Installing George's LED dome lights
in a 10/85 FJ60 Land Cruiser

by Jim Brantley Jim Brantley

This little write-up is in response to a couple of questions I received regarding the installation of George's LED dome lights in my 10/85 FJ60. George designed the lights for the 80 Series Land Cruisers. It's a simple plug in replacement for the standard incandescent bulbs on these cruisers.

With a little effort, I was able to use the same bright LEDs in my FJ60.

The front dome light is easy and the process intuitive. I placed a piece of electrical tape behind the LED circuit board to ensure it doesn't touch any metal when I'm bouncing down the trail. By the way, I noticed the hot OEM incandescent bulb had slightly melted the plastic dome cover lens. Now that's a waste of energy!

The front dome light uses the same size bulb as the 80 Series so the install is pretty easy.

NOTE: It's easy to remove the whole dome light assembly (both front and back) thanks to Toyota's use of simple plug connectors on the power leads. Then you can do this work on the bench - unless you like working upside down over your head.

The rear dome light is a bit more challenging. It uses a larger and longer bulb than the front so the existing contacts needed to be narrowed. In my haste to bend the tabs closer together, I broke the phenolic bracket. A little 5 minute epoxy and I was back in business. I still didn't trust the compression fit so I soldered the circuit board's pins to the contact tabs. I also added a piece of electrical tape to prevent the back of the circuit board from touching metal. I wouldn't have been so sloppy if I knew I would be taking these pictures and writing this up.



Another problem with the rear dome light is the lack of space between the LED circuit board and the lens cover. You'll see how I needed to bend the bracket away from the plastic lens cover to make it fit. The LED bulb isn't perpendicular to the center of the lens but it still puts out plenty of light and works great.



This is the rear dome light. You can see it is not centered in the lens, but it's still quite bright.



This is the front dome light.



That's all there is!
Thanks again for making the lights George!

For more information check out:
George Scolaro's Luxeon based LED project
And don't miss George's main web site:
George's 80 Series TLC and MQ Patrol Site

Now it's time for me to do some field testing...