO, you can't beat rigid, but their prices are a little to high for me.

 

QFT! The Rigid equivalent of my light bar literally costs 10 times more than I paid for this one. They are very proud of their product.

 

Exactly!! Worth it if you have butt loads of money and a dedicated trail rig you take out every chance you get.

 

ummmm.... i think you actually might need some headlights....a lightbar won't fix your problems

 

Hey, now, they might be old-ass halogens and the inside of the housings might be full of dirt and mud, but they work okay. They just looked really dim in the picture. That was kinda my point about the camera not doing justice to how much the light bar actually lit up. It still illustrated the difference fairly dramatically.

Granted, it has occurred to me that a new set of bulbs in the headlights might be a little brighter. I have no idea how long these bulbs have been in there (at least three years that I know of), but being a cheap bastich, I'm gonna run them 'til they pop or otherwise just quit working...kinda like you and those donut tires you're still running in spite of all that lift.

 

lol, donut tires, what a hater.....

 

Mini mod day. Swapped headlights on my buddies and mine tacoma to depots. Also added the topper to mine.

 

nice!! lemme know what kind of luck you guys have with them, one of mine leaks, but the other one is solid

 

Will let you know. I ran a bead of the sealant on mibe. Might have to do another adjustment on the beams later.

 

Ooooooo I have Silverstar ultras in the box. We're in my truck for 10 seconds. Trying to get $30 for them

 

Headlight bulbs lol Silverstar ultras

 

So this is my odd conundrum... for some reason my passenger trails upward...

 

Stupid rotate... I can wiggle the light around on that side more than the drivers. Thinkin there might be an issue with that housing in how the bulb sits and is pinched in.