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GreatAvalon's 2014 Tundra Retrofit

59K views 183 replies 33 participants last post by  TylerMims 
#1 · (Edited)
After the initial awe of finally buying the truck that I have been wanting for years, I found perhaps its biggest weakness. Being a huge lighting fan, to me, this truck’s worst feature was its subpar headlights. When I was looking at them, I immediately noticed they went to a dual filament, single bulb headlight system to satisfy both the low and high beams. Before I bought, I knew I would really hate that since it meant a simple plug and play kit wouldn’t work very well at all. Well, I knew I could remedy a fix to the lights, so I bought my dream truck. When speaking with the guys over at The Retrofit Source, it turns out the headlights being the dual filament, single bulb type (H4 specifically) actually helps make doing a retrofit easier because there is more room to work, and the bi-xenon projectors will throw a better high beam than the halogen. So after a lot of research, talking with the guys at TRS, and asking a lot of questions here, I decided at less than 45 days old, it was time to retrofit.

Here is what I went with, all purchased from The Retrofit Source unless otherwise noted:

• Projectors: Morimoto Mini D2S 3.0, LHD, O lens (now replaced with the new 4.0 projectors)
• Shrouds: Apollo 3.0
• Bulbs: D2S Osram CBI
• Ballasts: Denso Slim D2S (from XenonDepot)
• Potting: MG Chem. Thermally Conductive Potting Epoxy (from Amazon)
• Wire Harness: Morimoto H4 MotoControl
• To reseal
o The $15 roll of butyl from TRS
o Black caulk (Lowes)

I figured since the headlights were going to be baked apart, I would think of a color scheme that would look really awesome. With my truck being silver, a BHLM wouldn’t look as good as on a white truck I didn’t think. So, I ended up going with:
• Primer: Rustoleum Plastic Primer (Walmart)
• Paint: Paint code color matched spray paint (from Touch Up Paint and Accessories | AutomotiveTouchup)
• Clear Coat: High gloss clear coat (from Touch Up Paint and Accessories | AutomotiveTouchup)
• Black: PlastiDip (Walmart)
• Amber reflector: Rustoleum translucent paint (AutoZone)

On to some pictures:

Here is the retrofit parts box!



The Morimoto H4 MotoControl:



This harness allows for the truck’s high beam switch (the stalk) to make the projector shield move, which is the high beams. All wires are labeled nicely, which made for a very quick and easy install.







Now a look at the Morimoto D2S Mini 3.0 projectors.

The box is nicely labeled, clearing up any possible concern of what is in the box:



Some detail pics:



It is nice these projectors come with clear lenses already:





Pics of the inner workings. You can see the shield, solenoid, and bowl here:





Close up of the solenoid:



The wire harness that plugs into the projector’s solenoid and the H4 MotoControl harness (this connects the two, making your input on the stalk move the shield):


Back of the projector where the bulb is inserted:



Next, here are some pictures of the Apollo 3.0 shrouds:









Now for some pictures of the item that this whole project was about getting to fit in our trucks: the D2S Osram CBI bulbs:



^I’ve always loved how TRS provides you alcohol wipes. That is an awesome touch that they have been doing ever since I have been ordering from them.



The capsules come protected with sort of a cardboard sleeve. For how expensive these things are, I’m glad Osram protects them:



Close up of the bulb:



Close up of the metal capsule mounting/aligning:




For info on the ballasts and potting them, check out a write up I have done previously on another Toyota forum: Denso D2S Ballast Write Up/Review - Toyota Nation Forum : Toyota Car and Truck Forums

Install

So, to start out, you have to remove the grille and lights. Before you remove the lights, be sure to mark with tape where your stock cut off is. In the following picture, you will also see I chalked the location of all 4 tires on the driveway, in case this project dragged out (it did!) and I had to move the truck since it takes up most of the driveway (luckily I didn’t have to move the truck). There are other threads that I followed for this. One area I may be able to help in getting the grille out, when you are pulling the grille, pull straight towards your stomach. I found it a bit confusing how some other threads were saying the direction to pull. You don’t pull up at all, you pull straight back towards you. The same way it would be if you were holding the grille and the truck backed up. Don’t actually do that, I’m just trying to paint the clearest picture possible.

So with that, you get to this point:



Put the grille and painted parts somewhere safe so they don’t get scratched up:



With your lights out, begin to bake. Like other threads have said, the 2014+ Tundra lights are permasealed. I don’t even really want to say how long and how hot I baked them at to get them apart since some of the plastic tabs slightly deformed/began to melt. The temp/times others have used is listed in other threads. Again, I don’t want to tell you guys what I used and then your lights end up getting damaged. I don’t want the liability. I will say this: don’t be afraid to go long and hot if needed. Be sure to set the parts of the light that are touching the baking sheet on cardboard, because you will be getting the light hot enough to easily melt on contact points. Start to finish baking apart both light, it took 7 hours. That is 7 hours of baking and prying. Honestly, it sucked. Bad. But, it had to be done.

You end up with this. Sweet!



Now, start priming the plastic parts. I made sure my plastic primer was a light color so that my silver spray paint would not have to cover up anything dark:



Before priming, I scuffed the chrome with #0000 steel wool. Then 91% iso alcohol wiped. I primed the plastic above, and the shrouds. I didn’t prime anything that was getting plastidipped. Now is a good time to tell you guys why I used Plastidip for my black. Originally, I read there was no cutting or permanent modification needed to retrofit these projectors at all. Because of this, my original goal was to allow myself to revert back to stock if needed. I used black plastidip over the chrome reflector bowls so that I could peel it up and be good to go. However, in reality, to utilize the whole projector’s system, you do need to cut and JB weld, so these lights can never go back to stock. Instead of plastidip for my black parts, I would have used Satin black and primed the bowls.

For paint, I did the following:
1 or 2 coats of primer. On the plastidipped parts, 4-5 coats. Color matched paint, 3-4 coats. Clear coat, 3 coats.













^Testing what 1 coat of the Rustoleum translucent paint looks like on some spare reflectors from other lights. I like it! I wanted to soften the brightness of our reflectors, while maintain a look close to OEM and keeping the reflectivity. FYI – 2 coats and the reflectivity is gone.

Final product looks awesome IMO!:







Look at this color match:



^I don’t think you can get any closer! Even the color of the metallic flake is spot on. I found out about Touch Up Paint and Accessories | AutomotiveTouchup while googling for good matches. On another Toyota forum I found people raving about their match on the Silver Sky 1D6. They were right! This spring I am going to buy paint from them and color match my grille surround and bumper caps! Love it!

While I was waiting for the paint to match, I started addressing the remaining permaseal that is stuck to the headlight housing and lens. I’m not sure if you absolutely need to get all the permaseal remnants off, but talking with experienced retrofitters, they all said to. Warning: this takes FOREVER!

Remaining permaseal:






After:








A good tip I received was to cover the lenses inside and out with painters tape to lessen any scratches/marks that may happen while they are off.




Mounting the Projectors

Before you begin to mount the projectors, you need to have your H4 MotoControl harness and ballasts installed, ready to go.

So to mount the projectors using the hardware supplied, you will need to cut down the “flange” on the back of the reflector bowl. In the following picture, disregard the projector and the JB Kwik, but you can see the back of the reflector bowl, and you can see some parts of it that the lock nut for the projector is backed up to. You need to cut/sand the back of the reflector bowl down to be flat, to allow for enough threads on the threaded shaft of the projector to stick through and allow for tightening of the projector’s lock nut and the bulb’s lock nut.



So once you do that and ensure the sanded/cut part is flat, you can go ahead and insert your projector and tighten the lock nut. Get it tight, but allow for some slight movement (used to align the projector). Insert the bulb, and lock it down. Then install the lights back onto the truck and plug the bulb into the ballast.

Going to the truck…







Get some JB Steel Stik ready. Press it into the gap of the projectors and the reflector bowl. Now, move the projectors to line up with your previously marked OE cutoff. Make sure you get it right! You don’t want to find out it isn’t right once you have the projectors JB Kwik’ed and housings sealed up!

Aligning the projectors:







Of course it starts to rain (you can see I have bags over the lights so nothing is actually getting wet in the 5 mins they were on the truck).



High beams:



Look at this color flicker right out of the box :):



FYI: Here is how I left my truck while at work/over night. I taped black trash bags over the two spots where the lights normally go. I didn’t want any water getting into all the plugs/connectors:




Once you have your projectors aligned, it was recommended to me by the guys over at TRS to JB Kwik my projectors to the reflector bowl. You want the JB Kwik holding the projector in place, not the lock nut. They said to be sure to very carefully JB Kwik the lock nut to the projector’s shaft threads. You want to be careful here so you don’t get it all over the threads, which would not allow the bulb’s lock nut to tighten down. I pushed some JB Kwik down in the gap of the lock nut and threads, and then coated a max of 1 thread.



^You can also see where I routed my solenoid wire. That hole is there when you take off the stock halogen bulb cap. Don’t put on the plug end until after you route the wires through that hole.

After that, snap the shroud in. With these projectors, the shrouds snap right in. Be sure you clock them the same rotational-wise, and also be sure to put some JB Kwik on contact points. You do this so the shrouds do not come loose. Be careful, don’t apply too much, you don’t want the JB Kwik to drip down onto the lens.

At this point, I went ahead and test fit the lights again to make sure nothing happened. It was good.

Resealing the Lights

To reseal the headlights, I unrolled and cut a strip of butyl, then started putting it in the now-permaseal-free channel. For the times the strip of butyl is too thick to fit all the way in to the bottom of the channel, just stretch it, and it narrows.









I put a few clamps on it at this point so the lens sinks in a good bit.



Then baked it in the oven per the instructions that come with the butyl: 275*F for 7 minutes.

When it comes out of the oven, throw the 6 torx screws in, and clamp! I bought these silver/grey clamps from Home Depot for like $1 or $2 a piece, so I bought 12 of them. It makes the job easier IMO.



Here’s where I was at then:





Next, I caulked the seam/gap. This was at the advice, again, of experienced retrofitters and the guys at TRS. I’m sure those with experience do it neater than me, but I was erring on the side of having too much caulk, than not enough.





^I cleaned that section up some after taking this pic. No caulk in noticeable at all when the hood is closed. I think I did a pretty clean job at caulking that up. I hope I did, I don’t want any moisture problems – that is what I’m trying to avoid by doing all these precautionary steps.

Once the caulk was dry, I put the lights back on the truck, and then reassembled everything.





Awesome color match, even with the lens on!























This pic is at over 150 feet:



At ~125 feet:



Driving shots:





A Problem

I ran into a problem after sealing up the headlights the first time. For some reason, after I double-checked my adjustment, after I sealed the lights up and put them back on the truck, one light was extremely low. So low, that I couldn’t manually adjust them up at all, I had maxed it out. Driving down the road, I had no distance to my lighting: (Evened out my one that is fine with my one that was low).



^No way I was happy with that. So after getting some guidance, I reopened my problematic headlight, cut off the JB weld, and put a metal washer, about 1.5/32”-1/16” thick. This shimmed the projector. This time, I left the light adjusted way high – about 2 feet high at 20 feet away from the wall. Well, I sealed the light up, check it, and it dropped 2 feet again! The first time sealing it up, it was low by 2 feet at 20 feet. The second time, however, was acceptable because I left it adjusted 2 feet high. I’m not sure what kept causing that to happen, but it was weird for sure. I’m glad I was able to get it sorted out and fixed!

Final Thoughts

I am extremely happy with the setup I chose to go with. Getting the headlight permaseal apart was by far the hardest part of the retrofit. Everything else went pretty decent, except my little hiccup. I sort of had unrealistic hopes of leaving everything stock and sticking in the projector. My recommendation to those who are tackling this project would be to not have the mindset of doing as little modification as possible. Be in the mindset of doing whatever it takes to get the projectors to fit in the correctly.

The CBI bulbs, powered by the Denso ballasts, paired with the Morimoto D2S Mini 3.0 projectors are an awesome setup for those who want an easier projector to retrofit. All aspects of the truck’s headlights are vastly improved (light beam, color, brightness, etc.). It took me a full week (Friday to Friday), including the reopening and correction of the one problematic headlight. I didn’t take any days off, so Mon-Fri. I went to work. And Wednesday – Thursday I was driving around with the beam too low before I could fix it.

The projector and bulb combo is awesome, there is so much color flicker! It is hard to catch on camera, but there is a slight line of purple on top of the blue cut off.


This is visible all the time, driving at night is so fun!

The high beams on these projectors rocks! It throws two strong, big beams as far as you can see - all the way to the stops of trees. It is so awesome to be able to see at night after the retrofit! Overall, the difference between my setup and stock, in both high and low beam, is literally night and day (pardon the cliché).

Thanks for checking out my write up. And a HUGE thanks to all those that helped me in any way during this entire process!

If you guys have any questions, I’d be happy to do my best and answer them.
 
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#3 ·
I didn't think there was supposed to be 2 steps. I thought there is supposed to be only one.

2 steps: step on drivers and step on passengers (if they are not evened out like you are saying)

1 step: Step on drivers, no step on passengers because they are evened out. Like I have them aligned.

Thanks.
 
#5 ·
No problem! Since you've already got your lights opened and painted, it should be nice and easy for you! :) You got this!!! :thumbsup:
 
#9 · (Edited)
That is why there is a step built in to the cut off. My aiming and alignment is perfect, per various retrofitters and even TRS. In the U.S., the "peaks" or high sides, should be level, with the low side of the step being used to not blind oncoming drivers.
 
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#10 ·
Thanks man, great write-up. I printed this and pasted it to my bucket list. I will wait til it gets warm before I'll start this project. Rainy and cold here as usual in Oregon.
 
#12 ·
#11 ·
:thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:
nice little write up. brings back memories.lol
 
#14 ·
The inside edge. The edge that is towards the center of the truck. The top half of that edge wanted to come first, not really the corner. After heating the s### out of the light for a long time, I used that top, inside corner to rip it apart. But that was after I worked the top half of the edge loose enough to have something to grab on to.
 
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#17 ·
In less than the time it took me to get mine apart, I removed, baked apart, BLHM'ed, resealed, and reinstalled my buddies 2010 Tundra lights lol :lol:
 
#22 ·
Looks good. I want to do mine. The more I see someone's diy, gradually builds my confidence. Problem is, if its not perfect I will never be happy. :-( Added to the bottom of my long list. Rockauto has 2014 headlights, wonder if they're the same as eBay?
 
#27 ·
yes they do. 10min oven on at 275f and i can take a headlight apart in one try (now). my first one took few hours of trial and error. practice makes perfect.:)
 
#24 ·
I wonder too. And all they need is a retrofit. Rockauto also has the ones like on a platinum with led drl but I haven't seen a picture.
 
#25 ·
The only brand I was able to find when I looked a few months ago was TYC. I have used them in the past and was unimpressed since the lens started peeling/flaking after less than a year.
 
#31 ·
So question .. I haven't been able to find too much information on this but what did you do to the rear of the headlight where the bulb connector comes out? Were you able to reuse the stock rubber cap for the back of the light or did you have to do something different? I am trying to just make sure I have everything ready when I go to start this lol.
 
#32 ·
That was a big downer when I was wrapping up the project. Like you, I didn't see much talk about that before I did it. I couldn't reuse the stock one in its stock form since my Denso D2S plug wouldn't clear. I had to cut up the hole to widen it out. Then it wasn't a perfect seal, so I electrical taped the crap out of the back of it around the D2S plug and the rubber cap.
 
#33 ·
Cool thanks. I was looking on TRS and was thinking of sizing up those rubber covers and getting a new closed one from them and maybe also the grommet for the D2S wires, just in case. Only a few bucks more ya know?

I'm still trying to source something to make my own LED DRL in the lower portion there but haven't found anything yet that I want to put in there. Thinking switchback LEDs, and then putting a white halo behind the shroud and run those as the DRLs and not the turn signal amber. Not sure, have a lot of time to decide haha.
 
#34 ·
Yea that's a good idea.

Haha yea you have plenty of time until it warms up!!! Those ideas sound cool though, can't wait to see what you end up doing!
 
#39 ·
I removed the permaseal from the channel with a set of small picks. It took forever. Like 3+'hours for each housing.

Yep, I put some JB Kwik between the projectors and shrouds. That is important. But be careful to make sure that the JB doesn't drip down onto the lens or projector!
Glad some people do it right and do a retro-fit. Looks awesome. I had the mini's on my last tundra. This time around I did the LS460, talk about a wide and far beam pattern.
Nice! I was so close to going with the LS projectors. But this was my first retro so I didn't want to mess up $500 of headlight housings and $500 of projectors! I will definitely upgrade at some point. Did you retro them in yourself?
 
#40 ·
Great write up, man.
 
#42 ·
Every time someone responds to this thread, it reminds me that I want to get mine done! HAHA. Have so many different links to go off of for doing this retro.

On a side note and a little OT, I was reading a review you did of the XB LED fogs over on Toyota Nation, and got me thinking .. they don't list them as fitting the Tundra, but they look to be almost identical to the Tundra fogs. Have you tried, or have you even looked at, to see if the XB LEDs would fit in the Tundra? I really want to try them out and see, but I'd hate to be out the money if they don't fit. Maybe I'll call up TRS and see if they have any more information on the fitment to a '14 Tundra.
 
#44 ·
Hahaha! Well at least your lights will be extremely well planned and thought out!!! :)

I think they are very close to fitting. I wasn't able actually test fit them (I should have, that would have helped TRS out) since I was planning on doing rigid D2 fogs, so I passed them to a fellow TN Camry guy to enjoy. Turns out I didn't go the rigid route, and wished I was able to test them out.

If you talk/email with them be sure to mention you saw my write up- they will like that! :)
NO WAY, LOL. I tried it on one spare housing I had and it wasnt going my way. I massacred the reflector housing. So I sent it off to Marco, he is on here and has done plenty of LS460 retros. I send him the projectors already cut and the headlights opened up. I did the BHLM myself while he mounted them.
Nice! Hey, you were braver than me by even trying!! Do you have a thread going for it? I'd love to check them out. Except that may not be a good idea since then I will be wishing for them!
 
#48 ·
#56 ·
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