Blue Ribbon 4x4 Build Thread

If you put the mount inside the fender and only had the part above the red line showing it would work. You'd just have to be creative on mounting and sealing.

 

Oh damn that’s nice! I’ll check it out!

 

Get the third brake light and done lol

 

At the SoCal Tundra Outlaws 5th Anniversary Meet. Tons of Tundras, awesome people and food. A bunch of vendors donated products to be raffled off and the cash given to The Ronald McDonald House charity in Los Angeles. Last year was $13,000. We’ll see what this year brings in. I won a raffle prize, Diode Dynamics SS3 Pros!

 

Nice! I wish there was events like that here in PA.

 

Start a group or find one! I’ve been a part of this group since the beginning. We had just a few members on Facebook. It’s just grown and grown with offroad meets, parking lot meets, and then we started doing charity stuff like this. This is our biggest charity event, but a close second is our Christmas toy drive. One of our members spoke with a Toyota dealership and we have the drive at the dealership. It takes work, but it pays off with meets like this.

 

Getting to those SS3 Pros. Sanded the bezels and hit them with self etching primer, then blue and clear. Took out the old cheapos and the SS3s plugged right in, I added a harness so everything is plug and play, no matter what I’m adding.

 

I don't know man, I think you need more illumination and more things painted Blue Ribbon

Always awesome to see what you do. I'm sure you learned early on to make the harness universal so you didn't have to keep changing it out with new lights.

 

Thank you, sir!! We’re all waiting on more blue from you too!

 

Heading to Sedona tomorrow for a few days. Gonna bring the pups and hit some trails. Built a quick and dirty platform for the dog bed, allowing a little storage underneath. Just threw a towel on top of the underseat storage as to not scratch the lids. If I absolutely need to open the other storage lids, the platform comes right out. I just used a scrap laminated particle board leftover from an old desk.

 

Hopefully you’ll get some decent weather up there. It’s a little cooler than normal the next few days

 

Yep! Looks like it’s in the 90’s. Where we live it’s in the 100’s. So I’m good with that!

 

Sedona. We absolutely love this place. It’s insanely beautiful, and the trails are killer. Some are easy, some difficult. The trails we took:
Outlaw OHV Trail
Van Deren Cabin OHV Trail
Cliffhanger OHV Trail
Broken Arrow
Outlaw trail has amazing views (they all do, really). But some technical stuff, Van Deren simple but a nice starter trail for the day, Cliffhanger definitely more technical with a couple pucker points on the side of the mountain. Broken Arrow was the most technical and definitely hit the skid and sliders a few times going off trail for pictures. We also hit the small mining town of Jerome, where we learned they go nuts on Halloween with movies and a costume ball. Which may be our Halloween destination. This was our anniversary trip, it’s not till October, but the best time for us to take off work together. We had a fuckin blast.

 

Ready for another taillight build. My old ones cracked. I don’t know why, they’re just old? Maybe too many bumps and bruises offroad. Anyway, I got an excuse for new ones. So I finally got the lights I originally wanted. I ordered some chase lights to install in the housing, and then the color match will be under way.

 

Ok, story time!
Had something crazy happen the day before/the day leaving Sedona.
Wednesday night, after finishing Broken Arrow, the most challenging trail, we were driving to dinner, started sprinkling, ended with a freakin monsoon that hit Sedona. It was insane windy, and super heavy rain.
We started hearing this rumbling, pulsating sound coming from the front passenger side when I applied the brakes. It sounded like a flat tire. No flat tire, I took the truck back to the airbnb. Thursday morning I drove it, same issue happening. I pulled the tire, pulled the brakes, everything looked great. Tightened all the suspension bolts/nuts. Checked again, same issue, but the brakes are working fine. So we start our trek home, as the truck drives fine, only occasional sound when I hit the brakes.
About 30 minutes later, on the highway, my air compressor kicks on, no switch, it’s just running. Popped the hood and it won’t shut off, there’s a air pressure switch that isn’t turning off the compressor and the manual switch on the compressor isn’t working. I pulled the fuse, compressor is off, and no more noise coming from applying the brakes.
So of course there’s a short in the compressor. Maybe a loose wire or malfunctioning relay that was pulsating the compressor power giving us this weird noise. So the truck is fine! I’ll pull the compressor and update what I find.

 

Welcome to Arizona in August! Lol

It’s a good thing you were off the trail when that hit. The flash floods that can come from those are no joke. As far as the compressor, do you think it got soaked from water on the road?

 

Dude!! We saw a pink jeep tour heading back during the storm on the 89 and I laughed my ass off. They were all wearing the same type ponchos, so I assume the pink jeeps come prepared.

I think it malfunctioned because of the rain. It was working fine after Broken Arrow, I filled all my tires, but it did overheat. So that may be a factor.

 

Installed a water separator, received the California approved clear coat(ugh), got a new lvlp spray gun, and today got more 8T5.
Cut the lights apart with the dremel, chase lights arrive tomorrow.

 

Spraying the Niteshades on the side reflectors.
If you haven’t followed my other lighting builds, plastic adhesion promoter is required to spray paint on the taillight housings. I have three plastic adhesion promoter cans.
One is Bulldog grey (left), I bought this on sale when an auto parts store went out of business ($25).
One is Bulldog clear (middle), I paid $50 at the paint shop last time I was there.
Last is High Teck clear, from the paint shop because I forgot I had some. They let me know it’s the same as Bulldog, and I only paid $15. The paint shop clerk told me they’re a reputable company and it’s what they use, Bulldog is just a big, expensive company. I’ll be burning up the remainder of the Bulldog grey, so I’ll save the High Teck for later.
Still waiting on the chase lights.

 

The taillights are slightly bowed, so the flat chase lights rock back and forth. So I ground down the center of the plastic area that the chase light sits. After testing, I scuffed all the plastic with a red scotch brite, then masked and filled the voids with plastic epoxy.

 

Body working the chase lights.

 

Starting to get close. Probably sand and one more hit of glazing putty.

 

First coat of blue and a bit of tint on the chase lights. Nobody likes the annoying flashing in their face offroad, so I toned it down just a bit. Still bright as hell.

 

Those picture from Sedona are amazing! can't wait to see how those tail lights turn out! What brand are they?

 

My wife and I are moving to Phoenix in the coming months. Cannot wait to hit all the trails in AZ!

 

You won’t be disappointed! There are so many!

 

Thanks! They are Anzo ripoffs. So they’re about half the price.

 

Where did you get them? Sorry for my ignorance I'm not familiar with Anzo but I'm new to the tundra stuff. They look great tho

 

No worries! I got them on ebay. Delivery was only two days. I will say, though, out of the box, they already looked like they needed to be sealed. There were inconsistencies in the seal around the inside edge. This is why you’ll see so many aftermarket headlights/taillights leaking, even the expensive ones. These are buyer beware, but I knew I would be tearing them apart and sealing everything back up, including the screws in the back.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/2741505034...uSecDdRT16&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY