Tacitos White Taco Supremo Build - DCLBOR 4x4

First stage of my HID conversion project.

Called up Andrew @ https://coolbulbs.com and he got me setup with a set of HID's... 3 sets of HID's to be exact.

First thing I did was test one side of the truck. I picked up 6k bulbs and 1 set of 3k bulbs for the fog lights.

Here are some pics of different combinations. My goal is to have HID low / high's and Fogs. I'm on the fence about 3k vs 6k HID's for the Fogs, so I'm gonna try them out.

6k HID Low beams




6k HID Low & High beam





6k HID Low/High & Fog Lights


6k Low & 3k Fog Lights




6k Left and right HID's outside at night. You may notice they appear much whiter. 2nd pic below is HID's with OEM fogs.





I was able to only test the Low beam HID's on the road home tonight. I choose a pretty bumpy route home to test the lights out. On smooth asphalt with light bumps the lights are absolutely stable. When the road got real bumpy I noticed a small short vibration on the passenger side only. This seems to be a common issue with other HID kits, however not as bad from the videos i've seen. I plan on re-installing the passenger side bulb and try to stabilize the bulb more. If I were to compare these HID's against previous vehicles I've owned with OEM HID's, the amount of vibrations I witnessed were very similar for the road I was on.

Once I take a closer look at the passenger bulb I will use my GoPro with a higher frame rate to record the vibes.

I've also installed 6k LED's in the interior Map and dome lights. Waiting on more LED's to arrive.

Also did some off-roading recently and got to test out the Crawl control. Loving this truck more and more every day.

 

HID update

So I removed the passenger side bulb this morning and found the grommet not seated properly on the bulb. I reset the grommet and reinstalled, the bulb seemed to fit much better. I'll be testing it again tonight on the same road + gopro video.

 

Sub'd for a good build!

 

What is the easiest way to get to all the bulbs? How about the fogs? They seem like they are all hard to get to?!? TIA

 

the headlights are easy, no need to remove anything, just stick your hands in and turn and pull out the bulb. The fogs I haven't tried yet.

 

fogs are just as easy, except you have to reach down a bit further. If your arms are short, then you will have to get to them from underneath or possibly remove the grille.

 

What grill did you order?

 

@SLACKBOY I ordered from Custom Car Grille a Perf mesh.

 

My full HID review can be found here

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/coolbulbs-com-hids-for-2016-toyota-tacoma-no-vibes.414540/

 

Had time to finish up some more minor mods today.

My inspiration for this mod came a while back after seeing this pic. I had been pondering how I wanted my dog to travel in my new truck without having to worry about the truck getting scratched up or the dog getting his paw stuck somewhere randomly. I also noticed after carrying some stuff in the back seats it can be slippery and the plastic panels can get scratched. So those things made this next mod a bit more valuable than before.

Inspiration:


I decided I wanted to try something a bit differently. I found this vinyl mat at Home Depot and decided to try it out. I'm hoping it can at least keep things from sliding or scratching the backseat plastic.

Some double sided tape is all it took to hold it down.




For additional padding, I picked up this foam pad at Home Depot as well. No cutting required, it fit perfectly. This and a thick blanket on top should be perfect to keep the dog contained, I hope. No I'm not hauling around a purse dog, I have an American Lab, and he likes to get dirty when I take him out doors. I don't want my truck to get that dirty.



With the left over vinyl mat, I decided to tackle another issue that's been bothering me and other Tacoma owners. The infamous bed storage compartments.

Since my first time adding the locks and weather strip foam to the doors I have done 2 off-road trails and driven through the rain a number of times. After opening the doors here is what I found.

From what I can tell, the weather stripping on the doors seems to be holding up to its job. I came to that conclusion based on the lack of dust on the door well where the doors sit.

However, plenty of dust and water seem to still be entering the bed storage compartments which makes their use limited IMO.



So with the left over vinyl mat and double sided tape I decided to try an experiment.

As you see above I covered the rear drain holes with the double sided tape. However the holes for the door hinges are a bit trickier to deal with. After closer inspection I noticed that there is a substantial gap between the door hinges and the door hinge holes when the door is installed.


So I cut some small material from the vinyl to allow for the doors to close snug. However I fear that may not be enough to keep dust and water out.. Although I do think my solution will minimize it further. I will have to wait and see how these perform.

While I was in there, I took some measurements of the drain holes and door hinge slots. I'm going to do some research on some alternative options to seal these areas better.

I still plan on keeping the vinyl in the storage boxes since I plan to keep my hitch n stuff in there and I don't want them banging or sliding around.

 

Same guy inspired mine

 

So shortly after I my recent post, I used my measurements and drew up some prototypes in CAD. Then I printed them with my 3D printer and did a test fitting. Whole process took me about 30-minutes.

These are prototypes, but they fit perfectly so that tells me I'm headed in the right direction. Gonna do some more tweaking to the design and probably have them printed in either ABS or rubber.




My goal hear is to close the gaps between the box hole and the door hinge thingy.

 

Another concept I've been thinking about and finally drew up.

This probably only applies to owners with the JBL subwoofer. I've been bothered by the small shelf space above the subwoofer. Seems like its wasted space to me. So I came up with an idea to turn that space into a useful shelf. Sure one can store things there as is, but what about when you want to drive with the seat back in the down position? Everything on that small shelf could fall forward while braking.

The area in the red circle is what I'm referring too.


Here is the shelf I want to build for it. It can have zero or multiple spacers. What do you think?

 

Cool idea!

 

Those look great ,, I wish I had a printer that did that lol ,,wanna sell a set when your dialed in )

 

Thank you, yes the printer comes in handy when you want to verify a design. I would be glad to sell you a set. Keep in mind, you still need to seal the doors. The foam weather strip on the doors I did before works well, however I have an improved version I want to test. The goal with these pieces is to achieve an OEM look and feel.

 

Yeah for sure ,,, I have a rug and canopy so sealing the doors wouldn't a huge concern right now but thanks ,,,

 

you must have an expensive printer if it works reliably, lol

 

Ha I know what you mean! I've used a number printers, what I've found its not the hardware that's limited, its the software writing the G-Code (G-Code is printer coordinate language). I switched to Simplify 3D and that software made a world of difference.

 

which printer are you on?