Hi Everyone! I've been watching this forum for a while, and I've finally decided to add a few mods to my car. I'm not planning to go as crazy as some of the others on here (yet), but there are a few things that I've wanted to improve / fix on my car since I got it, as well as my need to stand out from the other 10 million Priuses in the Bay Area. I'll be documenting my mods in this thread - I've noticed that most people don't go that in depth about the installation process of their mods, so I'll be trying to include a bit of detail about my thoughts and the installation process. It also helps that I like taking photos of my car . First off, I'm starting by adding in custom DRL's and turn signals to the front of the car. The old ones were never really my taste, and the passenger-side DRL hasn't worked in over a year. I drive with the headlights on most of the time, so it's never been a huge bother to me, but I've been catching up on projects during the quarantine so I figured it's finally time to replace the assemblies. The first thing is remove the bumper. I found this blog post helpful: DIY: How to remove the front bumper off a 3rd gen Prius » Balancing Act There's also a few YouTube videos out there that explain it visually. I recommend those as well It's a fairly straightforward process, just takes some time if you've never done it before. ^ above: the bumper off The DRL/ turn signal assemblies mount to the bumper from the back. I unplugged the connector and popped out the retention clip to give myself a bit more flexibility. There is a pop clip and four screws that you'll need to remove to take apart the assembly. There's also two black plastic retention brackets that hold the DRL assembly to the bumper that need to come out. The new DRL assembly should go in the same place as the old one, and re-uses the brackets. ^annotated image of the back of the bumper I got mine from the HybridPit website, highly recommend . It came with the assemblies, some zip ties, and a sticker. Take the light bulb connector out of the old assembly, remove the light bulb, and connect it to the new DRL. ^ the light bulb connector. Twist it to get it out of the old turn signal housing. ^ light bulb connector, sans light bulb, and the provided turn signal connector. Plug and play Unfortunately, the new turn signal housing doesn't quite line up with the pins on the old turn signal bulb connector. I'm going to have to do some "surgery" to get them to have a water-tight seal, so I can wash my car again. I also haven't wired up the DRL's yet, as I'm still figuring out how I want to do that. Ideally I'd like to use the stalk-mounted DRL switch, but that requires some investigation... I recommend testing out the turn signal lights before you re-install the bumper, just in case. ^testing out the turn signal lights. I need to clean off the bugs from my bumper Re-installing the bumper is just the opposite of the removal process. If you own a Prius you're obviously smart enough to figure that out. So the lights are installed, but mine aren't connected yet, as I have to modify the light bulb connector and figure out the DRL power process. Feel free to drop a comment if you have suggestions
Continuing on from my post from last week, there were two major things that needed to happen: modify the turn signal connectors to fit into the new turn signal assemblies, and to start wiring for the DRL's. The first thing I did was crimp some quick-disconnects onto the end of the old DRL connectors. You can see the wires feeding into the rubber grommet in the right (old) assembly below. The upper connector is the turn signal lights. ^above, the backsides of the two assemblies ^ the new quick-disconnects on the old DRL power wires These were a bit tricky since there's not much wire to utilize, but doable. After that, I used a Dremel with a cutoff wheel to cut the plastic tabs off of the turn signal connector. ^ you can see the cut marks from the Dremel on the turn signal connector I ended up having to cut two of the smaller tabs in half, and completely remove one of the large tabs on the connector. After that, it's a simple matter to reinstall everything. The challenge for next weekend is to figure out the how to get the DRL's to operate off of the DRL switch on the turn signal stalk ^ testing the turn signals. Everything works
