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Thanks for all the positive feedback guys. I will be under the hood this weekend to do the fender wire harnes re-location - so I will take some pics & do a DIY write up.
I took some night pics from my phone last night but it came out bad. I'll take some night shots this weekend with a regular camera to show you how it looks at night.
Was it worth it? Absolutely!
The most expensive part was the LED bulbs. I paid $50 for the set back when I bought them. Now they go for $25 per set around here. I got them at a local meet on Friday nights - some vendors set up and sell HID's, LED's, etc.
Sorry for the delay.
I tore the meniscus in my knee and was out of commision for a while.
Surgery, and now physical therapy. But now getting back to normal.
Tools / materials needed:
Electrical tester
Electrical tape / liquid
Remote type wire
Wire (I used extra remote wire - royal Blue)
2 color 1157 bulb (White for constant & amber for when you use your blinkers or hazard lights) I paid $50 for the paid of these bulbs. I heard they are available for $25 for the pair these days...
So - the point is to get the "constant power" from the park lights. Use the electrical tester to confirm which is giving power.
I spliced the contant (power) wire from the park lights and ran it to the corner lights plug. See pic 1 & 2.
The bulb must have 2 contacts and have 2 colors. See pics # 3,4, & 5.
Hope this helps.
Feel free to ask questions.
I have had this mod for at least 6 months and have not had any issues.
As long as you use a bulb that has amber / orange - then it will work fine and be legal when you put your turning signal on or your hazards.
If you look at the original post - it shows how it looks with the turn signal on, and how it looks with just the lights on.
As long as you use a bulb that has amber / orange - then it will work fine and be legal when you put your turning signal on or your hazards.
If you look at the original post - it shows how it looks with the turn signal on, and how it looks with just the lights on.
Anyone try this mod?
EDIT: It’s actually a 1157 that’s not fully wired in!
It’s unclear to me how a 1156 socket (turn signal) can act like an 1157 (dual duty DRL and signal light) just by running a constant 12v to it.
Also when signaling did it go amber-white-amber-white OR amber-off-amber-off?
If you look at our turn signal sockets closely, you will see that they are 1157 sockets and use 1157 bulbs, its just a wire is missing (the 3rd port in the socket is plugged with a rubber stopper).
The missing wire would run power to the parking/running light, low watt filament of the 1157 bulb.
The current wiring in the car is setup so that the turn signal is the higher watt filament of the 1157, and the other wire is ground.
If you feed a pinned wire into the plugged port and wire it to a switched power source, you can activate the low watt side of the bulb with no adverse effects to the higher wattage turn signals.
It appears Lexus designed the car to have parking lights in the turn signal housing but for some reason decided not to. Speculation is that wire meant for the socket is now routed for the front sidemarkers.
He appears to have dual color LED bulbs. So his signals are white when he has the lights on as parking//running//DRLs. Then if he uses his turn signal, the white LEDs turn off and the amber LEDs turn on.
I'm pretty sure this is called a LED switchback bulb.
In my car the running light stays on all the time when the parking lights are activated. I just have a typical white LED 1157 in there. So when I use the signals the dimmer LEDs stay on and the signal LEDs turn on also. So my bulbs basically flash 3x in brightness when signaling
Thanks @1997Soarer, I opened her up and had a look and yes the signals do use an amber 1157 bulb but the low wattage element isn't ever used by the factory. Seems like a waste.
Makes sense now! You're right the signal socket is for 1157 but the 3rd port isn't used and that's where I spliced the 12v (green wire from the socket next door) and ran a wire into the rubber stopper (had to drill and cut it open to get the wire through it).
See pics for reference. Switchback bulbs on order so I'll be running this set up pretty soon! Thanks for your help.
splice, solder and tape up the green 12v wire from the parking light socket next door third socket (white wire) was added new from the spliced 12v line and inserted through the drilled rubber stopper
And for anyone else who wants to do this mod, you can go to your local Lexus/Toyota dealership and ask for a pinned wire to feed into that socket. Basically every dealership stocks pinned light socket wires (they are like 4in or 6in long) to repair melted or damaged light sockets or sensors in cars. I believe if you order wires for external light sockets, it comes with the rubber seal already on the wire. You just pop the rubber plug out and feed the pinned wire in. After that, wire it to a switched power source.
Or you can just raid a junkyard and grab some lightsockets off any other Lexus Toyota car.
If you don't want to go thru a dealership for new wires, there is a guy named Tyeler on FB and he used to sell the pinned wires. It's been a few years since he made posts about it on FB, but he's in all the SC groups and he's still active. He's also local to me. He's one of the head parts guys for a chevy dealership near me
OK I was too stubborn to quit and finally figured out why it wasn’t working. The pads on the bulb were too flat and weren’t contacting the prongs in the socket. See the pics.
I had to heat up the pads and add way more solder to made them taller. Now they work perfectly!
Pads after heightening them with more solder You may have to get a little screwdriver and pry the prongs up a bit to ensure contact with the bulb Resistor installed and mounted into the frame. I only used 1 screw but it’s tight enough.
Signal flashing on (notice the cornering light below) Signal flashing off The switchback (notice the cornering light is off). This is now the regular running light mode.
09-24-10, 12:50 PM
