Rear fog conversion for import car

[Anonymous]

I have a 99 Jap gray import so no rear fogs (guess never any fog in Japan).

The car has been wired up so the RHS rear reverse light can be independently controlled by a "fog light switch" on the dash. The bulb has been painted with red nail varnish in order to make it more red than white. However, it looks pink and after a while the nail varnish comes off.

Are there any "correct" solutions to this: i.e. a red bulb, a RHS rear cluster lens that is RED where my reverse light is etc.

With the winter closing in it will become quite important ...

(I have used the search but could find nothing obvious)

[kanujunkie]

neat idea useing the reversing light. I beleive Foliatech do a stuff that can be painted onto bulbs. its sold in Ripspeed at Halfrauds

[Anonymous]

I have read other posts that say on the Jap cars (like mine) there are basically 2 side lights either side. Someone very cleverly suggested using the inside side-lights and replacing them by fog light bulbs and changing the wiring accordingly.

Or another suggestion was replacing the inner side lights with side/brake light "combi" bulb so the "brake" light would be the fog light: i.e. outer would be side/brake, and inner would be side/fog.

Has anybody successfully done this on a J-spec car.

Although using the reverse light with a painted bulb seemed a neat idea at the time, the white frosting of the plastic would dull even the brightest bulb.

[Anonymous]

I think I am talking to myself here, but this info might be useful to others ...

On my J-spec car when I bought it, the RHS reverse light had been "converted" to a fog light by painting it red and wiring a fog light switch on the dash.

I checked the wiring in the RHS rear light cluster today ASSUMING that there would be the following wires in the loom:

ground (0v)
side lights
brake
indicator
reverse
fog

i.e. I assumed that the wiring loom would have 6 wires, and on the J-spec the fog pin is not used. Well, that is what I assumed.

What I actually found was that on the J-spec that is NO wire in the loom for the fog light.

What the importers have actually done is intercept the RHS reverse wire AT THE DASH and wired it to the fog lamp switch instead. Then, hey presto, the RHS loom "reverse" wire drives the RHS "fog" lamp (the reverse bulb painted red).

So what this means is, in order to wire the inner side lights as fog lights I will need to:

(1) Wire back the RHS reverse correctly at the dash and put in a clean unpainted reverse bulb (of course),
(2) Run a wire from the fog light in the dash to both inner side lights.

There is a small problem that the inner side light holes are smaller and will NOT allow a standard 12v/21w bulb through. Some have suggested filing out the hole. However, at Halfords I found some 12v/16w wedge bulbs that just go through the hole.

I have just had another idea that would avoid running wires:

(1) Cut the wire from the RHS "fog" (i.e. reverse light).
(2) Wire the LHS reverse light to the RHS reverse light so now both reverse lights have the correct function.
(3) Take the cut wire from the RHS "fog" (i.e. reverse light) and wire to the RHS inner side light and LHS inner side light.

Sorted.

Although I understand that the LHS and RHS wiring looms are independent in case of failure on one side, the wiring would not compromise the indicators, brake lights or outer side lights.

[Anonymous]

Fog lights: The solution.

I have now wired up my J-spec car so that the inside side lights work as fogs as per the UK spec. Here is how I actually did it and how the car was configured before.

I found out that all the wiring for the fog lights is present in the J-spec car except for the fog light switch and fog light wires in the rear light clusters.

The garage that fitted the improvised painted red reverse light had actually done the following: They had swapped over the connector pins to the rear light cluster RHS on the car side so that the yellow car fog wire was wired to the red and black reverse in the light cluster.

I swapped the wires back so that they have the same configuration as per wiring diagram.

I bought a pair of UK spec wiring harnesses that go in the rear clusters and have 6 wires going to the car connector rather than the J-spec 5 wires.

The UK spec fog light holder is bigger than fits in the side light hole so I had the obvious choice of drilling. I chose another solution: I soldered the J-spec inside side-light holder into the UK spec "new" wiring harness. Then everything fitted.

A 21W bulb will of course not go through the hole, but Halfords do some 16W bulbs that do fit through and also fit the holder.

At the same time I removed the un-illuminated "fog light switch" fitted when the car was converted for UK use, and wired in a "proper" Toyota illuminated switch (fog legend plus green rectangle when fogs are on).

Everything is now OK.

If I find the 16W are not bright enough I do have the option in the future of drilling and re-splicing in the UK fog light holder.