Jamey's 03 TRD Dream Build

currently:


Updated Info: It's not just on paper now! Below if a listing of the current mods before the thread revert back to my original post. I really tried to take pics and make decent write ups for others looking for inspiration or info on how to do something.

Suspension:
OME 3" lift with 881's, full dakars and aal's.
dif drop
extended brake lines
quick release sway bar links
grease-able shakles

Armor:
All-Pro baja front bumper
Al-Pro skid plates
Relentless Fabrications frame sliders

Performance:
K&N air filter
you can't fix perfection right?

Tires & Rims:
BFG 33x12.50.15 KM2 tires
Micky Thompson 15x8 sidebiter II rims

Audio:
Top of the line Sony head unit
Focal 6.5's and tweeters in the doors (custom build to fit)
2 10' Kicker subs
JL Audio HD amp biamplified to run Focals and rear fill speakers
Kicker amp for sub power
Completely dyno matted cab of truck

Lighting:
HID headlights
4 Rigid Industries lights up front, 2 beam, 2 floods.
Waterproof LEDs under hood and around bed
LED's in cab map light locations

The extra's:
Uniden CB with stow away antenna
Hi-lift jack
Raptor lined bed, sliders, and plates



I owned a 01 SR5 4cyl but sold it Before moving to Hawaii. After buying a Wrangler and hating it I FINALLY bought the truck that I have drooled over for about 6 years. I searched for literal months for exactly what i wanted, and I got this one owner taco from a fellow military member. I was actually in the middle of the Pacific on the USS BLUE RIDGE and found it listed in craigslist. I had my dad go buy it for me and then had it shipped to Hawaii.

this is what it looked like the day I bought it.



It was in great shape, but the rims were extremely pitted and the headliner was really fuzzy for some reason. I'm assuming he tried cleaning it which didn't work out to well.

Here's a couple of pics of the truck pre lift in Hawaii with my F470 Zodiac and off roading.

 

for redoing my rims I got a circular wire brush attachment for a drill and sanded the pits out of the rims. Then i cleaned them throughly and used index cards to slide in between the rim and tire (very good and easy) I painted the center cap separately. I used rustoleum semi gloss paint. here's some pics!

before:




sanded:


first coat:


done!

 

This was the week of Tacoma. I got in my relentless sliders and decided for the finish i would raptor line the sliders, bed, and skids. I sold my plastic bed liner which paid for two raptor liner kits. everything came out really good, just make sure you tape and tarp your entire truck if using this stuff. it is no joke. First I took off my extremely rusted skid plate to bring it back up to par. here are some pics:

this thing came off with only four bolts pretty easily.





this was a pic of it all sanded down:



and here was the finished product!:

 

I got a CEL that turned out to be the rear O2 sensor so I thought I'd go ahead and change the plugs and wires too since I'm at 124k now. I also cleaned and oiled the K&N filter but it's not pictured here.

 

The next day was installing my new Uniden CB radio and firestick antenna. I decided to mount it in the space where the ash tray goes. It took a bit of trimming the plastic behind it and taking the mounting plate the ash tray slides on above it out but then it fit no problem.

I still have to get a L connector for the coax cable so that the CB will fit flush.
I ran the coax cable down the under the carpet and out through the floor. Then I zip tied it to the frame and ran it up into the bed of the truck to the fire stick antenna.

I normally keep a camper top on the truck so I bought a special mounting attachment that allows the antenna to be put down at a 90 degree angle and locked upright when needed. It still works in the down position, just not as well.

here's a pic of the trimming i had to do. there used to be a plastic piece in the void and if you look at the top you can see the black piece that I had to cut out too.



here's a pic of the finished product.



lastly, here's a pic of the antenna

 

and to end the week I went to Pakshack here in hawaii and got $180 worth of detailing supplies to finally bring this thing back to a showroom finish for the first time since I bought it. It was very dull when i bought it.

I washed with 4oz of dawn in 3 gal of water, then clay bared it, then I used a griot's buffer with mcguier's compound. then i used a sealant that I can't remember what the name of it is at the moment. man did it come out great. so great in fact that my camera kept making the pics dark before the truck was so bright

Here's some pics of the finished product. I was to ingrained in the 9 hour detailing process to take pics.







soooooo worth the money. unfortunately I have enough to do my wife's car as well. guess I know what my plans are for next weekend

 

I got a set of relentless fabrication frame sliders during the Hawaii group buy and I'm absolutely happy with them. they look great and are super strong with thick tubing. After pricing lining here in Hawaii I decided to raptor line them and my truck bed at the same time. two sets of raptor lining did the bed, frame sliders, and skid plates with 6 out of the 8 bottles (four bottles per kit).

Here's a pic of the frame sliders as i got them.



next I scuffed up the sliders and did ALOT of prep work on the bed sanding it down and taping everything off. Make sure you tape everything really well. After I finished I saw a small spot that looked a bit thin so I thought I could just shoot it really quick. There was clear gritty sh** all over my truck from just a quick 2 sec spray. Thankfully I had re-polished the truck the week before so I was able to just wash it off. was hard to get it off the glass though.









then the fun part! I found that if you spray at the PSI they recommend it's more gritty. If you spray itat a highers PSI it comes out less abrasive. Either way it's way less abrasive than herculiner or anything like that.

 

I've wanted to lift the truck for so long now it almost seems like a dream that it's sitting in my driveway 3 inches higher right now! I know I did a lot of reading and read a lot of reviews prior to buying the lift and especially before deciding to do the install myself. Not everything was clear mostly because I had zero experience with suspensions prior to this lift so I'm going to go into detail as possible for any other members like me that feel apprehensive about doing the install at home.

This will also be a two part lift. I ordered the OME kit from toytec with AAL's and later decided I want to go all out with it and put the OME Dakar replacement leafs in as my truck has 130k miles on it and the old ones are probably about worn out. I ordered the leafs through 4 wheel parts and they wont be here until later this week, but decided to go ahead with the AAL's so others could see the height difference between the two and I could comment on the difference in ride quality between stock, AAL's and Dakars. Your welcome
I ordered all the extra parts besides the main lift from Wheelers and for anyone looking to buy a kit in the future I would recommend them. Super nice and took the time to ensure I got the right stuff I needed.

LIFT KIT PARTS:
OME 881 coils
OME sport shocks
spacers for full 3" in front
Toytec AAL's
brake relocation bracket
extended steel braided brake line
shock stone guards for the rear

PARTS NOT INSTALLED YET:
OME Dakar leafs
exhaust relocation braket
greasable shackles
all new bushings

TOOLS NEEDED (to the best that I can remember):
jack
jack stands
12 point sockets up to 22mm
breaker bar (Also used impact gun for ease)
metric wrenches (ratchet wrenches are a must IMO)
pry bar (used a thick 2ft screwdriver)
screwdrivers
pliers
C clamps (large x2)
channel locks
locking pliers
dead blow hammer
10mm crow foot socket or wrench for the brake line
16 cans of WD40

If everything goes right this could be done in a day no problem. if your truck is like mine it took two of us two days working for approx 10 hours to get it done.

 

before pics:









Here's a couple of pics after we got the front done and before we did the rear so you can see the height difference.





Look at that taco lean I'm holding out hope that when i put the new leaf packs in the rear it will somehow make it better miraculously.



AFTER!!!





Now, one thing I noticed that I don't understand is that the rear wheels aren't centered in the wheel wells. Is that normal? Is there a way to fix this? Its even on both sides so it's not like it's crooked... I don't think.

 

We did the front first. I had toytec assemble the springs and coils prior to shipping which makes this much easier IMO. In terms I could understand these are the steps to doing the front:
jack up front and put jack stands under frame
remove wheels
unscrew three bolts on top of the strut tower (these are the three bolts for the piece you're taking out) DO NOT UNSCREW THE MIDDLE BOLT
unscrew the ABS wire in three spots to give it room to move
remove sway bar linkage
I'm not sure what the part is that connects the upper control arm to everything down below (its right in front) but take cotter pin out and unscrew bolt on top to release the upper control arm
now you can unscrew the bolt holding the bottom on the shock on
After unscrewing the bolt we had to use the jack to seperate the upper control arm. just took a piece of wood and put it under the UCA and jacked it up off the bolt.

Let's pause here for a sec. The driver side top three bolts came off with quit a bit of elbow grease and WD40. The passenger side, not so much... Two of the three had to be ground off as the bolts themselves were spinning with the nuts. The biggest issue we had with the front was that the huge bolt that attaches the bottom of the shock was seized on BOTH sides. These bolts literally would not come out. We tried impact, breaker bar, torch, sacrificed a goat, not luck. ended up having to grind it out ***hind sight always being just that, to late to make a difference, I would have bought a sawzall to make much faster work of it. We did it the hard way though ground through the shock ring in the front, articulated it down (being careful of the ABS wire) then ground the back side the same way so we could pull the shock out. I thought there was just a rubber bushing inside there but I was wrong. there was a metal ring with rubber under it and another metal ring inside that that the bolt was directly in contact with. This took wayyyyyy to long to get out and was very frustrating.

after we FINALLY got that damn thing outta the way I had to make a quick trip to lowes to buy some new bolts to replace the ones we mangled into three pieces. The rest of the front was super easy.
put in new coil over in
tighten top three bolts
tighten bolt that holds bottom of shock into place
put jack on the LCA and jack up to get the nut started on top of the UCA.
after it's started move jack to under the rotor (under where the tire bolts go, not the very bottom edge of it)
everything else is just the above in reverse

One thing I did change was I took the swaybar links off both sides and ground the threads down on two sides of each bolt and drilled a hole through it to make them quick disconnects. Then i just popped in a couple of clips and good to go. (I have since bought bigger clips to replace the small ones you see in the pic)

 

not going to write up the back unless someone has a question. I'm tired haha. here's a few pics of everything finished. I will be doing the OME leaf packs this weekend along with some painting on the rear parts and axle.

 

You have one clean looking rig there! And I love your mods so far. Great job!

 

Thanks , I appreciate it! cleaned up and painted the rear axle this weekend. Took the truck offroading for the first time in Hawaii on Sunday... so long overdue. The taco did awesome though. I did everything my buddies lifted rubicon with 35's did. I'll post some pics soon and I'm editing my gopro footage to make my first youtube video. the wide lens makes the obstacles not look like anything when in real life it was some pretty insane stuff. The gopro also makes everything look much farther away than it actually is. I guess next time we'll have to get super close to the truck for some good shots.

 

First video, be sure to watch in 1080p! This was my first experience editing a video so sorry if it's crap... Second video uploading now.

http://youtu.be/eUcuE-f3kHY

 

Truck looks good as hell man!

I'll get there one day.

 

heh, I'm not to far along on mine yet. Still loads of plans. I see your from Clemson. I'm from SC too I'm from Greenwood and my wife is from Donalds.

We met shortly after she graduated from Lander and she had just been accepted to Clemson for her masters... Being the Gamecock fan that I am I proposed and moved her to Hawaii to keep her out of Clemson

Nah, I like Clemson too. As long as they aren't playing an SEC team.

 

part II! a lot cooler parts IMO.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10LO0rbDDcQ

 

finally done installing new sound system. build list below. can provide pics if anyone is interested. It did take some work to get the Focal's to fit.

Sony Head unit
Focal K2 6.5's
kept the stock rear fill speakers
JL Audio HD 600/4 amp
Kicker 500/1 amp
Kicker L5 10 in Kicker slot ported truck box

I have the K2's set up bi amplified, that doesn't mean two amps powering them, it means channels 1 and 2 are for tweeters, and 3 and 4 are for mid woofers. This allows for much better end sound after proper tuning. the rear fill speakers are ran off deck power and the kicker sub runs off the kicker amp. Still waiting on the dynamat to get in to finish and give it one last tune. Wont be puting MLV in until I get to FL in November as shipping to hawaii is insane. rear speakers in 1st gen's sound plenty good and hold up to power. I would recommend skipping on upgrading them and spend the money on other stuff where it would count more.

pics of the dyno matting:

 

So over a year ago when I put my lift on my wife was adamant that I couldn't get new tires until mine wore out... no problem i thought, i'll just mess my camber and alignment up a bit so they will wear quickly. well let me tell you, those tires are amazing! it took them this long to wear down, and even now they aren't really bad around the edges. I think i just got a free pass because i just got back from nine months at sea

I got BFG KM2 33x12.50x15's on Micky Thompson Sidebiter II 15x8 rims.

these tires wheels and tires look great together. the blocked tread on the tires matches the rims very well. the tires did rub some, I ended up cutting a corner out of my fender road guard plastic and beating in the fender lip. it's still rubbing a bit but not bad at all. I thought about adding a one inch body lift to clear it up, i know i know no body lifts. then i decided that it would gap the distance between the body and the sliders and would look bad. so not quite sure what i'll do atm. i definitely want to get a bit more clearance though.

 

Satoshi grill DIY in progress! waiting on color match paint and grill mesh from homer taco to come in to finish the job. also painting the chrome edges of coner lights to color match everything super white. All-Pro baja bumper and skids ordered as well. anyone know approx how long they take to ship after an order?



I cut the middle out which was pretty easy, i just used a tool that's like a screw driver handle but holds a metal saw blade. cut through really easy.



then i used the dremel to grind all the left over down. the I cut into the braces far the fiberglass to lay flat and cover all the holes better. I actually ended up cutting the slits much further back than in this pic... not sure if this is how everyone else did it.



taped and fiber glassed. this was my first time messing with fiber glass and it is messy! be sure to wear gloves and don't get it anywhere. this stuff took much longer to dry than 90 minutes. I recommend laying this and letting it sit overnight to cure fully. especially in the winter.



trimmed back with scissors first but ended up using the dremel to cut it back so everything was even. (don't have a pic of the end even finish)