Mod Journal - Charles the Prius

Thanks brother

Which feat?? Haha, anybody know how much larger the Touring spoiler is than the non Touring

Dipping the grill was pretty easy. I've got large trash bags I cut along the seam to double the length. Masked the area on the top and bottom and sliced a hole through where the grill is. Then masked the new hole to fit around the grill.

Then you need to make sure the grill is clean so your new paint job doesn't look like child's play (happened to me with my badges). I just ran across it with a microfiber cloth and 80% rubbing alcohol. Spent about 5-10 minutes wiping it down. Microfiber has the ability to pick up a ton of dirt and the alcohol helps lift it while evaporating much much faster than water.

The painting process goes something like sweeping the wall or conducting an orchestra. Make sure your can is pointed at the plastic bag when you first push the nozel, then sweep across the grill and on the other side release. Repeat until you've got a nice light coat. Then wait 10-15 minutes before your next coat to avoid runs. I did 4 light coats and 3 heavy. Maybe too much but I really want it to be easy to peel off if it starts to crap out on me.

If you do mess up on a badge or grill and are having trouble peeling, I found the same stuff that helped me remove my badge adhesive from my badge delete practically desolves plastidip. I used 3M adhesive remover that's safe for automotive paint.

It'll take about an hour and a half to two hours for a clean job.

 

Oh boy!

 

Planned on doing an all nighter last night re - assembling my headlights and fitting them into the Prii. Then I started running into road blocks, one after the other that eventually had me reassemble the car, grab a beer, and call it a night.

When I bought new housings I purchased the Halogen housings. They’re cheaper and I didn’t want to dish out $200-$300 for two housings. Nor did I want to hack my housings! I wanted to keep mine clean and in tact so either I could sell them to offset costs or keep them if I need to ever go back to stock.

First problem I ran into: I planned on keeping my OEM ballasts and using them to power my 5500k D2S bulbs. Well the halogen housing has the layout for the ballast on the bottom but there’s no cut out. Meaning I’d have to dremel a hole for my ballast wires and tap through. No big deal, I whipped out my dremel and cut away, got the wiring routed through (painfully frustrating) and then finished up by re assembling the D2R connector (my first major headache before the ballast mount). Then came the show stopper, I grabbed the headlight cap the twists over the bulb sealing the housing. It contains a wire that pairs the cars harness to the ballast, it was also much bigger than the cap for the halogen housing. I then took to comparing the two housings as I should’ve BEFORE disassembly and decided to call it a night.

I promptly went online and ordered new ballasts, and plan on junk yarding for some more wiring components so I can finish this build.

I’d hate to leave this on a bad note, I’m actually quite happy this all happened for a few reasons:

1) I can keep not only my HID housings but ALSO my ballasts and misc. wiring components. They’ll literally be a pull out and drop in if something ever happens.

2) I found a reason to splurge a little on some 50W Morimoto ballasts since I can’t really use my OEM ones without hacking them. I mean I could but I think it’d be best to use a new set to power these and the old set for an easy replace.

3) I at least got to fit the new headlights to get an idea of how they’ll look once they’re set up. Grabbed two photos and I’ll photoshop the drivers side in. This also means if I want to tweak the look in photoshop I’ll have 5 more days to play.

4) this gives me more time to let the paint set and reseal the housings. But mostly letting the paint set.

I’ll need to figure out a way to reseal the hole I made. But major lesson learned!

As of writing this: my headlights were just delivered! Exciting exciting exciting

 

Oops! By headlights being delivered I meant turn signal mirrors just gotta figure out where to tap into the blinkers

 

Turn signal mirrors are in!






Just gotta finish painting them when I get the chance.

 

I’ll be honest I do feel pretty cool

 

Finally got ahold of my rear sway bar from an 04 Matrix and good god those bolts to remove the bar on the Prius are a b****!! I broke my wrench trying to get that off and it’s still on even after copious amounts of WD40. It got me thinking, is there a torque specification for this bar?

I ended up deciding to hold off until I can get an air wrench to it so instead I started painting it aluminum and I think I’ll make a custom Toyota sticker to place on the facing side of the bar so all the techs that change my oil know mine is special haha

 

I’ll probably have to grab them from Toyota if they make a huge difference. This bar wasn’t pulled from a u pick junkyard they get it themselves :/

 

Got my Morimoto XB55 50 Watt ballasts today! Bought some 9006 plugs, stripped them, and soldered them to create a little harness that’ll go from the factory 12v connection to the ballasts without having to splice wires or pop pins out of connectors.

Also managed to find hardware for the high beams and am seriously considering seeing if I can fit the levelers onto a halogen housing as it doesn’t look like it’ll take much.

Really really hoping for everything to be installed tomorrow before my coast and redwood trip with my girlfriend! Stoked

 

We’re heading up to the coast in Oregon. To get there from Medford Oregon we gotta drive through the Cali border and back into Oregon! I think we’ll be in crescent city for 30 minutes haha. Basically we drive a big U. Heading through the redwoods. We love that area so we’ll spend some time, I’ll take my pics for Instagram, then we’ll continue up to the natural bridges at Samuel Boardman State Park and then to our favorite Italian restaurant in Bandon Oregon.

I want to get everything completed and clean so I can get some wild pics of the car. Also would love to have these new headlights when we head home later at night.