What have you done to your 1st gen Tundra today?

I bought the BraveWAY bulbs, which are exactly the same as the CO bulbs, but 10% less cost. They clearly have the same warehouse supplier. You can save another 5%-10% if you buy the single bulbs intended for motorcycle. I contacted them directly - it's the exact same bulb, whether you buy the single pack or double pack.

Directions HERE showing the irreversible damage you must make to the housings, along with instructions before the last 3 pics, and video of the process with a warning of one thing you can break HERE.

I'll be curious to see if I have the blue/purple cutoff line with the BraveWAY bulbs. It's the one thing I haven't seen in online photos yet, from people who installed. It's possible this was improved more recently in the bulb design. Maybe they're using a better lens.

Yes. Fan is an Achilles heel for lights. If the fan dies, the light won't be far behind. I bought fanless. PIC of what it looks like in the rear.

One complaint I keep hearing about the mini-projectors though, the beam isn't wide enough, which seems to piss off people who drive on backroads etc. I guess the wider lens on the 3" projectors allows for a better cutoff and wider clean cast.

This is what I did too. DEPO, TYC, and EagleEyes all make great housings. Get CAPA certified housings if you want some longevity. DEPO offers 5yr guarantee on their lens being clear and free of haze on their CAPA lights.

 

Awesome, @shifty`, can't wait to see the final result! I do a significant amount of back road driving and would love to know a split-second before a white tail deer or axis is about to try to sneak through my radiator to hide inside my engine bay.

Tempted to take the plunge on these and save my headlight cerakote kit for sharing between my 1GT third brake light and camper/cap/topper shell light and the headlights on my vehicle with even more-degraded headlights.

 

You bought fanless so your lights are dying???

 

I bought fanless so the life of my bulb isn't dependent on the life of the fan.
And I don't need to worry about excess sound from the engine bay.
And I don't need to worry about potential radio interference, which is a common complaint with fanned bulbs, especially in garages.

But I'm not judging anyone who decides using a bulb with a fan is right for them. It's just not right for me.

 

These are the larger projectors I purchased which require baking the light apart to install. One is threaded shaft mount with so easy a caveman can do it installation. The other is a little more work, being a mid-frame install which requires drilling holes into the reflector bowl to install the projector to. This means, removing the reflector bowl from the back plastic headlight housing not just simply splitting the headlight open. Sometimes its no biggie but other times, the adjusters are somewhat buried and a bitch to get to without breaking. Also requires cutting out the back of the reflector so the cooling fan ass end of the projector will fit through. This means, def won't be able to go back to using a regular H4 bulb if needed or wanted. I plan to use a less destructive method of installing these.

I will be devising a way to add a threaded shaft to the mid-frame mount projector because it throw more light especially on high beams. Will post pics when I get it done. I am still waiting on some parts to jerry rig my mount.

 

See how the threaded shaft of the first projectors is held on with 4 screws, its removable and also can be frame mounted. I was hoping that tail end would fit on the blue projectors but it doesn't. The spacing of the 4 screws holding on the cooling fan is bit larger so I will use a piece of aluminum spacer to attach a threaded shaft to those 4 screws. It'll make the length of the projector a bit longer but our headlights have plenty of depth.

 

Yeah, I needed something easier than that. I just wanted light. More light. Even if it wasn't 2020-era light, I wanted it for under $250 and less than 30 minutes work, without an oven, and without me needing to MacGuyver shit.

 

Mini projectors will do then.

 

Don't get me wrong tho. I like to MacGuyver shit.

 

At least I have chicken.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mLyOj_QD4a4​

 

Omg.

 

Uplight is part of a good headlight.

agm battery is the only expensive part.

I’d give you my old harness or make one as long as you don’t completely rebuild it like empty lord did

then voltage booster, not super spendy.

I can send you some osram bulbs.

bam, badass headlights. Without Chinese led crap.

 

So by your own logic, your bulbs will die any day now

 

LOL

 

I have 5-10 of the gm &/or ford mini fuse diodes to up the voltage if anyone is switching to an agm battery and wants one or two.

 

I guess, for anyone who forgets the 1st line before reaching the last.

Too late now. I already mangled a perfectly good pair of DEPO light housings. There's no going back now!

(But I will keep the OEM housings on-hand, just in case I decide to switch back and go with the 100W bulb upgrade. I just didn't want the extra bullshit rewiring spaghetti-slop)

I've got a virtually-new NAPA gold battery, I'm not going AGM until that thing shits itself. I've got a GM diode already, shaved and ready for action.

 

I put my Ferd's AGM in mine when the Tundra's battery shit the bed. So I guess, I have that going for me, which is nice.

 

Can go dual batteries w RedArc and skip the diode stuff. but that’s not cheap. I do that in the 2016 cause I don’t run a tune for charging.

Headlight harnesses can look nice in my opinion. I’m really planning to do a lot of my own custom wiring in both older trucks. The OEM stuff is weak. I’ll use it for temporary duty till I get my crimp on. Tons of room in our engine bays.

 

Today, a whore’s bath. RV brush (no soap) and the hose.

 

Picked it up from the shop. Pre-200K timing belt / water pump replacement and DD injectors. Ready for the next 100K.

 

I'd love a review on these. I'm very tempted by the Morimoto MLED and these look like the same thing.

 

Baked open some fleBay Chinesium fogs and threw some 2.5 bi-led projectors in them. Yes. I have a problem. LOL

 

I'll post some pics when I Jerry rig them and install them in the headlights.

 

I went prancing around 2 of my local junk yards after work, previous owner had installed one of those steering wheel knobs that’s ripped my steering wheel material all up. Found a loose ignition coil and some miscellaneous hardware I know I’m missing. Oh and a center console for me to mess with and practice vinyl wrapping: all in all I’d say not bad for $50
Best part was there was a taco truck parked outside the second one on the way back to the truck

 

Random, generic, no-name coil? Sketch!

Foams in the center console are non-OEM, I just gave some freebies away on here. Make your life easier, separate the cup holder from below, it'll make cleanup easier.

Don't lose the plastic inserts. Toyota discontinued the blanks for seat heaters, for example.

Nice haul!

 

Mini projectors installed. No night vision before/after shots, I gotta go with what I got, so basement garage it is.

My new OEM housings weren't quite aimed perfect, but close, so I just marked the wall with where they were, then set the new ones to roughly the same.

You have some ability to rotate the bulbs to fine-tune after you've tightened the heatsink down. I really need to secure the driver/ballast, probably I'll use HD velcro.

Clearly they're not using the best lens, there's some abberation with purple/blue at cutoff. But the high beams are BRIGHT. I'd ballpark about 40% more light. And no resistor needed - fogs and headlights work - maybe because my AC truck has the little teardrop lights which put enough resistance on the circuit to keep things happy?

Anyway, here's some shots. Y'all be the judge. Is it worth ~$240? I'll hafta drive at night to see how wide they cast, and how well they work with street signs and such. I also need to find a place to get them dialed in a little better, this was definitely a half-ass dial-in job, the ass-end of my truck was low on an incline.

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Oh and if it's interesting, here are some comparison shots of the OEM and mini-projector side by side.

And then some shots of the DEPO housing next to the OEM housing.

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I’m always amazed seeing other peoples garages! How do people keep them so damn clean?!

 

Finally a video of low/hi beams in all my shaky-cam glory:

https://imgur.com/a/RQaQXgq​