Tacoma
Member
- Thread starter
- #1
**Disclaimer: I am not responsible for anything that may go wrong with your attempt at anything in this process. If you are unsure about something, ask questions/figure it out before proceeding. Vehicles are expensive things, and fixes for them can also be expensive. Additionally you are working with electricity which has its own inherent dangers. Be safe. ***
So this got pretty long, but figured I'd add too much info rather than not enough, just to help anyone else out who may want to tackle a similar modification. I hope you all enjoy and don't get too bored by the end of it.
A few weeks back I had the idea of putting LEDs into the hood scoop, but wasn't sure how to get the hood scoop off as I had unbolted 3 bolts under the hood mat and the scoop didn't budge. I assumed it had some automotive tape and didn't want to risk pulling the whole thing off. Then @Kielly made a post with some great info and my ADHD mind went to town on formulating a plan. I figured I would do a write up with everything I learned during the process, to hopefully help someone that may want to tackle this, avoid some of the issues I ran into/use the steps to fit their own preferences.
During this process, I'd recommend testing the lights between major steps to assure they are still working before moving on. Additionally, any time you are about to connect to a power source, disconnect the battery prior to hooking everything up, then once everything is situated/connected properly, reconnect the truck battery.
Step 1: I popped off all of the hood mat plugs. This in itself was WAY harder than it needed to be, and a few got destroyed so I had to get some extras from the parts Dept at my local Toyota dealership.
*PSA - the ones on amazon may or may not fit. The ones from my dealership were almost $2.50/plug (which is asinine for what they are) so I went on amazon to
find some. They are there, but may be slightly different for different models or generations. I could not get the ones I found to push into the existing holes,
so they went back.
Step 2: You will find 3 bolts under the hood, directly under where the hood scoop is. BUT there is a 4th, directly in line with the one you'll find in the middle, but further back and inset into the hood a bit, along with being hidden by the hoses for the wiper fluid jets. You're gonna want to unbolt that one as well, so 4 in total. Once you have unbolted these, just pull up on the hood scoop and it should pop right off. There are multiple plastic tabs holding the scoop in place as well, but they are not hard to get pulled out.
Step 3: remove the 4 screws in the bottom of the hood scoop, it will allow you to get inside, and separate the painted cover of the hood scoop from the rest of the scoop (ignore the wires, this is a post LED placement picture but wanted to have a picture of what I was talking about)
**Put the painted part somewhere safe as to not damage the paint!**
Step 4: Decide how you want to affix and place your LEDs. Clean the hood scoop with isopropyl alcohol mixed with water. If you don't clean it, nothing is going to stick, you want things to stick. Tape the LEDs in place and figure out the best way to do so before you go and permanently attach them. Try the cover (painted portion) back on and make sure everything closes up as normal.
From here on out, the steps may change for you depending on the route you go in installing. I will be writing up how I completed mine.
I went as fairly unusual route with the lights I chose to use. I have a ton of smart lighting in my home, and wanted to stay within one of the main brands I use to prevent needing another app. Additionally, I wanted the ability to control nearly every aspect of the lights, including control each LED sparely from the others - color, tone, brightness, etc. so that I can change things up from time to time, and I'm anal and want to make sure any white or orange I decide to use match the white and orange of the stock lights. So, in reference to those desires, I have permanent outdoor lights on my house. I had to cut one of the strands of these lights to be shorter and fit a specific spot on the house so I had these LEDs left over - "free LEDs" if you will. So I decided to use those. You can buy these lights as a kit, but they are for a house and are not cheap. If I would not have had these lights left over I would not have gone this route as very nice LEDs can be had for much cheaper. But if you want to go this route and have questions about the lights themselves feel free to DM me.
Step 5: Affix the LEDs to the scoop. I decided to use some 3m VHB pads that came with the light to affix 3 of them in the front portion of the scoop. I used a pad on the bottom edge of the light, and another on the top edge. The bottom edge will be adhered directly to the "inside" /black tray portion of the scoop while the top will adhere directly to the painted scoop cover. I then looped the excess wire between the lights, running towards the back of the scoop. To assure that they stayed looped, I used heat shrink tubing to cinch them. I decided to loop the wire rather than cut and splice simply because the wire could be hidden and this would reduce possible points of failure, but splicing would be an option. Side note: I had to color these lights black as they usually come white. It doesn't look amazing by any means but they're hidden in the scoop so it'll be ok. I used a Sharpie Pro (which holds up amazing in weather).
Step 6: I then used 20AWG wire to splice to the end of the LEDs to give me length to run the wire from the hood scoop, down through the hood, and around the engine bay to the power source. Then I secured the loose wires. I used "T-Rex Extreme Hold AllWeather Mounting Tape" to do so. I have used this on multiple other projects that have to endure the elements and it works very well. In the picture above you can see, on the left hand side, the amount of adhesive on this stuff as I barely had it brush the bottom part of the scoop tray as I was pushing it up against the tray wall.
Step 7: Put the cover back onto the tray portion of the scoop. Button it all up and make sure everything is seated and LEDs are staying where you want them and the wire to your power source is existing the scoop where you want it. I ran mine out of the back driver side corner. Then put the 4 screws you removed earlier back in (refer back to 1st picture)
Step 8: Run the wire to the bottom side of the hood through whichever hole will work best for you. It is possible to add an additional hole in the hood, but I was too scared to do so. I just removed the back driver side plastic plug that holds that corner to the hood and ran the cable through that. I originally cut the "plug portion" of that plastic plug off and placed 3m tape on the bottom, hoping that it would just adhere to the hood over the wire. There are pictures below, but this didn't work as well as I had hoped so I pulled the plug back off. I am currently not running anything in that corner to hold the scoop and haven't had any issues. Fish the wire out of the nearest opening in the bottom of the hood, then place the scoop back on.
Step 9: Secure the wire to the route you need it to take. I used zip ties to run it parallel to the windshield wiper fluid lines.
Step 10: Run the wire to the auxiliary pigtail towards the front of the engine bay (refer to the manual for exact location), and connect there. This will provide 12vAC power. It will allow you to control the lights by pressing the auxiliary buttons to the left of the dash. I, however, did not go this route because Iike to make things more difficult than they need to be. It's one of my greatest gifts.
This is were I ran into an issue. I originally thought I read the auxiliary pigtails were capable of 120V... they are not, they are 12V, which makes WAY more sense. My problem was that these particular LEDs required a power converter and a controller to be able to do what I wanted with them as far as control went, and obviously they're made form a home and being plugged into a 120v outlet. So from there I had 2 options:
1) use the 12v auxiliary pigtail and use an inverter to get up to 120v
2) Figure out how to tap into/use the 120V already equipped in the truck
Option 1 is very doable, and was originally the route I was going to take. My plan was to house the inverter in the engine bay in a weatherproof box. There are a few issues with this route, the biggest being heat from the engine bay. Electronics tend to wear faster under constant high temps. The weatherproof box would have prevented issues from dust and moisture (also killers of modern electronics) but the heat likely would have caused premature death of the inverter. Additionally, finding an inverter that would fit into a box that would fit into an empty space in the engine bay proved to be a hurdle as amazon dimensions aren't always the most accurate. I ended up deciding I was going to house everything in the cabin of the truck instead.
Step 11: Run the wire through the firewall of the truck. There are multiple places one can do this, I chose the driver side as I could easily get access from the inside from the footwell. There is a large grommet fairly low in the engine bay with a nice thick bundle of wire coming out of the middle, and a smaller cable coming out on top, with a little blue stopper on it (I believe it's the hood latch cable). Under the thicker bundle is a little nipple similar to the one the hood latch cable is coming out of, but it's domed over - ie not open into the cabin of the truck. Cut the tip off and you now have a passage through the fire wall (there is a little line about a quarter of an inch from the tip that appears to be an indicator of where it needs to be cut to be used). Run your wire through that passage.
Step 12: Locate the wire in the driver side footwell. There is padding that will be covering where the wire comes through, it is already cut and loose, then just pushed over the grommet. Just pull it back and you should see your wire. Pull your wire through. There is another auxiliary port just to the left of where this grommet is, inside the cabin. This is another option for the power source (again refer to the manual for exact location).
This is where I began to tear the interior of the truck apart trying to find a good spot for an inverter... I couldn't find one. The only reasonable place, out of site, was under the back seat, but would have required running a lot of extension cable from the pigtail to the inverter for power, which seemed to defeat the purpose of these pre installed power sources. So, I decided to ditch the inverter and use the existing 120v power supply that Toyota kindly provided behind the center console.
Step 13: Remove the dash piece from under the steering wheel, in the driver side footwell, and run your cable towards the center of the truck (at this point I had to splice the power plug onto the end of my cable as it has a very specific plug that connects into the controller for the lights, which in turn has a specific plug to connect into the power box needed for the lights). I ran my cable along the A/C duct and zip tied it, then tucked the cable under the edge of the center console to the rear of the vehicle
Step 14: Disconnect your battery! You will now be working with wires that may have electricity running through them. To access the 120V cables, pop the housing off the back of the center console. Locate the wires going to the 120v plug. Tap in to these. I used inline T-taps to prevent having to cut the actual existing wires, and make it easy to put back to OEM if I decide to ever get rid of the set up. I then bundles the excess cable with zip ties, and affixed the power block with more 3m VHB pads. Then affixed my extractable bundle to the existing cable bundle, and put the cover back on (if pops off pretty easily). I also ran some cable from the controller that's mounted in the center console storage but that's not really pertinent to the overall process for most people.
Step 15: Reconnect your battery. Test your set up, make sure everything is working properly and to your liking, then put everything back together.
- Put the cover back on the center console
- Re-place the dash piece under the steering column
- Make sure the hood scoop is fully seated, re-bolt the 4 bolts
- Re-place the hood mat
Step 16: Enjoy the fruits of your labor
I will have to snap some better night pictures, and probably day as well, but it gives an idea of what it looks like. The colors match the white and orange of the stock lights much better than what the pictures would lead you to believe, I think them being angled differently and at different heights is throwing the camera off. Overall I am very happy with the results, the only downside of this route (using the 120V power source) is the button has to be turned on manually every time I get into the vehicle. Not a big issue, but the auxiliary stay on until turned off which is nice.
I hope this helps at least one person have their install go more efficiently. I did not proof read this as it took way longer than I anticipated and I am mentally incapable of doing so at the moment. I will do that some other time, so please forgive any grammatical/spelling errors!
So this got pretty long, but figured I'd add too much info rather than not enough, just to help anyone else out who may want to tackle a similar modification. I hope you all enjoy and don't get too bored by the end of it.
A few weeks back I had the idea of putting LEDs into the hood scoop, but wasn't sure how to get the hood scoop off as I had unbolted 3 bolts under the hood mat and the scoop didn't budge. I assumed it had some automotive tape and didn't want to risk pulling the whole thing off. Then @Kielly made a post with some great info and my ADHD mind went to town on formulating a plan. I figured I would do a write up with everything I learned during the process, to hopefully help someone that may want to tackle this, avoid some of the issues I ran into/use the steps to fit their own preferences.
During this process, I'd recommend testing the lights between major steps to assure they are still working before moving on. Additionally, any time you are about to connect to a power source, disconnect the battery prior to hooking everything up, then once everything is situated/connected properly, reconnect the truck battery.
Step 1: I popped off all of the hood mat plugs. This in itself was WAY harder than it needed to be, and a few got destroyed so I had to get some extras from the parts Dept at my local Toyota dealership.
*PSA - the ones on amazon may or may not fit. The ones from my dealership were almost $2.50/plug (which is asinine for what they are) so I went on amazon to
find some. They are there, but may be slightly different for different models or generations. I could not get the ones I found to push into the existing holes,
so they went back.
Step 2: You will find 3 bolts under the hood, directly under where the hood scoop is. BUT there is a 4th, directly in line with the one you'll find in the middle, but further back and inset into the hood a bit, along with being hidden by the hoses for the wiper fluid jets. You're gonna want to unbolt that one as well, so 4 in total. Once you have unbolted these, just pull up on the hood scoop and it should pop right off. There are multiple plastic tabs holding the scoop in place as well, but they are not hard to get pulled out.
Step 3: remove the 4 screws in the bottom of the hood scoop, it will allow you to get inside, and separate the painted cover of the hood scoop from the rest of the scoop (ignore the wires, this is a post LED placement picture but wanted to have a picture of what I was talking about)
**Put the painted part somewhere safe as to not damage the paint!**
Step 4: Decide how you want to affix and place your LEDs. Clean the hood scoop with isopropyl alcohol mixed with water. If you don't clean it, nothing is going to stick, you want things to stick. Tape the LEDs in place and figure out the best way to do so before you go and permanently attach them. Try the cover (painted portion) back on and make sure everything closes up as normal.
From here on out, the steps may change for you depending on the route you go in installing. I will be writing up how I completed mine.
I went as fairly unusual route with the lights I chose to use. I have a ton of smart lighting in my home, and wanted to stay within one of the main brands I use to prevent needing another app. Additionally, I wanted the ability to control nearly every aspect of the lights, including control each LED sparely from the others - color, tone, brightness, etc. so that I can change things up from time to time, and I'm anal and want to make sure any white or orange I decide to use match the white and orange of the stock lights. So, in reference to those desires, I have permanent outdoor lights on my house. I had to cut one of the strands of these lights to be shorter and fit a specific spot on the house so I had these LEDs left over - "free LEDs" if you will. So I decided to use those. You can buy these lights as a kit, but they are for a house and are not cheap. If I would not have had these lights left over I would not have gone this route as very nice LEDs can be had for much cheaper. But if you want to go this route and have questions about the lights themselves feel free to DM me.
Step 5: Affix the LEDs to the scoop. I decided to use some 3m VHB pads that came with the light to affix 3 of them in the front portion of the scoop. I used a pad on the bottom edge of the light, and another on the top edge. The bottom edge will be adhered directly to the "inside" /black tray portion of the scoop while the top will adhere directly to the painted scoop cover. I then looped the excess wire between the lights, running towards the back of the scoop. To assure that they stayed looped, I used heat shrink tubing to cinch them. I decided to loop the wire rather than cut and splice simply because the wire could be hidden and this would reduce possible points of failure, but splicing would be an option. Side note: I had to color these lights black as they usually come white. It doesn't look amazing by any means but they're hidden in the scoop so it'll be ok. I used a Sharpie Pro (which holds up amazing in weather).
Step 6: I then used 20AWG wire to splice to the end of the LEDs to give me length to run the wire from the hood scoop, down through the hood, and around the engine bay to the power source. Then I secured the loose wires. I used "T-Rex Extreme Hold AllWeather Mounting Tape" to do so. I have used this on multiple other projects that have to endure the elements and it works very well. In the picture above you can see, on the left hand side, the amount of adhesive on this stuff as I barely had it brush the bottom part of the scoop tray as I was pushing it up against the tray wall.
Step 7: Put the cover back onto the tray portion of the scoop. Button it all up and make sure everything is seated and LEDs are staying where you want them and the wire to your power source is existing the scoop where you want it. I ran mine out of the back driver side corner. Then put the 4 screws you removed earlier back in (refer back to 1st picture)
Step 8: Run the wire to the bottom side of the hood through whichever hole will work best for you. It is possible to add an additional hole in the hood, but I was too scared to do so. I just removed the back driver side plastic plug that holds that corner to the hood and ran the cable through that. I originally cut the "plug portion" of that plastic plug off and placed 3m tape on the bottom, hoping that it would just adhere to the hood over the wire. There are pictures below, but this didn't work as well as I had hoped so I pulled the plug back off. I am currently not running anything in that corner to hold the scoop and haven't had any issues. Fish the wire out of the nearest opening in the bottom of the hood, then place the scoop back on.
Step 9: Secure the wire to the route you need it to take. I used zip ties to run it parallel to the windshield wiper fluid lines.
Step 10: Run the wire to the auxiliary pigtail towards the front of the engine bay (refer to the manual for exact location), and connect there. This will provide 12vAC power. It will allow you to control the lights by pressing the auxiliary buttons to the left of the dash. I, however, did not go this route because Iike to make things more difficult than they need to be. It's one of my greatest gifts.
This is were I ran into an issue. I originally thought I read the auxiliary pigtails were capable of 120V... they are not, they are 12V, which makes WAY more sense. My problem was that these particular LEDs required a power converter and a controller to be able to do what I wanted with them as far as control went, and obviously they're made form a home and being plugged into a 120v outlet. So from there I had 2 options:
1) use the 12v auxiliary pigtail and use an inverter to get up to 120v
2) Figure out how to tap into/use the 120V already equipped in the truck
Option 1 is very doable, and was originally the route I was going to take. My plan was to house the inverter in the engine bay in a weatherproof box. There are a few issues with this route, the biggest being heat from the engine bay. Electronics tend to wear faster under constant high temps. The weatherproof box would have prevented issues from dust and moisture (also killers of modern electronics) but the heat likely would have caused premature death of the inverter. Additionally, finding an inverter that would fit into a box that would fit into an empty space in the engine bay proved to be a hurdle as amazon dimensions aren't always the most accurate. I ended up deciding I was going to house everything in the cabin of the truck instead.
Step 11: Run the wire through the firewall of the truck. There are multiple places one can do this, I chose the driver side as I could easily get access from the inside from the footwell. There is a large grommet fairly low in the engine bay with a nice thick bundle of wire coming out of the middle, and a smaller cable coming out on top, with a little blue stopper on it (I believe it's the hood latch cable). Under the thicker bundle is a little nipple similar to the one the hood latch cable is coming out of, but it's domed over - ie not open into the cabin of the truck. Cut the tip off and you now have a passage through the fire wall (there is a little line about a quarter of an inch from the tip that appears to be an indicator of where it needs to be cut to be used). Run your wire through that passage.
Step 12: Locate the wire in the driver side footwell. There is padding that will be covering where the wire comes through, it is already cut and loose, then just pushed over the grommet. Just pull it back and you should see your wire. Pull your wire through. There is another auxiliary port just to the left of where this grommet is, inside the cabin. This is another option for the power source (again refer to the manual for exact location).
This is where I began to tear the interior of the truck apart trying to find a good spot for an inverter... I couldn't find one. The only reasonable place, out of site, was under the back seat, but would have required running a lot of extension cable from the pigtail to the inverter for power, which seemed to defeat the purpose of these pre installed power sources. So, I decided to ditch the inverter and use the existing 120v power supply that Toyota kindly provided behind the center console.
Step 13: Remove the dash piece from under the steering wheel, in the driver side footwell, and run your cable towards the center of the truck (at this point I had to splice the power plug onto the end of my cable as it has a very specific plug that connects into the controller for the lights, which in turn has a specific plug to connect into the power box needed for the lights). I ran my cable along the A/C duct and zip tied it, then tucked the cable under the edge of the center console to the rear of the vehicle
Step 14: Disconnect your battery! You will now be working with wires that may have electricity running through them. To access the 120V cables, pop the housing off the back of the center console. Locate the wires going to the 120v plug. Tap in to these. I used inline T-taps to prevent having to cut the actual existing wires, and make it easy to put back to OEM if I decide to ever get rid of the set up. I then bundles the excess cable with zip ties, and affixed the power block with more 3m VHB pads. Then affixed my extractable bundle to the existing cable bundle, and put the cover back on (if pops off pretty easily). I also ran some cable from the controller that's mounted in the center console storage but that's not really pertinent to the overall process for most people.
Step 15: Reconnect your battery. Test your set up, make sure everything is working properly and to your liking, then put everything back together.
- Put the cover back on the center console
- Re-place the dash piece under the steering column
- Make sure the hood scoop is fully seated, re-bolt the 4 bolts
- Re-place the hood mat
Step 16: Enjoy the fruits of your labor
I will have to snap some better night pictures, and probably day as well, but it gives an idea of what it looks like. The colors match the white and orange of the stock lights much better than what the pictures would lead you to believe, I think them being angled differently and at different heights is throwing the camera off. Overall I am very happy with the results, the only downside of this route (using the 120V power source) is the button has to be turned on manually every time I get into the vehicle. Not a big issue, but the auxiliary stay on until turned off which is nice.
I hope this helps at least one person have their install go more efficiently. I did not proof read this as it took way longer than I anticipated and I am mentally incapable of doing so at the moment. I will do that some other time, so please forgive any grammatical/spelling errors!
Sponsored
Last edited:
