Well, I basically agree with you. I had originally planned on putting only two in there, but I it wasn't enough light, and I already had the other two modules, so I went for it because that was easier to wire up than waiting another five days for larger lights to come in the mail. I ended up liking how they are spaced out and it provides a cool light over everything...very few shadows.

I can see your point. You should know since you already have them up. I think I am going to stick to what you have done and get 4 lights instead of the flood light LED's. You can never have enough light especially when you need it. Thanks again!!

Ive used a mercury switch for a hood light ive done before. I dont remember where i got it but it was just mounted to the hood and when its opened the lights turned on. No real moving parts to break and no big holes to drill. The switch i used was in a plastic housing and was mounted in a space i cut in the heat shield so it had some protection.

I really like your setup and may have to copy it for my 4th gen.

Thanks for posting this and the links.

It's a "snap" to turn on ... har har ..... get it, get it?

Good one Snoop.....

Thanks for the great idea.
I've got miles of led strip lights around (ok, not really miles--- but a whole bunch), so using you're brilliant Idea, I added them under my hood and the difference is like night and day... literally.

I went with a pin-switch to trigger them because I like trying to catch the lights coming on and going off-- like the light in the fridge when you were a kid, remember? Actually, I just didn't want to have to fumble around in the dark to find the switch, and thought it would just be more convenient to always come on when I open the hood.

I tend to be a bit anal at times, and spent entirely too much time trying to decide exactly where I wanted to mount the switch.
The dilemma I faced was that I didn't want to put the switch in a position where it could snag on something (me) if I happened to be careless enough to lean over it with a loose shirt, but I also wanted to make sure that the location I chose was reinforced well and made solid contact with the hood, so that I wouldn't have to worry about rubbing, or a poor connection over time.

My solution was to mount the pin-switch inside one of the rubber hood stops...



First, I had to drill a hole through the middle of the stopper so the switch could go all the way through and open/close without rubbing at all (since the switch has to move freely in order to complete the circuit when the switch springs up).

Since the pin-switch is normally grounded by the very nature of it being mounted securely to the bare metal, the fact that I was embedding it in a reasonably solid chunk of rubber meant I had to come up with some other way to ground it, or find some way to defy everything I knew about electricity.
I ended up taking the lazy way out (hint--- I didn't defy any principles of electricity).
To ground the switch, I ended up soldering a length of wire to the pin-switch housing using a propane torch then attached that wire to a pre-existing hole in the metal radiator support (but not yet).

With the Rubber stopper taken out (it unscrews-- it's actually designed to adjust the height of the hood when closed-- go figure!) I pushed the pin switch in so that the pin was a bit higher than the top of the bumper, but made sure that there was more travel left in the switch below the top of the bumper. I still wanted the bumper to support the weight of the hood when closed instead of the switch, to give the switch a chance to live to a ripe old age.

Ordinarily, the pin switch needs to be fixed to the vehicle with a lock washer and nut, but in this case those were unnecessary. Since the switch was firmly seated in the middle of the rubber bumper, by the time I had replaced the bumper in it's original location (by screwing it in), the rubber was being compressed around the switch keeping it firmly embedded in place.

Once the bumper was back in place, I made sure to readjust it's height so the hood would be level when closed, then finally, after all that was done, I secured the wire (remember the one soldered to the switch housing?) to an existing hole in the radiator support.

Of course I also ran the + side of things to a fused 12V feed, but that's boring, so I'm not going to waste time on that part-- since I'm lazy.

Anyway, I know this was way longer than it probably needed to be, and the real purpose of this thread was to show how brilliant Snooperstyle's mod was, but I thought this trick for mounting the switch might come in handy for others out there looking for switch placement ideas.

Thanks again for the light idea Snooperstyle-- it is was a great solution to an odd feature omission by Toyota.

Where do you buy your LED strips?

I bought mine from Amazon: Amazon.com: LEDwholesalers 16.4 Feet 300 SMD LED Flexible Strip with Waterproof Sleeve,12 Volt Clear White LED Ribbon 5 Meter Reel, 2047WH: Home Improvement - just cut to length you want, solder, shrink wrap and you're good to go!

Just be sure the light shines on the big motor ON-OFF switch.
Flipping it back ON is about the only thing you can do under the hood at night.

You are welcome! What you did is kinda what I was gonna do, and then I just couldn't find a switch like that, so I ended up using some old thing I had laying around in the garage. Even though I wanted a pressure switch originally, I ended up liking being able to turn it on and off manually because then it doesn't come on during the day, which is when I have the hood open 95% of the time...not that these LEDs really take up any juice...but still...

Great feedback - thank you for taking the time to post.
This mod is one of the very next for me. May adjust LEDs (size), as you described, and add a switch vice a pin switch.
MOD is a must have (IMHO) as many of my others are "nice to have".
Good stuff.
Thanks again
S

There is a bit more info on this in my build thread but a quick snapshot - These are LED strip lights from VLEDS.com very, very high quality, 3M adhesive, and way brighter than necessary. I wired em to a SPST switch in the engine compartment as opposed to using a tilt switch or momentary switch triggered by opening the hood so I can decide when the light comes on.

I did the same thing as SOcalTRAIL. I also bought my led's from V-LEDS and installation was a snap. Used a relay and also mounted the switch right on the plastic radiator cover (right side - or near side in the picture below).

I know absolutely nothing about electrical wiring, but must have this mod. Can you please tell me exactly what items to buy for this mod? I already bought:

<> 16ft Waterproof 5050 300 smd lead strip in cool white

<> A green lighted on/off spst 12v 16 amp 3 pin dc switch

What else do I need to wire this and exactly how should I?

An inline fuse? what rating? Wire to run? what type? straight to battery or do I need a relay or something else?


Sorry for asking for the "baby steps" guys...I literally never wire anything, but want to do this myself. I still have the backup light mod to do and already bought the switches and lights and upgraded bulbs and still haven't installed them because I don't know how to run the wiring.

Wire is pretty important in wiring things, so start with that - 18 or 16 AWG primary wire should be fine; get one spool of red and one spool of black for easy designation when you wire it. If you have a 16ft section of LEDs you'll also need something to cut the LED strips to make them shorter (box knife should be fine for that) and the following items:

- Soldering Iron
- Rosin core solder
- Heat Shrink
- Heat Gun or Hair Dryer
- Electrical Tape

You don't need a relay for LEDs, and an inline fuse will work fine. Determine fuse size based on the gauge wire you're using (which is determined by the load you're putting through the wire), but for this purpose 5 amps should be plenty unless you keep your LEDs at 16ft...