ARB Bar and Factory Front Parking Sensors

[Pete t pops Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Pete t pops]

Unfortunately bar already ordered & paid for, yep surrounds PZQ2960440MI $2.55 ea, four ordered from my local dealer.


Ps I love this forum, problem resolved before I even had a chance to find out about it

[Guest Close Guest]

The bezel comes in dark grey only.

[rwo Advanced Member Find all posts View Profile Close rwo]

Thanks for the awesome detective work there AMTS, i was trolling the car park today but couldnt find any vx/alt/kaka's. Your photo also confirms they are a 3 wire sensor which would mean not plug and play with the gxl harness. When i get home i will hit up the wiring diagrams and see if the the cpu is the same pn or not. My preferred solution is still the genuine FACTORY sensors as I dont fancy drilling the bar for the surround to fit.

In the mean time, i was thinking a 22mm washer behind the sensor would make it more secure and prevent it from being twisted and pulled out the front of the bar, i can live with the less than perfect hole coverage if the sensor is secure.

I too regret having to put front sensors on, it all came about when arb ordered the wrong bar and told me about it when i dropped the car off to install. They said they could change it but i would have had to wait another 3 months. I didn't think a front sensor install would be this hard and it was made even worse by some idiot (me) installing a uhf in the nice little spot toyota leave you to fix the cpu!

[Pete t pops Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Pete t pops]

I need to find out for arb if the gxl sensors will work installed in metal, apparently the kakadu/vx work fine but they are not sure about these ones

[Pete t pops Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Pete t pops]

RWO do your sensors work when fitted in the bullbar???

[rwo Advanced Member Find all posts View Profile Close rwo]

Yeah mate, sensors seem to work without any problems. If anything they trigger too soon, but I would say that is just how they are designed, nothing to do with the install.

[Pete t pops Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Pete t pops]

amts, you have seen both the bezel & sensor as fitted in australia. If i was Starting with a fresh bar what do you think is the best option, drilling 22mm dia holes for the sensor only or the 30mm holes for the bezel. by the look of the sensor im thinking it will hold ok in the approx 2mm deep metal & the bezel will not be required?? what do ya think, pete

[Guest Close Guest]

I would drill a 22mm hole on a test piece and see how it holds. The bezel only comes in grey. So if you bought colour coded sensors and are going to install it on a colour coded bar, then it wouldn't look so nice with a different coloured bezel. Now if the sensor doesn't sit nicely in the 22mm hole, then it can always be drilled out to suit the bezel.

[rwo Advanced Member Find all posts View Profile Close rwo]

Pete, go with AMTS's idea and drill some test holes. I sourced some 22mm and 7/8 (about 22.4mm) washers and could not get the sensors through either. If you were to drill a plastic bumper that has a bit of give a 22mm hole would suffice and hold securely but you will need a larger hole to get through steel as the "ribs" that hold the sensor in are another mm or 2 wider than the sensor itself.

[Guest Close Guest]

Hmmm, maybe that's why you need the bezel then. Because there's not much movement in the tabs and you drilled a slightly bigger hole, it may not hold so well as the lip around the bezel looks pretty narrow.

So from what rwo has said, I think it is better fitted with the bezel.

[Pete t pops Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Pete t pops]

sounds like the bezel will be the go. rwo im sure you would be able to find a suitable paint to colour them white. For me my bar & sensors are black so dark grey should be fine but I might end up colouring them at some point.

As far as expanding the existing hole on an arb "sensor" bar, the two ways my mates (who are a bit more knowledgeable about working metal than me) have come up with are:

1. filling the hole with epoxy first so that you then can create a centre hole for the holesaw bit to run true

2. marking the reqired shape then using round file or dremel to expand the hole

Im at a bit of a crossroads because I just found out arb ordered the wrong style of bar, so can either have a new bar ordered (not sensor) or take the existing bar they have (which has sensor holes) if they end up offering me a decent discount.

[rwo Advanced Member Find all posts View Profile Close rwo]

Painting isn't the issue for me, it's drilling a 30mm hole in the bar to fit the new bezel.

I am still going to investigate if the kakadu style sensors can be made to work with the GXL wiring setup or even get some of the kakadu bezels and hack the GXL sensors into them. Just got a lot on at the moment and this is no longer a priority as the sensors seem secure enough as they are and work as they should.

If I had my time again and knowing what I know now, I would have sent the kakadu bar back and got one without sensor holes and left them off altogether.

[Pete t pops Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Pete t pops]

Thanks for bringing the issue up, it has certainly helped me. I'm goin with a new bar & will be drilling the 30 mm holes in. As I said I think the easiest way for you to expand the hole (if you have to )would be with a Dremel & tungsten carbide cutter bit.

Ps if anyone needs a combo bar with sensor holes in 202 black, I'm pretty sure that you could get it for a good price from arb penrith.

[Pete t pops Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Pete t pops]

Update to this thread, my sahara bar went on today at arb penrith. I was lucky enough to get a new bullbar ordered as they had got the wrong style in. So this time ordered "without sensor holes" ie standard gxl bar. I gave arb the bezels but stated I would not like to use them if possible.

They ended up drilling a 20mm hole and slowly expanded it with a Dremel until the sensors would fit. (Very tight apparently) So I'm all sorted sensors are in without bezels and it looks as good as a vx/kakadu.

Thanks to all that helped on this thread

[mikey87 Lurker Find all posts View Profile Close mikey87]

Ohh this sounds like fun.. just brought my gxl prado into the dealership to get my (included into my deal) front parking sensors installed without knowing arb will have dramas installing a bar later down the track which i planned to go sort out tommorow. Whats the Go do i need different sensors now or new holes drilled to accommodate these sensors??