hemlockz
Well-known member
- Thread starter
- #1
I ordered the TrailHunter grille (53101-AK070) before my truck arrived. It's got the bronze lettered TOYOTA and flat black plastic and below that a place for a 20 inch lightbar. I don't know where to get an OEM lightbar you can order separately, and I wasn't ready to spend hundreds of dollars on a top of the line name brand lightbar.
So instead I landed on something called LightFox from Amazon and it looked very similar on paper to the Heretic. It's a slim (single row of LEDs) lightbar just about the width of the hole in the Trailhunter grille. Allegedly 12,560 lumens, IP68 rated and ~100W output with a mixture of spot and flood beam patterns. For $80 I decided to take a chance on it, knowing I'd have to figure out my own wiring and mounting solution. (Make no mistake, it is simply rebranded Chinese crap, and there are other brands ('NiLight', 'Jiepeng') that have identical looking products all in the same price range) So I could probably have found it even cheaper from AliExpress or something...
This particular bar came quickly with good packaging and an assortment of stainless steel fasteners, aluminum brackets, tools, and 4 different sets of colored plastic accent pieces. I had to remove those pieces to make it fit flush into the grille though:
For mounting the lightbar, the trail hunter grille seems to accept #10 x 5/8" stainless screws into the untapped holes it comes with. I used 4 of these screws and a galvanized 3/4" x 20-gauge Simpson Strong Tie (ST2115) to hold the bar to the grille. Total cost for this mounting solution was $2.24. It looks like this:
I made the lightbar cable be on the drivers side, so it can plug in there to the available circuit.
There are good videos out there with the removal and installation of the grille, (meaning removing fender flares, liners, shutter, etc..) It takes a couple hours the first time. There are several screws, bolts, pop its, and 35 plastic tabs holding the grille to the bezel.
Once the grille was installed it was time to connect two wires. I have the 3 prewired Aux switches. I used the green wire (AUX2) 10A circuit. The LightFox bar came with a DT Connector. I ordered a two pack of DT pigtails for $8.99 and wired one of them up to my Aux pigtail like so:
I didn't have heat shrink, so I wrapped each wire with electrical tape, then wrapped the bundle up together after soldering. The AUX cables were a little confusing at first, because I could have used either one: they each have the 10A circuit (Green wire) broken out. The only difference wiring it this way from the trail hunter stock, is the lightbar will be independent of the brights, whereas trail hunter has this lightbar tied into the brights. Wiring it like that would be nice if you were thinking of driving around it with on... but I don't see myself doing that. Its way too bright.
One other detail- I have a front camera, and this grille uses a different bracket. Fortunately, that was solved here already by @Gurvy522 in his thread here, I actually bought the bracket from him... then I lost it... so I download his 3D design and ordered a reprint for like $13. It fit perfectly! My tip for this if you have the camera is to make sure you have a T7 Torx head driver on hand to remove the screws that hold the camera in. You'll have taken your truck apart by that stage, and don't want to be stuck unable to continue! Here is a picture. T7!
Highbeams vs Lightbar
Okay these pictures don't do it justice. ... It's like night and day tough. My camera seems to be adjusting brightness balance automatically, but the area and depth of field is immensely improved with the light bar. Maybe I can get a video to show. But compared to high beams, this thing at least doubles the range and field of view in all directions.
Anyway that's my budget Light Bar setup:
OEM Grille: $280.00
Lightbar: $80.00
Camera Bracket: $13.00
DT Pigtial: $4.50
Mounting Bracket: $2.40
Total setup $379.89
Sponsored
Last edited: