How To: Fit facelift front indicators

How to fit Facelift front indicators

PDF Version - http://www.mkivsupra.net/vbb/attachment.php?attachmentid=105236&d=1265985241

This is a short guide with photos on how to fit the facelift clear front indicators that you will find on ebay from the US.

You can have these lights as all indicators or as indicators and extra sidelights, the wiring is only slightly different for each way and I’ll explain that later on. I decided to have the extra sidelights as I think it looks cool :o)

What you will need:

Two facelift lenses

Two facelift looms from Toyota, part number 81515-14390

A soldering iron and some solder

Wire cutters

Black insulating tape and if possible some 3mm heat shrink

8mm and 10mm spanner (ratchet spanners would be very handy!)

10mm socket and ratchet may come in useful

Two 21w orange bulbs

Two 5w orange bulbs (for indicators) or Two 5w clear bulbs (for sidelights)

Two 30cm lengths of red wire suitable for a 5w current draw (if going for sidelights)

What to do:

Firstly, on the passenger side lens you will need to make some alterations. The bigger of the two bulb holders will not clip in as the lugs on it are a different shape. I used a stanley knife and small sidecutters to enlarge the lug holes as in the pictures below.

The back of your lens should now look a little more like this.

Once this is done, double check that your looms fit in to the lenses ok.

Now you need to remove your headlights from the car. I’ll concentrate on the drivers side, but the passenger side is just the mirror of it.

Each headlight has one bolt and two nuts holding it in. The bolt is toward the middle of the car on the headlight and the two nuts are just inside from the wing. These two nuts aren’t easy to get to, especially the lower of the two.

On the drivers side you can remove the airbox cover and filter if you still have them to give you more room.

On the passenger side I had to remove my alarm siren to give me space to get there. Removing the battery would also give you extra room.

You should now be able to unplug the headlight loom from the back of the headlight unit. Some of the clips are a bit of a pain to get off, but it’s best to leave all the bulbholders in the headlight and unclip the loom from them.

You should be left with the following.

The drivers side is the trickiest of the two as the ducting for the airbox and for the intercooler (if you still have it) are very much in the way of a couple of the nuts for the indicator unit.

The indicator unit on my car had three nuts holding it to the bumper. Two are at the back and one is on top. If you look at the passenger side first you’ll see them quite clearly and can then pinpoint them on the drivers side.

I found the nut nearest the outside of the car was very hard to get to from behind the ducting and I didn’t want to remove all that. This is where the ratchet spanner came in very handy!

Once you get the three nuts off then the indicator unit will drop out and you can unplug the single bulb holder from it.

Now you need to start chopping the wiring, this is where you have two options.

To start with, you need to chop the old bulb holder off as close to the bulb holder as possible to give you plenty of wire to work with. The drivers side loom will unplug so you can work on it easily but the passenger side is wired in to the car unfortunately, strange!

You also need to cut the plug off of the new wiring loom you bought from Toyota. You will then have the three bare wires from the new loom and two bare wires from the existing loom.

If you want both sides of the new light to be indicators, you need to wire up both the green wires on the new loom to the green wire with black stripe on the old loom, and both the white wires with black stripe to each other.

If you want the smaller side of the light to be a sidelight then you need to leave out the solid green wire and just solder both the green wires with black lines together. See the following picture. You can see I have soldered the wires together and then covered with heat shrink which is very good for keeping a good connection.

At this point if you are having all indicators then you can start to put everything back in, in the opposite way to it coming out. I advise you to test the lights work by plugging them in and turning the hazards on before mounting them in the lenses and putting everything back, just to check the wiring!

However, if you are wiring up some sidelights as well you need to tap in to the wire on the loom for the headlight. This is very simple and won’t take much longer.

Identify the sidelight wire on the back of the headlight loom. It should be a solid green wire as in the picture below.

Use some wire cutters or a knife very carefully and strip about half inch (15mm) of the sheathing off without cutting the wire.

Solder your red wire to the green wire coming from your new indicator lens loom and tape up with insulating tape to make neat. Then, feed the wire up through the bumper and solder to the green wire coming from the sidelight on the loom from your headlight.

Here you can see the passenger side wired up ready to go back in.

Again, once all the wiring is done, test all the lights to make sure they work as they should and then start to reassemble everything in exactly the reverse of taking it out.

To put the new lenses in you will need to remove the third bolt from the casings as in the following picture as there is no hole on the pre-facelift bumper for it.

You should now have clear facelift lenses instead of the horrible orange ‘blobs’!

Good luck with the fitting!

Guide credited to i-macca and MichaelG

TechGuide - Howto_ Fitting facelift front indicators.pdf

Very helpful post, well done.

As an alternative - wire both bulbs in the new clears to flash as indicators. This serves two purposes; 1 you get a much more visible indicator and; 2 You have a backup indicator if one bulb fails.

If you use amber head lamp paint on clear bulbs, 4 coats give a good MOT friendly amber/yellow very bright and highly visible indicators without the poached egg look. (Three years and still no flaking) A cheaper option than the silvered bulbs.

thanks for that mate, thats really helpfull. i have a pair of em sat in a box in my house since april last year, i might actually get round to fitting em one day along with the facelift bumper i have sat in my shed

Great thread Michael.

And thanks to Burna and Smarty for linking to it

About a year ago I fitted some clear front Indicators which work fine however, I didn’t connect the white small side lamps which I want to work with the main side light.

Got all 6 bolts off no problem but both lights rock forward about 20mm then stop.

Seems so be fouling underneath on something and refusing to budge

Any ideas.

Have you removed the headlights, so easy to see what's happening?

The sideways stud that points towards the radiator is located in a slot in the bumper.

sideways stud pointing towards the radiator!

Didn't find that sucker

can this be pushed out the way.

the inside edge rubs on the bumper and outside edge fouls on the side panel.

Just doesn't want to pop out in either direction and I don't facy busting the lights.

In which direction should I pull?

Snarfed for the FAQ section, cracking writeup and apologies for missing it the first time around!

-Ian

sideways stud pointing towards the radiator!

Didn't find that sucker

can this be pushed out the way.

 

the inside edge rubs on the bumper and outside edge fouls on the side panel.

Just doesn't want to pop out in either direction and I don't facy busting the lights.

 

In which direction should I pull?

You need to remove the headlight if you haven't, it's easy.

found out what the problem is

A bolt bracket had bent back locking the light against the side panel.

Both lights out and wires ready to go after I've watched the F1 race on TV.

Cheers for the info gang

Done it!

Looks cool. Very Happy

That was a nice easy mod for a saturday afternoon that cost nothin.

I have the small spot lights come on with the side lights now.

Another great thread!!

Thanks very helpful

This thread desparately needs its images back again...

Can the author perhaps donate the images to the BBS to host?

would a aero top from a 89 mk3 Ma70 MkIII supra fit a 94 supra

would a aero top from a 89 mk3 Ma70 MkIII supra fit a 94 supra

Er, no.

Sorry.

Completely different body shape.

Thanks MichaelG..

Because of this post i managed to fit mine on saturday (also followed his route of new "double sides"... only had them in a box since about april last year!... ooops..

Ps if you follow this route.. the indicator bulbs i needed for the new looms from toyota i got from halfords.. light number 580 wich is diffrent from what halfords say you need... but their code for the side lights were correct..

Any chance of getting the pictures back?

where did the pictures go for this?

Any chance of getting the pictures back?

pictures

...ermmm...pictures please:D

I just orderd my lights from Nic, so the pics would would be a great help

Edd mate, let me know when you fit yours. I too have the same task, and it maybe slightly easier if we stick our heads together.......

sounds like a good plan! Nic said he would send them out to me sometime this week, so i reckon they wont arrive until after easter.