BajaDesigns XL Linkable Bumper Light Kit Install

[mountainears]

Finally got around to beginning this install. Today I was able to get the lights mounted and hopefully tomorrow I’ll wrap it up with the wiring.

Spent a little over 5 hours on it today in my garage. It does require removing the front bumper which I was able to do by myself but I did phone a friend putting it back on. The instructions have you loosening the lower balance but I’m not sure that is totally necessary. Those tow hook bolts take some effort too .

People were asking about the mounting brackets. The photos in the instructions were a little hard to decipher so hopefully these are a little better. The brackets mount to the bumper that you pull off using the two bolts I circled in the pictures. Took me about 3 hours to get the bumper off, mount the brackets then put the bumper back on. Another couple hours to get the light bar in place, a little challenging getting all the lights aligned and tightened as getting to the bolts with an Allen wrench is a little tricky.

Will be wiring to the Aux switches so the wiring I think will go fairly quick.

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[mountainears]

Someone asked about the light configuration. The kit comes with 7 lights, this is how BD sells their setups. Outsides are wide Cornering, then Driving Combos with spots in the middle. The 7 light setup is uses 182 watts of power.

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[woody284]

Looks good and wow that’s a lot of light output. Love to see a picture of with and without it lit up in the dark. Sometimes I’m hesitant to tackle these type projects because of all the work in tear down to install. Looks awesome on your truck.

 

[MtnRider]

I wish they would come up with a mounting bracket to fit a 4th gen bumper like that. Looks great.


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[John Jensen]

WOW! A lot of work but turned out nice. Mucho lighting for sure.
Glad I went with BDs behind the grill 20" light bar. I thought that was a lot of work, nothing compared to you having to remove the bumper, etc. Nice job.

 

[mountainears]

Wiring done, using the Aux switches certainly made it the easiest part of the install. I’ll get a picture tonight from the location shown in the pic below (for daytime reference). Not flat but will give some idea as to what the lighting looks like I think. Garage is about 60’ away.

Funny how my surround view looks now as it picks up the lights in the front camera .

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[mountainears]

And some daylight views of them.

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[woody284]

Pretty cool how that surround view camera feature works. Waiting on the night time pics. You ought to be able to light up the stadium when they shut off the nights.

 

[John Jensen]

Pretty cool how that surround view camera feature works. Waiting on the night time pics. You ought to be able to light up the stadium when they shut off the nights.

Yes, surround views are interesting. For comparison here are surround pictures with my Rancher Grill guard. First one from the OEM front camera, and the second one from the front camera I mounted on the front of the grill guard.

 

[mountainears]

I set the phone on the roof which is why you can see the cab light. My truck is a Limited with the factory LED lighting. Bottom pic is low beams only. Next is low beam with the fog lights. Then I turned on the Baja Designs lights. Top pic is just the BD lights.

Need to get them out in a better area to see if I want to tweak them at all as this terrain is a little wonky for that. But definitely lights things up and should give you a general idea.

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[woody284]

Very nice. Thank you for the pictures.

 

[DeadEnd]

Going to have to wear sunglasses with those suckers on! Excellent job!

 

[mountainears]

I had it out on some roads tonight. Definitely need to adjust them up. I’ll try to post some new pics of the light pattern after I do that, but we have some snow coming and it will probably be after that….


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[Crusty old shellback]

Thanks for the pictures and explanations. Looks good.
Yea, I thought the same when looking at your pictures that the lights needed to be angled up a little more.
I'm serious contemplating ordering the setup. Where we are moving to, there are no street lights and lots of wild animals out in the area. So extra lighting will defiantly help.

Couple of quick questions.
Do the brackets seem stout enough to hold the lights and no vibration? Would it help any to drill a hole in the bumper where the vibration pads are on the center lights to make it more ridged? Or is it not needed.
Can you angle the 3 center spots some for a wider spot lighting in the center? Or would it help maybe to only have a center spot, then 2 driving lights on each side?
Any issues you can see if you were to run into brush or something?

 

[mountainears]

Seems pretty solid as long as you can work out getting everything very tight.

The center vibration bracket I think needs to be engineered a little differently but I have it working. The way it is setup only about have of the rubber ring is on the bumper and it forces the middle light to point downward a little, I aligned all the others to match the center. They need the tab for the rubber bumper to come out towards the back or change the way they slot the holes in the bracket so it can be angled more.

In any case today I pivoted all of the other lights except for the center so we will see how it lights up now.

Brush could be an issue but the nice thing with the BD lights is they are very serviceable. The truck barely fits in my garage so a brush guard is not an option for me.

As far as the angle of the curve, you don’t have a lot of options as changing that either lengthens or shortens the line of lights so it wouldn’t fit in the brackets as they are solidly fixed. Of course it could be fabbed if that’s in your skill set.

Hope that helps.


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[Crusty old shellback]

Good info. Thanks.

 

[Andersen24]

SWEET! Thanks for some extra “instructions.” I am waiting on the delivery of my Linkables for my PW and your pics you posted answered a couple questions. I installed the same setup on my Tacoma and the light output is amazing. Curious, how long was delivery for yours? The good news is it said 4-6 weeks when I ordered mine (1/29) compared to 12-16 weeks when I ordered them for my Tacoma last year. I have all the wiring done in the PW, just need the lights now!

 

[mountainears]

Took about 4 weeks from order to shipment. Mine was shipped the end of December.


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[Andersen24]

Took about 4 weeks from order to shipment. Mine was shipped the end of December.


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Awesome. For my Tacoma, I ordered them in December of 2021 and got them middle of May 2022. But that was near the peak of the shortages too.

 

[mountainears]

I haven’t had a chance to reproduce those pics since I readjusted the lights but I grabbed some screenshots from my dashcam last night when I was driving home in the snow.

First shot is low beams and fogs.

Second shot is high beams and dogs

Third shot I turned on the light bar.

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