Installed Heretic light bar, Baja fog lights & Raptor lights in 2024 Tacoma TRD Pro grill

[UndergroundTRD]

Light bar options

I finally received the TRD Pro grill after a 40 day wait due to back order. I did my research while waiting and decided to go with the Heretic light bar instead of the Baja or Diode. The Baja option you need to trim some plastic of the grill in order for it to fit properly, something I didn’t want to do in case I wanted to swap out the light bar in the future I needed all the grill mounting points to be uncut. The Diode bar is 18” inches, when installed it leaves a 1” inch gap on both sides which didn’t look OE to me. The Heretic light bar was an exact fit for the grill, no need to cut or anything. You can buy the brackets from Rave Off Road but I think they only sell as a kit not sure if they will sell only the bracket.

Light bar mounting
I decided to make my own brackets since the mounting points are pretty simple. I started with a piece of cardboard and began cutting until I was able to match all the mounting points from both the grill and light bar. I went to Home Depot and bought two 5 inch L shape brackets and cut them accordingly. I just sprayed painted them black to avoid rust and to give it a cleaner look and done.

Light bar wiring
I wired the light bar into my factory 15 amp Aux switch. The factory pigtail is located next to the windshield washer fluid reservoir, it’s the all black cable within the pigtail. The light bar only had 2 wires a positive(red) & ground(black). I just had to connect the positive from the light bar to the black wire in the pigtail, then connected the ground from the light bar to a grounded screw nearby.

Baja S2 sport Baja S2 sport
I decided to go with the Baja S2 sport because of the serviceable items and interchangeable lens. They were a bit frustrating to install because of all the assembly required since you pretty much need to assemble your own kit from the package Baja sends you. The wiring Baja provided made that part simple and easy. It all plugged into the original harness which your able to turn on/off the lights by using the original fog light switch.

Raptor style lights
I had installed these exact lights on my original trd off road grill that the vehicle came with. I spaced them 8.5 inches apart since the grill is wide enough to pull it off. I run these lights as my DRL for added safety plus they look nice. They are tapped into a fuse that is on when the truck is on. This 2nd time around I decided to mount the lights from the inside the grill vs the previous method which were mounted from the outside the grill. This definitely is the cleaner install as it looks like the grill would have came this way. I made the first cut for each light using the smallest drill bit and increased 2 sizes. Once I was able to fit the diamond drill bit in my Dremel I began to slowly and patiently cut the rectangular shape of the led to make the light fit snug. Bought them from Amazon, brand is Seven Sparta.

Outcome

Sponsored

 

[Pootklopp]

Genesis 1:3 "And God said, Let there be light: and there was light"

Did you use the factory pigtail (the things in the bag) or did you cut the harness wires you are showing? Also the thick white w/ black stripe is a ground wire in the harness. Is it better to ground to body vs using the harness ground wire? I'm still trying to learn about these AUX harnesses for future projects.

 

[Vidman]

Great job..truck and grill look great..I’ve always liked the amber look on trucks

 

[UndergroundTRD]

Genesis 1:3 "And God said, Let there be light: and there was light"

Did you use the factory pigtail (the things in the bag) or did you cut the harness wires you are showing? Also the thick white w/ black stripe is a ground wire in the harness. Is it better to ground to body vs using the harness ground wire? I'm still trying to learn about these AUX harnesses for future projects.

Yes I did use the pigtails that came in the bag, it makes the install easier & cleaner. Unfortunately I used all the 3aux switches in the truck. Any other add ons will have to be ran the old school way or I might just run one wire to the cab for an Auxbeam switch panel. The harness you saw was from the KC lites, I had to run them to the same pigtail. The pigtail ground is good but you still need to ground every individual accessory to the chassis to make sure you have a good connection at the nearest bolt closest to the accessory. If not you would have to run the ground wire from every accessory and connect to the thick white w/black stripe cable in the pigtail. What I did was grounded the thick white w/black cable from pigtail and grounded it to the frame. All the accessories were also individually grounded to the chasis near them.

 

[tkrum015]

You did an amazing job. Looks very professional.

 

[Pootklopp]

Yes I did use the pigtails that came in the bag, it makes the install easier & cleaner. Unfortunately I used all the 3aux switches in the truck. Any other add ons will have to be ran the old school way or I might just run one wire to the cab for an Auxbeam switch panel. The harness you saw was from the KC lites, I had to run them to the same pigtail. The pigtail ground is good but you still need to ground every individual accessory to the chassis to make sure you have a good connection at the nearest bolt closest to the accessory. If not you would have to run the ground wire from every accessory and connect to the thick white w/black stripe cable in the pigtail. What I did was grounded the thick white w/black cable from pigtail and grounded it to the frame. All the accessories were also individually grounded to the chasis near them.

Gotcha thanks for the info. Did you consider getting the light bar to run (on/off) with your high beams? Or is that not useful for an amber light? Amber is better for dirt/sand/fog right? I'm thinking about something similar but I'm still undecided.

 

[UndergroundTRD]

Gotcha thanks for the info. Did you consider getting the light bar to run (on/off) with your high beams? Or is that not useful for an amber light? Amber is better for dirt/sand/fog right? I'm thinking about something similar but I'm still undecided.

I wanted the light bar to work individually and the highbeams separate as well. Sometimes I used my highbeams in the nearby roads at night where it’s just pitch black down the road but conditions are clear, no fog. But you are correct amber is used for when you’re trying to see through hazy conditions like dirt/fog.

 

[UndergroundTRD]

I forgot to add the videos to the original post.

 

[Baltimore]

Light bar options

I finally received the TRD Pro grill after a 40 day wait due to back order. I did my research while waiting and decided to go with the Heretic light bar instead of the Baja or Diode. The Baja option you need to trim some plastic of the grill in order for it to fit properly, something I didn’t want to do in case I wanted to swap out the light bar in the future I needed all the grill mounting points to be uncut. The Diode bar is 18” inches, when installed it leaves a 1” inch gap on both sides which didn’t look OE to me. The Heretic light bar was an exact fit for the grill, no need to cut or anything. You can buy the brackets from Rave Off Road but I think they only sell as a kit not sure if they will sell only the bracket.

Light bar mounting
I decided to make my own brackets since the mounting points are pretty simple. I started with a piece of cardboard and began cutting until I was able to match all the mounting points from both the grill and light bar. I went to Home Depot and bought two 5 inch L shape brackets and cut them accordingly. I just sprayed painted them black to avoid rust and to give it a cleaner look and done.

Light bar wiring
I wired the light bar into my factory 15 amp Aux switch. The factory pigtail is located next to the windshield washer fluid reservoir, it’s the all black cable within the pigtail. The light bar only had 2 wires a positive(red) & ground(black). I just had to connect the positive from the light bar to the black wire in the pigtail, then connected the ground from the light bar to a grounded screw nearby.

Baja S2 sport Baja S2 sport
I decided to go with the Baja S2 sport because of the serviceable items and interchangeable lens. They were a bit frustrating to install because of all the assembly required since you pretty much need to assemble your own kit from the package Baja sends you. The wiring Baja provided made that part simple and easy. It all plugged into the original harness which your able to turn on/off the lights by using the original fog light switch.

Raptor style lights
I had installed these exact lights on my original trd off road grill that the vehicle came with. I spaced them 8.5 inches apart since the grill is wide enough to pull it off. I run these lights as my DRL for added safety plus they look nice. They are tapped into a fuse that is on when the truck is on. This 2nd time around I decided to mount the lights from the inside the grill vs the previous method which were mounted from the outside the grill. This definitely is the cleaner install as it looks like the grill would have came this way. I made the first cut for each light using the smallest drill bit and increased 2 sizes. Once I was able to fit the diamond drill bit in my Dremel I began to slowly and patiently cut the rectangular shape of the led to make the light fit snug. Bought them from Amazon, brand is Seven Sparta.

Outcome

What did you find to be the best instruction reference for pulling apart the front bumper and grille to do both the upper grille and lower fog replacements?

 

[UndergroundTRD]

What did you find to be the best instruction reference for pulling apart the front bumper and grille to do both the upper grille and lower fog replacements?

For the bumper removal and replacement of the light bar I found the video from “Rave Off Road” to be very useful. For the fog light removal I just went for it since it was pretty obvious. For the installation of the fog lights I used the instructions that came with the Baja Designs. I’ve seen a few videos on YouTube from folks replacing the fog lamps, you shouldn’t have issues finding those.

Sponsored