Do you know where to buy this light?:


I'd like to install it in a T4R first gen hard top.

 

The lamp you've circled is not a stop light (notice the color?), it's the bed light. A switch in the cab turns it on so you can see if your stuff has fallen out. Unless you're a real stickler for "authenticity" you'd do much better with strips of LEDs.

Toyota did make a Center Stop Lamp for the 4runner. https://parts.lakelandtoyota.com/p/T...7035020E0.html Apparently, the cowling is matched to the paint, so there are a lot of part numbers. There are NHTSA requirements for stop lamps, and I don't know if having one so far forward (on the cab, not the back edge of the 4runner roof) meets those regulations (if you care).

 

As Scope103 has said, that is not a brake light at all, rather it is what Toyota calls a deck lamp. The deck lamp was turned on by a switch in the dash, which is only active when the parking or headlights are switched on (at least in the U.S).

You should already have a deck lamp in your 4Runner. It is the cargo light in the back.

Since the pickup truck's cargo area was the bed and not inside the vehicle like the 4Runner, the deck lamp was placed on the back of the cab.

The deck lamp was later replaced by a third brake light starting around the 1994 model year due to safety requirements.

Only the 1984-1988 Trucks and 1984-1989 4Runners had the deck lamp.

Oh, and to answer your original question of where to buy, that lamp has been discontinued for years, but since it wasn't a brake light to begin with, you would be better off with something else, maybe the third brake light from a 1994 or later 4runner?

 

he is in Europe so he will have slightly different requirements

 

I removed my rear wiper - more trouble than it's worth so I'm debating:
1) Just fit 2 bolt lights in existing holes ( I know, not pretty but my truck takes me to prettier places than Nordstrom where overly-outfitted trucks go - LOL!), or
2) "tacoma third brake light 1995-2015" on Amazon. This would mean having to cut fiberglas. Please try to find one not made in China for obvious reasons Lots of auto accessories are now made in Thailand

 

Because everything made in China is bad? No, we live in a global economy. You can get bad things from China. You can get bad things from Germany, or the US. But other than those outliers, many of the best things you use every day (iPhones?) are made in China.

I'm not old enough to have personally experienced this, but in the first third of the last Century, "made in Japan" was one of the harsher pejoratives one could use. Japan (like China in the last 40 years) had only recently opened to the West. Travelers to there saw a wide range of products, but to minimize the risk of importing something new, they went with the cheapest items they could get. It wasn't until, oh, December of 1941, that the West realized the Japanese were capable of producing excellent manufactured goods.

Same with China today (except, we hope, for the December 1941 part).

True!

 

What came from China recently did worse than what came from Japan in Dec 1941

 

Bed light, I didn't know that.

Thank you for the link.
My 4R has that cargo light.

Thanks! I'll try something else.

I really don't know about the national requirements, I'm asking this because a new insurance form asks if my 4R has the third brake light.


Thanks for the tip, Ray.

 

I just remembered this thread.
Amazon / Ebay has third brake light aka high-mounted LED brake lights for first to second gen Tacoma's. Approx $25 each.

 

WOW!!!
I couldn't have said it better myself.

 

Hey! Any idea if these actually fit? My deck lamp has been missing for years and I want to retrofit somthing. The first gen high mount lamps look like you would have to cut into the body to make it fit, or preferably modify the the housing, which I am considering.

 

Sorry, Don't really know what your deck lamp looks like, nor what truck you have. First and second-gen Tacoma third brake lights require a fairly big cut-out. I saw it at junk yard. My 4Runner cap only has holes vacated by rear wiper and washer that I removed and I don't want to cut a lot into the fiberglas so I'm leaning more toward aftermarket LED ones from Amazon - similar to those on aftermarket camper shells.
Need to see which wire location would required least cutting on mine.

 

And don't forget if you did not have a brake light function on the cab to begin, just the bed lamp, you would still need to hook into the brake light circuit.