Mirror-mounted Baja S2 DIY

I've been getting requests for more info on a mirror-mounted ditch light mod I finished on my 2018 Tacoma earlier this year. I thought I'd get a short and sweet write up out there for anyone interested. I wished something like this was out there when I started!

This is not a terribly difficult mod to do, but it is time consuming and requires patience in finishing, achieve correct fitment, and aim. Not a simple cut stuff out and bolt stuff in job.

Some important things to note/think about: the two mirrors are mounted at different angles relative to the longitudinal axis of the truck. This means that the lights will be aimed similarly, but will never be exactly the same. It's hardly noticeable. Also, the lights are adjustable up and down... before final finishing. Any major change after that and you'd have to adjust the hole in the mirror cap. Lastly, I know it seems like a lot of material was cut away. It was. The mirror is still structurally solid.

Inspiration came in no small part from @mesojdm 's mirror-mounted Rigid lights. I imagine the process is pretty similar, with some more material removal for the larger size Baja S2.

I'm not responsible for any damage to you or your truck. Despite how this thread is written, this is a documentation of what I did, not a guide to repeat it. I'm going to focus only on what happens to/inside the mirror, as there's a lot of other info out there on wiring lights and finishing. Please let me know If I need to elaborate or correct anything.

Start by getting the mirror cap off. Get your fingers under the rim of the cap next to the turn signal and give it a gentle pull toward the front of the truck. Additionally, you'll want to remove the mirror glass and tuck the wires out of the way. To remove that, gently push on the top of the mirror to create a gap to get your hand in on the underside. Then, apply a pulling pressure from the center of the mirror. It's more than you think and the mirror will crack if you do it wrong.



Baja offers a template for the S2 on their website: https://www.bajadesigns.com/products/s2-pro-led-driving-combo.asp.

Print that sucker out and start going to town with a dremel. Take extra care not to touch the stock wires. Use cutting disks and grinding attachments to cut out enough material for the S2 to sit parallel with the bottom of the mirror cap and as low as possible to the floor of the mirror assembly. This is where the tedious trial and error fitment begins. Use the template to approximate the amount of material to be removed, then use the S2 with the bracket attached to sweeten up fitment.


Note the orientation of the S2 bracket. It must be mounted like this in order to be low enough. Any higher and when you cut the hole in the cap for the S2, you'll come close to cutting into the compound corner of the mirror cap. Also, do your best to get the bottom of the bracket to mount flush to the plastic support (where the bracket mounting hole is pressed against in this picture). You can do this by grinding away at the higher material, or using a spacer to make the low areas higher.

In order to actually mount the light to the mirror, you'll have to drill a hole for a bolt in the previously mentioned plastic support for a mounting bolt (red) , then a corresponding access hole that'll be used to access and tighten down the nut (blue). You'll also want to use a washer between the nut and the plastic (not pictured). Don't sweat the pro artwork.


Once you have the S2 fitted and mounted, pull it all out. Time to run some wires. Use the harness included with the S2 to cut a section of wire, including the connector for the S2, about 2ft long. Take the mirror housing off of the truck. There are three nuts attaching the mirror behind a trim panel inside the truck. Once the mirror is off, start cramming the positive and negative wires from the section of wire you cut down the hole pictured in yellow. There's plenty of room for two extra 16-18 gauge wires. Pull the wires through and into the cab, add additional sections long enough to get them all the way to the engine compartment, then route them through the door panel, through the rubber accordion tube that connects the door wiring to the cab near the foot well, then to the engine compartment. Wire up the lights.

After you've done all of that and wired the light, mount the S2 to the mirror again and aim it. As you can see in the completed pictures, to get a level aim you'll want to angle the light down slightly. If you can't, you'll have to go back and remove some more material to allow the light to move.

After wiring, mounting, and aiming the light, the only thing left to do is work on the mirror cap. First drill some holes in the mirror cap approximately centered where the S2 will be. Then, slowly work outward from there with a combination of more drilled holes, cuts, filing, melting, or whatever you need to do to make the cutout roughly match the shape of the light. Once that was done and the mirror cap fit loosely around the light. I had to sweeten up the fitment as I made my cutout a little too big. I did this first with a fiberglass impregnated bondo to bridge the gap, then standard bondo to make everything look nice.




Next was sanding and painting. I sanded the bondo and plastic down to 400 grit. Then I applied several coats of primer, color, and 2k clear from automotivetouchup.com. Their products worked out very well for me. The color match was spot on. Even the 2k spray clear self-leveled enough that I didn't need to wet sand.



Aaand done! Cool ditch lights in an understated, clean, oem looking package.

I'm happy to answer any questions you may have. I know some steps would have benefited from more pictures, but please let me know if there's anything else I can do to clarify. Happy chopping.

 

That's bitchen.

 

Thanks!

 

@taco_tallua

 

sweet!

 

That looks sweet!!! Just curious, do you have any pictures at night? Just wanna see how the light beam work?

Thanks

 

Job well done! Considering doing this myself, if I can grow a pair.

Anything you know now that you wish you knew before you started?

 

Well done sir. I was wondering how you flushed them when only seeing a front on pic.
What people don't realize why this is also the best spot for "ditch lights" is you can swing your mirror in manually for a much greater field of light. Throw in @KTJO 4x4 power folding mirrors and you essentially have an automatic spot light haha

 

Awesome! I am taking the mods slow, fiancee says new baby and fixing the house after a hurricane is more important... I kind of agree lol. But this will definitely be done in the future. Thanks for the write up. To make it more OEM looking you could use a small strip of weather stripping around the edge of the cut and then put the light in. This will make it so there are no visible cuts and also "fix" the not perfect cut areas. Could even use fuel line if needed for the same concept.

 

great job well done

 

Wow OP, best mirror lights I’ve seen! GREAT job and thanks for sharing!!!

 

Clever!

 

Really nice guy and finish . Paint match looks spot on.

 

I'll work on that. Performance is like any other S2 pro but I'll see if I can get a shot of how the aim works out.

 

That's a great tip! I like that.

 

I wish I knew that the mirror glass was actually pretty fragile! Definitely broke one. Mainly I just wish I knew that the damn thing was possible. I just dove in with an "I'm going to make this work" mentality and hoped for the best.

 

That's a great idea, and I did try this. If you decide to do this you'll need to leave more of a gap than I did between the light and the mirror cap before I applied bondo to close the gap. Somewhere in the range of 1/8th to 1/4 inch. I tried weather stripping and a vacuum hose with a slit down the side too and both were too tight to fit. The cap is a little less than 1/8th inch thick btw.

 

Well, crap! The whole purpose behind buying an SR was to go minimalist and avoid all the gee-gaws.

@mesojdm is right, this is the perfect complement to the folding mirror mod.

This whole Tacoma thing is starting to get out of hand....

 

Not too sure it will work with the power folding mirrors. The motor is right where the light goes.

 

I love this but there is no way I can pull it off