Banpei's two door panda Trueno from Japan

[banpei]

Yes indeed, all I need is 12V for power, splice that into two leads. One will be going to the lamps and one will be going to the switch to send the 12V signal.

I'll have to see what my fusebox looks like whether I need to splice anything. I found out some of the Japanese do have a fuse for the fog light already installed:

It makes sense for the kouki Levin to have such a fuse installed for the factory fog lights.

I did find the zenki fuse box cover lacking that position:

In that case, I could probably use that position to install a fuse for the fog lights and draw the power from there.

Thanks for the offer for the switch, but I already have one:

I bought this one about two years ago when I was planning to install the Cibie fog lights.

[sheppardpat47]

Maaaan your new custom fog lights looks absolutely amazing!!! So cool !

[banpei]

Yesterday I fabricated a shorter bracket:

Stupid me didn't wear gloves, so I both cut myself and burned my index finger, and only then did I regret not wearing gloves.

This morning I fitted the bracket:

It appears to fit nicely, but in reality it didn't...

When making the bracket shorter, as it's under an angle, it will also retract inwards:

It's clear the cover can't open as it's now too close to the bumper (which is also under an angle), and the bolt at the bottom touches my front lip. So I cut and burned myself for nothing.

This afternoon, I fabricated another bracket that is a copy of the Cibie prototype I made earlier.

I also had a look at the fusebox:

The fusebox is missing pins for the fog lights that are present on the kouki fusebox. I used the multimeter to see if I made an error, but unfortunately, there is no pin connecting to the other side of the unused fuse. This means I'll have to modify the fusebox after all, so get it out and add a bunch of wires to it.

I'm now toying with the idea to simply abuse the cigarette lighter as it's easily accessible, and if I can find the right connectors, I can just create a piece of wiring that fits between the connector and the lighter.

[Koen]

So this is going to be the final mounting position? As you made a second bracket like this one?



Can't you make it stick out more forward so that it will clear the bumper when opening in the higher mounting position?

[banpei]

(05-31-2026 09:42 AM)Koen Wrote:  So this is going to be the final mounting position? As you made a second bracket like this one?

Can't you make it stick out more forward so that it will clear the bumper when opening in the higher mounting position?

That's indeed what I did now. I took the same dimensions as the first one, but made the angle shallow to add more clearance and have it closer to the top of the bumper:

I could have gone further, but I'm happy enough with the result.

This is how it looks right now:



The reason why I wanted the lights to be mounted higher becomes clear in these photos:


The yellow fog lights don't align with the yellow license plate. If they had been mounted higher, like the previous brackets I made, they would have aligned perfectly with the bottom of the plate.

As my plates are the "US"-sized plates (what we call 18.2 in the Netherland), I had to use a US-license plate holder that's bigger than the plate. What I'll do is see if I can put that plate holder upside down, and that should hopefully align the fog lights with the plate. If I remember correctly, I attached the holder to the original Japanese mounting points and then attached the plates with two bolts (hence the two round yellow plastic covers) on top of that. I'll have to redrill the holes for attaching the plates and see if I can find black plastic covers for covering the bolts attaching the holder to the top of the bumper.

I haven't been able to do the wiring of these lights yet, but I did confirm the cigarette lighter is switched by the ignition barrel. When set to Accessories, 12V+ will be sent to the cigarette lighter.
I also checked the connector:

The pins in red is 12V+, black is ground. The other two are used for illumination when the dashboard illumination is on.

Unfortunately, the generic connector I found in my basement isn't the same size and shape as the Toyota ones. I was luckier with the chime, where it kind of matched a generic 3-pin connector. What I'll do is extract the existing wires with the pins from the old Toyota connectors and then press them into a new generic 4-pin connector (both male and female). This then allows me to put a generic 4-pin connector harness between the two to tap 12V+ from the cigarette lighter. The local auto parts store was all out of old-fashioned generic automotive connectors, so I'm now awaiting delivery of a box full of them.
(and don't comment on the Frankenstein-radio wiring: it's alive!)

[Ivan141]

Those connectors are still available to purchase new, but they are a bit more expensive than generic stuff. I believe the manufacturer is Yazaki.

[banpei]

Thanks, Ivan, thanks to your suggestion, I found them. The Yazaki part numbers are 7122-2840 and 7123-2840. I didn't order them though, the shipping for my order of 3,88 euros would have been 25 euros. I'll just await the cheap generic automotive connectors...

This early morning, I returned to the garage with my cordless drill. It turned out that I attached the license plate holder with two tie wraps. With eight new holes drilled, I was able to mount them upside down without a lot of hassle:

Now the fog lights are nicely vertically-centred to the license plate.
The tie wraps are now exposed, and I think this was the reason to mount them this way. To make the holder extra secure, I have added a hidden tie wrap behind the plate.

Last night I also realised that I now have four pop-ups:

More = better!

[sheppardpat47]

Man it looks so good for non OEM ones! They look amazing!

[Koen]

Excellent DIY result!

[banpei]

Thanks!

Earlier this week, these clips by FK's Factory arrived:

These are supposed to be reproduction clips for the OEM wind deflectors. Without these, you can lose them when the windows are wound down.

They basically push them in place:

The placement is simple: the wind deflectors are wedged between the window moulding and the rubber window seals. These tabs then need to be aligned with the four tabs on the wind deflectors, and then they push the seals against the deflectors even when the windows are wound down.

In case anyone needs these clips, you can find FK's factory here. They don't seem to be in stock anymore, but maybe he will reproduce them once more.

The cheap generic automotive connectors also arrived, but I had the same feeling when ordering stuff from Temu, and it finally arrived after weeks of waiting: the connectors were way smaller than the advertised photo showed. |
This means a simple unclip-and-swap will not work. I'm not too keen to strip the original wires and crimp new pins on them as these cables are already relatively short. So in the end, I'll just order the OEM ones and keep these in storage for future projects.

Yesterday, I also attended an oldtimer event in my hometown. Even though it was parked next to a Lotus Esprit Turbo in John Player's livery, the Trueno received a lot of attention. It certainly helps that the autocover fog lights now have the Toyota branding on them, as now I get a lot of questions about what type of Toyota it is. To my surprise, there was even someone teaching his kids about the autocover fog lights. He and his oldest son watched Initial D together. My son wasn't interested in watching it, but maybe I should when my daughter is old enough to understand English well enough!


As usual, I forgot to take any photos of the Trueno, but here's the side marker on the photo of the Lotus Esprit.