Banpei's two door panda Trueno from Japan

[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!)