#JimThePrius Overland Conversion in the making.

Hello Everyone.

I've finally decided on a name for this project so I guess its time to introduce it to everyone:

#JimThePrius started life as a taxi in Melbourne, Australia and came into my possession for the princely sum of $2350 with 415,000km on the clock.


After stripping some of the parts from my previous Subaru build I began by fitting a light bar, switches to run them, a dash cam, and daytime running lights (with switchback indicators replacing the original front globes)


Then it was time to drive 8 hours back to my home city of Adelaide.




And that seems like a logical place to end my first post... Stay tuned for more!

 

After arriving back in Adelaide I needed to take the Prius in for an ID check as it was bought with no registration, unfortunately the light bar didn't pass the inspection as it was too high and the corners were too sharp, luckily they let me unbolt it in the carpark before giving me my registration plates.

The next stage was to get rid of the horrible yellow/green paint job, I chose a much less garish low sheen grey from the Taubmans Exterior house paint range, including some rollers, tape and sand paper it set me back $100.




After 2 days of furious sanding and rolling the outside was complete! I still need to do a few edges and the door jams and stuff later on but that can wait.




And that brings an end to this post... Stay tuned for more!

 

Yes I used the foam rollers to manually apply, not as good finish as spray paint but much less preparations needed, and gives me the look I wanted. I still need to get some smaller brushes for getting in some tight corners I couldn't reach with the rollers.

 

It's not completely smooth like normal spray paint, but has a slight textured finish similar to the walls in your house would have.

Funny you should mention the lights, that will be my next post!

 

Now that the paint is pretty much complete and another interstate trip back to Melbourne was looming I turned my attention back to the lights.

I bought some new ones in the meantime that are much higher quality than the first set, and was tossing up between making a new bar to mount them on or just modify the existing one when I discovered there's actually enough room between the headlights for both sets!


I still wasn't convinced on the bar though so I removed the front bumper to see how much room there was without all the plastic in the way, this is when I discovered that the factory aluminium bumper reinforcement bar was the exact right shape and location to hold the lights!

A couple of bolt holes and some trimming of the plastic grille later and my new lights look right at home


I still may add the other pair because too many lights is never enough, and I will also swap the factory fog lights for the small LED lights from the old bar which I need to get yellow filters for.



That's all for today, stay tuned!

 

I have added new circuits for the daytime running lights and the spotlights.

The daytime running lights are powered by a spare fuse in the under dash fusebox that is only live when the ignition is "on", they then have a relay triggered by the park light circuit to turn them off when the headlights are turned on, there is also an over ride switch if I want to turn them completely off for some reason.

The spot lights are powered from the positive 12v battery terminal in the under bonnet fuse box, they then have their own external fuse and a relay which is triggered by the high beam lights so they only come on with high beam. Once again an over ride switch to turn them completely off.

If/when I add the second pair of spotlights they will be wired the same as the first set, and I will have a separate switch for each depending on driving conditions. The LED fog lights will just be connected straight to the factory wiring.

 

Here's some better pictures of the difference the lights make. I will be polishing the factory headlights and upgrading the globes eventually too, just havnt got around to it yet.

All camera settings locked in "manual" mode, as close to what I see in real life as I could get

Stock Low beam:


Stock high beam:


Livid Hyperdrive mk2:


And the reason I need these lights:

 

You can do it on any car with a little bit of time and creativity. I got the lights second hand and did the wiring and setup myself.

Haha no I removed the logos before paint, I just hadn't refitted them yet in that photo.

 

Now that the outside is relatively together il move my attention to the inside, the next few mods were installed at random times during everything else but il put them all together into one post for ease of reading.

First the switches for the lights, the far left is for the big spotlights, the far right is for the daytime running lights, and the middle 2 are spares for now. You can also see my phone holder peeking out from under the steering wheel, it's just a steel L bracket that sticks to a magnet glued onto the back of my phone.


The next thing to go in was a switch (in the bottom right corner of the top glove box) that turns the radio on without the key in the ignition, this will be more useful later when I've upgraded to an aftermarket radio without all of the controls on the MFD screen. I also fitted a volt gauge that comes on with the same switch (or the key) this allows me to keep an eye on the 12v battery.


Moving to the other side of the top glove box I fitted 2 more switches, these are connected to the front speaker wiring and swap it from the factory door speakers to a pair of speak-on plugs that I can plug my external speakers into while camping or at parties.


There are also some of these plugs replacing the rear door speakers but I forgot to take a photo of that. The external speakers sound great and are quite loud even just running off the factory head unit.


There will be much more extensive audio upgrades later, but that's all for now.

 

Next on the list was a towing hitch, but since I live on the wrong side of the world buying one from Amazon wasn't an option, instead I decided to adapt the one from my old Subaru.


I ended up using the same tow hook bolts that the Curt ones use, and also braced it with the factory bumper reinforcing bar mounts, this puts it a good 6" above the normal ones and means it's completely hidden by the bumper and flat under floor panels for optimal aerodynamics and ground clearance.


Compared to a Curt Hitch:


Finished product: