Fog Light Retrofit - Element LED Amber Cannons!

[JVC8790]

Hey All!

I figured I'd start a new thread for this since it may be a project that someone else wants to do as well once I'm done. I'll link it over in my build thread as well.

Build Thread
https://www.toyota-4runner.org/4th-gen-t4rs/267089-jvc8790s-daily-duty-cruiser-build-thread-5.html

I had been looking at these Element LED Amber Cannons for a while and didn't want to have some ugly looking bracket on the front end. So what I decided to do was find a way to mount the Amber Cannons behind the stock foglight housing to maintain the look from the exterior.

Amber Cannon LED spotlight (pair) — Element LED

Unboxed the goods!

Untitled by John Van Cleave, on Flickr

Eyeballed the lens size to see if these will work.

Untitled by John Van Cleave, on Flickr

Took a look at them side by side to see what was gonna be necessary.

Untitled by John Van Cleave, on Flickr

Marked a cut line to start (also did this so that the projector assembly itself would be untouched in case I want to use it in another project down the road.

Untitled by John Van Cleave, on Flickr

Started Cutting!

Untitled by John Van Cleave, on Flickr

anddd Voila! Two pieces!

Untitled by John Van Cleave, on Flickr

I knew I'd have to notch some more to make these work, so I started marking, and cutting, and marking, and cutting

Untitled by John Van Cleave, on Flickr

by John Van Cleave, on Flickr

Finally ended up with this

Untitled by John Van Cleave, on Flickr

Untitled by John Van Cleave, on Flickr

Which from the front side, looks like this!

Untitled by John Van Cleave, on Flickr

Untitled by John Van Cleave, on Flickr

Untitled by John Van Cleave, on Flickr

I've got a bit more trimming to do to get it to sit centered in the opening, I'm also gonna test fire them to see where the light focus goes and if I have any issues scattering light that is hitting the reflector housing.

I plan to make some brackets to utilize the factory holes on the Element LED Lights and then seal the fog light to the Element LED housing with some Silicone to prevent water getting in.

In the event water gets in, I want to make it easy enough to pop out, take the light out of the housing and drain/clean. If need be also I want to be able to retain the factory light housing in case I get another car and want to take these with down the road.

Always open to ideas/suggestions but I'm hoping these turn out pretty awesome and make good foglights!

 

[JVC8790]

Test fit (holding together by hand) and test fired them last night in my dark garage. (No Pics, sorry)

First impressions, these things are YELLOW! Just what I was looking for!

I need to build/design a bracket that holds these and allows for the light to still be aimed and have a bit of adjustment up and down to ensure that these don't get pointed skyward and cause issues to oncoming traffic.

There isn't much light spillage out from the gap between the housing and the LED light since the light is more concentrated as a spot rather than a flood light, this will make mounting them and adjusting a lot easier since I won't have to worry about getting it all lined up perfectly.

 

[JVC8790]

Finally got around to finishing these up now that we have some cooler weather rolling through!

When I cut the housings, I cut a little bit too much material off. So i had to re-make mounting tabs. If I did this again, I would have cut less of the housing and retained factory housing to bolt the lights to.

Got the lights test bolted in.

And test fired up!

Had to make a harness to adapt the wiring from the lights to the factory wiring. Yes, I could have spliced into the factory wiring, but since I'm not sure how these will really play out, I wanted a no-cut installation to start. I took the old fog light bulbs that I removed before and cut the bulb out to solder in the wiring for the harness Element supplied.

I then used a bead of silicone on both the fog light housing and the front lip of the Amber cannon and bolted everything together.

Final product before installation!

If the rain holds off this evening I'm going to try to pop these in and fire them up. The adjustment can no longer be done from the housing itself, so I'm hopeful they're close, otherwise I'll shim the bolts that hold it in with washers to keep these at a lower trajectory.

 

[JVC8790]

Got these lights mounted last night, first things first, THEY ARE BRIGHT! Hopefully not too bright for on-road use.

I did have a small snag, the stock screws were too small for the openings on the aftermarket housings.

My remedy was to tap it out to M7 threads and use some hardware I had laying around.

Then I went to a local parking lot to test these lights out last night.

LED Headlights Only

Headlights and Fog Lights

Headlights, Foglights, and Rigid Ditch Lights (Spot)

 

[sundance-runner]

I was wondering what size pod light you used cause I want to do this too, but can't find the one you used.

 

[Kryptoroxx]

Neat mod! I'm glad that it worked out. Trying to see if this might work on my wife's highlander. She needs a good set of fogs. The light output seems pretty good on these as well.

Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk

 

[4Fishing]

Got these lights mounted last night, first things first, THEY ARE BRIGHT! Hopefully not too bright for on-road use.

I did have a small snag, the stock screws were too small for the openings on the aftermarket housings.

My remedy was to tap it out to M7 threads and use some hardware I had laying around.

Then I went to a local parking lot to test these lights out last night.



LED Headlights Only

Headlights and Fog Lights

Headlights, Foglights, and Rigid Ditch Lights (Spot)

Who did you go with on the lower bumper light bar? How was the install?

Sent from my ONEPLUS A5010 using Tapatalk

 

[JVC8790]

Who did you go with on the lower bumper light bar? How was the install?

Sent from my ONEPLUS A5010 using Tapatalk

I went with CaliRaisedLED's brackets and an Amazon bar I got for $12, install really wasn't too bad, there's plenty of room up there to get everything in easy!

The lights I bought were from Element LED

Element LED

They recently sold the company and are transferring to new ownership, so their website is down for renovation I believe. Hopefully they keep these around since they're a solid lighting choice!

 

[Ed_C]

Do you still have to original foglight projectors? I'm curious what the lens diameter is.

 

[JVC8790]

Do you still have to original foglight projectors? I'm curious what the lens diameter is.

I sure do, I can take a measurement for you since they're completely dismantled from this project.

 

[corey.grizzle]

I dig how you kept the stock housing. I just bought a set of 4" rectangle yellow fogs to mount in the bumper when they get here. I'll likely retrofit something into the original fog housings like you did at a later date.

 

[JVC8790]

I dig how you kept the stock housing. I just bought a set of 4" rectangle yellow fogs to mount in the bumper when they get here. I'll likely retrofit something into the original fog housings like you did at a later date.

Thanks dude! That was my goal, I didn't love the option of mounting them in the bumper just bare and wanted to hide them to make sure they didn't attract attention, I think this comes from my euro car background of making everything OEM+ and keeping it clean and simple.

 

[JVC8790]

Do you still have to original foglight projectors? I'm curious what the lens diameter is.

Lens diameter is 2"