Fati's Tacoma

Tacoma World! How's it going? I posted this up on TTORA's Garage but wanted feed back so I'm putting it up here as well. Welcome to my build.


The truck is a 2003 Tacoma TRD SR5 4x4, Manual with the 3.4L V6 and towing package. The previous owner put a 2in body lift and 1in diff drop on. They are still on.

Here she sits about 2 months after purchase (no work yet)


Since the picture, the following work has been done (and I got the pics to prove it)

Deck Plate Mod w/K&N (HERE)
All Pro Rock Sliders (HERE)
Custom Equipment Mount (HERE)
Cadillac Alternator Swap (best 40 bucks I've spent) (HERE)
Bose speakers, 6 (got em for free, figured why not)
1200lb Clutch and Flywheel (only work I did not do, out of town...)

Current:

I'll get a cleaner picture eventually...

I love wrenching and have big plans for this truck. The last project was really my motivation to start this build thread. I'll keep it going if you guys like what you see. End Game for the truck: LONG TRAVEL.

Ok enough build up, time for the build pictures!

 

DECK PLATE MOD:
very helpful write I followed can be found here http://www.trdoffroad.com/articles/deckplate/index.php


The painters tape gives you something to write on. I used a dremel to cut it out.


Ruff cut *TAKE NOTE* As seen here I did not take out the MAF senor :xsmash: Don't do that. Mine worked after but I had to use floss to clean it


Cleaned up


I used a razor blade to clean up a lot of the burrs on the inside. Kind of a pain in the ass but you want to get all that crap out of there, no burrs.




Silicone the holes. Honestly, I went heavy with the stuff but did not get a picture of it all. I whipped away (or cut after drying) the excess. I wanted to make sure I had a good seal with the cap ON.



Finished Product.

 

ALL-PRO ROCK SLIDERS.

First let me say this is a great product.

I painted these with a can of bedliner I picked up from Autozone. It was a kit for about 60 bucks. I wouldn't paint my whole bed in the stuff but for armor and GRIP, it works great.


Ok so we have some rust build up. I firmly believe the key to any good paint job is prep so all the rust goes. I used a Craftsman rotary sander with 60 grit on as much of it as I could. The rest, I hand sanded... :banghead:



after all the sanding there was still some rust that I could not get. So I coated the whole thing in Naval Jelly rust remover. I let it sit for about 15 minutes then wiped it off with some soap and water. The above 2 pictures are right after.

After the water dried I immediately used Rustoleum Auto Primer. I used 2 cans on each slider which was about 3 coats. Alas, I forgot to take a picture after the primer.

The kit I bought came with a 4 inch paint roller (of sorts...) and a brush. If you have this kit and want the below effect, ONLY use the brush. Below is finished product



I put four coats total on and still have a ton of the stuff left over. In between coats 20-30 mins, I would use the brush DRY to kind of flatten out the paint as it kind of bubbles while it dries.

 

CUSTOM EQUIPMENT MOUNT:

So I decided that I was tired of my dash cluttered with my GPS and XM radio. I also had a PA system controller that was mounted under the glove box and hard as hell to reach as the driver.

I was influenced by heavily by Barlowrs's Yaesu 8900r mount (GREAT build) and wanted to be able to do something similar but with more equipment options.

Here is Barlowrs's Yaesu 8900r mount :http://www.tacomaworld.com/forum/2n...-06-taco-expo-build-thread-2.html#post1429365.

First I took a 1x1 square steel tube and split it down the center with a circular saw and metal cutting wheel. I made two length wise cuts to get about a 1cm lip on each side of the piece. I then mocked them up in the cab

As you can see I've bent them to match the slop of the roof. Basically, bend a little check, bend a little check...


I chose the factory holes for the rear view mirror up front to mount to.


for the back I put bolts through the two factory holes on either side of the dome light. One of these holes has a clip for the wire to the dome light. I ripped out the clip...



I then made support cross bars


I used a bit of epoxy and ziptied the cross brackets to the two main bars.


Which allowed me to take it out and weld it exactly how I had it mocked up in the cab.


Welded.




Better view of the bend


Ground down all the ruff edges and burrs. You can also see the holes for the XM and PA mount in this photo. The GPS did not get added until the and as I was waiting for the mount to come in the mail while I built this.


Again used 60 grit and rotary sander to prep for paint.


Paint and marked for brackets


Brackets added.

At this point, I want to get into the wiring involved in this mod. The PA System (BLK, RED, GRN, GRN) was fairly easy. I did need about 2 more feet of wiring so I soldered and heat shrinked the extra footage.

The Garmin and XM however were a problem. They drew power from standard cig lighter plugs. Those were certainly not long enough and had to go.

I purchased a 1x2x4 project box from RadioShack and took the circuit boards out of the two cig plugs.


Here you see just the XM circuit board. I had to unsolder, then resolder the power cable from this board to the XM radio. I then soldered in my own black and red wires onto the + and - terminals. You can kind of tell in this picture, I was able to keep the functionality of of the LED light.


Here you see both the XM and Garmin circuit boards. Again, I was able to incooperate the LED power light for the Garmin



LED for the XM (top) and Garmin (bottom). You can see how I routed the wires. After completion, I decided the wire routing sucked so I made a new box doing the same thing but routing the wires through the top of the box. I do not have a close up but you will see it in the next set of pictures.


FML. I did not want to do it, but realized the only was to route the wires to the firewall in a clean way was to take about the whole Fing dash.



What a damn mess. Clean it up!



You can see the second and final XM/GPS power box in this picture.

All power wires are currently sitting idle in my engine bay. I will be fabing a custom fuse block (again similar to Barlowrs build, THANKS MAN!) later to give power to the devices. (I'm waiting on parts)

Onward...


Final check before Point of No Return... Cutting into the headliner :saw: As you can see I still have room to add a few more peripherals, I like options!






DONE. For now.

 

Next up will be...



Cadillac Alternator Swap. I actually have already installed this but I will be beefing up the wiring in order to accommodate the new fuse block and heavier draw. I'll probably start working on it this Thursday and have some pics up by the weekend

So far though I've had the alternator in for about 2 months and have had ZERO issues. I also wired it so that the 'no charge' dash warning light still functions. Ill be sure to take detailed pictures of the wiring as that was the hardest part of this swap.

 

love the mod of the roof.

 

Yeah the roof mod gives me some ideas. Nice build so far

 

Thanks guys. It's all about the exchange of ideas SupraT.

 

How do you get the cloth off of the ceiling? do you have to cut it? and how do you get it back on? Awesome build!

 

No need to cut it. once you remove all the plastic pieces, lights, hooks, etc you can just pull it off. Just be careful its actually a piece of fiberboard with carpet and insulation glued to it. So if you bend it, you'll crease it

 

Going to be doing a big project over this weekend and next. Using Monstaliner for the interior tub and filling up all cavities in the cab with 2-part polyurethane foam. Also will be doing a couple other minor modifications as I go. Here's all the supplies I will be using and the start of preparing the interior. Ill be uploading more stuff as I go. This weekend the goal is to get all the foam in. For now, enjoy the teaser photos.

Supplies:





Initial Prep:





Molds for the speaker boxes and all seat belt mechanisms: