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| http://www.4x4wire.com/toyota/tech/tacoma_turn_signal/ | Short Cuts | |
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By: Mark Griese - 7/2004
If you want to trim away some of the Tacoma's front bumper for additional clearance, or add an aftermarket bumper, the front turn signals will need to be relocated. Moving them to the side marker lens is a simple and quick solution. In the Tacoma Front Bumper Trimming Article, a short description of the move was provided. Here we will include part numbers and some detailed photos.
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| Turn Signal Relocation |
This modification replaces the bulb socket and adds another filament so the existing parking light housing will also hold the turn signal. Once the grinding is complete, this change is permanent, since the original socket will no longer fit.
| Parts & Tools Used |
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Most stores will have what you need, I bought these items from NAPA Auto Parts.
Parts & Tools I already had:
Some of these are optional, please read the text to help you decide which items you'll need. |
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| Installation |
The parking light housings are held in place with a Phillips head screw that will be exposed when you lift the hood. Remove the screw and begin rocking the housing up and down while pulling it towards the front of the vehicle. It may be fairly snug, but it is just a press fit. Once it's out, remove the factory socket from the housing by twisting it counter-clockwise. Go ahead and do the same for the factory turn signal socket. Cut off and discard both sockets.
Using the rotary tool, first remove the "wall" that surrounded the old socket. This will leave the area flat for the new socket to mount against. Then make the opening just large enough so it feels like the socket will start in the hole. Then mark where the spring prongs are, and only make those areas slightly larger. If you look closely at the photo, the areas where I made the notches are visible. All this cutting and notching creates a real mess of plastic shavings. Blowing or vacuuming through the new opening only creates additional static cling and frustration. You need something to break the static cling, which is where the water comes in handy. Using soft or distilled water to rinse out the shavings helps to leave the inside of the lens free of water spots.
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| A lot of plastic is removed to make the new mounting | And this creates a mess inside which must be cleaned | Keep testing & cutting until you are happy with the fit |
Now that you are happy with the socket fit and everything is clean, some choices can be made about how much extra wire length is needed. The new sockets have several inches of leadwire. These should be long enough to just crimp onto the existing green wires. Then, using a similar length of 18ga wire, a butt connector, and a quick disconnect, the two white ground wires can be (joined and) extended to match the leadwire length. Because this new socket requires silicone to be water tight, I wanted the housings to be an easy disconnect (when it's time to change the bulb and add new silicone), so I added a flat two wire trailer connector.
I also chose to invest a little extra time to remove the airbox (passenger side) and the battery (driver's side), to be able to unwrap the factory split flex tubing and re-route the turn signal wiring in with the corner lights. Once you have both sets of the wires re-routed out near the corner lights, it's time to test and find which of the new socket's lead wires will be used for turning, and which one for parking. The standard Toyota wiring colors used for both sockets are green (for positive) and white (for ground). If you do not have these wire colors, test them with a voltmeter to determine which are positive and negative. The new socket will be wired as follows: The two white wires will be connected to the ground tab and the green wires will be connected to the two black wires. To find which of the black leads is for the turn signal, temporarily connect the green turn signal wire to each of the leads and see which one is brighter. Mark the brighter one with a piece of masking tape until the final connection is made with the butt connectors, and wrapped with the electrical tape.
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| Finished wiring of the Flat Connector and Quick Disconnect | And the mating connections in the housing |
The final step is to silicone seal the sockets into the housings. Cut the cap on the tube of silicone to dispense a thin bead. You do not want silicone seeping into the housing when the socket is pushed into the opening. Just put a small bead around the socket's rim, and then after it is pushed into place, use a generous amount around the back side to fill in any gaps and make it waterproof. The cost for sockets, connectors, and bulbs was less than $20.
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| The finished relocation, with the Amber #1157 bulb |
| A final note |
Since the corners on my 2001 already have a clear lens, I needed to use the Amber bulb so the Amber color would be projected in front of the vehicle. If your corners are Amber, you would want to use a Clear bulb.
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