TRD Exhaust

I found a great deal on a TRD exhaust and picked one up. Since Larry had installed his already, and I liked the look, I decided to put one on mine.

It took about 2 hours including using the rotary tool to break off the rear bolts which was the first thing I did. The front bolts with the springs were easy to take off. Next, after the 4 bolts were removed, I took some silicone spray and sprayed the rubber hangers. They were a breeze to take off. Then all that was necessary was to put the new TRD exhaust in place and hang it. The four bolts were very easy to install along with the rear gasket.

This is a picture of where the front part of the exhaust is bolted to the old pipes. The two bolts are spring loaded and torqued to spec.

This is a pic of the new muffler. The heat shield above doesn't need to be so large now. This TRD muffler is much smaller than the stock.

This is the rear pipe that bends over the rear axle. The right hand side is the tip shown in the following picture.

And finally the TRD tip. Nice!

Photo Shoot

Well, after I put everything that I'm going to do on the truck, washing it with the kids, and putting the Hi-Lift on the rack, I had Larry bring his nice digital camera out for taking some pics with the FJ. Take note of Larry's artistic abilities on the last picture. Here are the results:

Hella 500 Auxiliary Lights Bar Wiring

I thought it was time to wire up the light bar and decided to poke around to see how I could set up the wires without having to drill through the roof. There was a spot down the channel of the window where it looked like I could pass two wires without any issues. From there I was able to pass it through the engine bay.


First I had to take off the plastic cover so I could grab the wires. I broke off the tab on one of the fasteners closest to the window but I just used a regular fastener and it worked fine.

Plastic cover taken off. The relays were just mounted in the same spot where the brush guard relays were. I just wound some electrical tape around them and they were fine.

This is where I channeled the wire through. There's enough depth on the window seal to squeeze two wires in. I then found some 3M door edge guard that was chromed, spray painted it flat black and stuck it on. You can't even tell that the FJ isn't made like that unless you look at the other side. It's very unnoticeable.

I loosened the bolts on the roof rack and passed the wires underneath the rubber part. This actually held the wires tight enough to hold them in the groove between the white panels. At first I had the ground for the lights going to a bolt on the light bar. Since this didn't work, I decided to take out my multimeter and check continuity on the bolts for the roof rack. The bolt worked great. I took off the rear one and screwed the connector into it.

The results. When I was standing in front of them they were so warm that it was almost like having a small heater. I haven't tested them in the dark yet, but when I do, I'll take some pictures.

Tuffy Light Bar Install

Right side before bolting lights on bar. I used some loom from Home Depot and electrical tape to make it look decent.


Left side. The rear cover is held in place using the bolts from the lights. Once it was in place, all the loom is not visible. The curved part of the loom was a little hard to tuck in so I suggest that you don't leave any slack as I did.

Finally mounted and aligned. Had to measure each side to make sure the bar was level on the roof rack. I used a couple of towels on the roof to make sure that the bar didn't scratch the paint. I used a smaller towel that I folded to lift the sides of the bar to the correct height and then tightened the bolts. The lights were also aligned so that they were perpendicular to the roof. The covers were again sprayed with black plasti-dip so that they match the brush guard lights.

Another pic from the front.

Side shot of clamps and bolts. Looks good besides the silver bolts. I might eventually swap them out for black ones.

Angled picture. The electrical tape on the right is just holding the wires where I plan on making a plug. Wiring them up will be sometime in the near future when I can find a non-drill method that looks clean. If not then drilling will be my second option using some silicone auto sealant that one of the members of fjcruiserforums suggested using. One nice option about this bar is that you can mount it on the top of the roof rack using the holes you see on the bottom of the bar so that the lights sit a little higher. The option I chose actually gives me about 5 inches to the top of the garage door. So if I want to lift the FJ a few inches it would be feasible.