Hope these help. More so for anyone whose considering backups on a 3rd gen. As you can see the lights do not sit lower than the hitch so if they get knocked off I probably have alot more damage than the lights (I dont really wheel anyhow). As I mentioned earlier the ability to manually swich on the lights (while driving, parked, ect) and have them come on when in reverse was a major selling point for me.





OEM switch

 

Don't like that. Makes the back look to cluttered. I don't like it at all.

 

I noticed that too. It's because he has those two stickers on his rear bumper. (k&N, Borla)

 

Good point. Take the stickers off and the lights would look much better. A beautiful rig like that should'nt have so much gunk on it.

 

True, if you do much wheeling you'll notice that when you go through some serious "slop" that although the hitch is lower than the lights, the hitch digs right through the terrain and is buried, leaving the lights explosed to the elements. But as someone else mentioned, 15 dollars isn't too bad to loose. I may go that route. I also wonder if I could mount some where I could fold them up behind the bumper when offroading, and leave them folded down for the rest of the time.

 

Thanks for the great photos phosho!
Is it worth the money??? It will probaly cost around
$150 (parts/install). I just want some extra
light for when I back-up and something different
on my rig. I also want it to look nice and not all
alabama redneckin crap on my rig.
:chicken:

 

This mod would have paid for itself many times over in my old 92' pickup. With the xtra cab and campershell I coundn't see dink at night and on three occasions over 8 years... yeah I backed into somthing$$$. The 4runners rear visability as we all know is poor. I dont understand people having such an expensive vehicle and then cutting corners on quality mods and maintenance. A 96' still blue books over $14,000. Spend the Xtra few bucks if you can, if not wait till you can afford to do it right. I got my lights at JC whitney for $72.00. Install is very easy, it takes a little time to run your wiring through the interior but it keeps it clean and unexposed.

 

phosho - can you post a pic of how they are mounted? did you have to buy any hardware? thanks.

 

I'll try to take some pics when I get a chance. From what I recall, to mount them below the bumper there were 2 options for me. 1) use the existing bolts that holds the center part of the bumper to the side (no drilling or irreversible damage). 2) Drill through the bottom side of the bumper at a mysteriously pre-existing dimple or at your location of choice. I choose a location the was snug to the hitch receiver. I felt that option #1 was too far apart and looked weird. Just peek at the underside of the bumper and you'll see where I'm talking about. If you drill through the bumper use rubber washers under the mounting hardware to aviod metal to metal contact with the bumper. The bumper is not very rigid along this edge so you can put a rectangular plate or a large washer on the backside to reinforce the mount. Yes all necessary hardware was included except a switch, female terminals and extra wire for the optional switch. They sell a kit for the switch but I suggest a oem switch and buy some wire.
Beware of where you mount the lights if you don't want to block access to the tow hooks! I wasn't too pressed being that the receiver provides an additional option for hooks.

 

Here are the photos:

 

Whoever installed those does good work!

 

 

Check out my pics. I mounted some Pilot lamps straight to my bumper and I think they look great.

Matt

 

Guess I should have looked at the last post on this thread.....Oops!

Matt

 

Any of the auto stores carry them. Go over to the aftermarket light area and simply match up the base socket. I think yours are 1107 bulbs, and all the cheap auxiliary lights use this socket.

 

Not sure where, but I remember seeing a set of back up lights with a standard reciever hitch fitting that just slot into the reciever. They can be removed easily for offroading.
Now that I'm thinking about it, I saw them in either the Summit or JCWhitney catalogues...

 

http://www.whitenight.com/whitenight/index.htm

I think these lights might be what your referring to. I bought these prior to the KC hilites back-ups and the "white night" set up is a POS. They don't fit the Toyota stock receiver at all as they advertise it would because of the offset hitch. I'd take a episode of monster garage to make these things work on a Toy. The light output on these seemed to be the equivalent of setting one lit match on the the bumper. Slight exaggeration but I'm not bitter. Needless to say they were a cheap, plastic, overpriced system that has a good concept but with poor engineering & construction. IMO Beware.

 

While I had my doubts about just how much of a "back-up" set of lights these were, it was a well thought out kit. All the wiring, connectors, relay, lights etc you needed. KC even had a "switch" kit that had all the wiring to put on a switch for the "back-up" lights so they would work when in reverse and on demand.

On the 2003 there was no place to mount them with the provided bolts, at least not in the spot where JG wanted them, which was fine, but we wasted an hour and a half looking for a place, so I ended up drilling some starter holes and then used some big hex head sheet metal screws, something I had laying around in the bolt bin, to put them onto a cross beam right behind the rear bumper. The wiring was your standard hook it up to a relay stuff, with the relay in the rear and adding the switch was just plug n play. I imagine I will use something similar if not the same set of KCs in the future on my rig, as it looks great on JGs rig, as you can see by the pics.

 

Does the 03 come with an inverter? I noticed the 115V switch.

Are the labelled swtiches just a push button?

 

Yes the AC115V and TRAC OFF buttons are push switches.
In the console box we have a 115v socket. You know when
you want to shave or hook up a purty lamp.