Honest Review of the Trail Gear Low Profile Bumper for 1st Gen Tacomas

impressive, I am a elevator escalator moving walk mechanic at Denver International Airport; swing shift 3 to 11 pm.

 

I was stationed at a Navy base in Tenn years ago lol possibly Milner or something; I remember how beautiful it is. There was this one cliff I enjoyed visiting at night to view the thousands of fire flys; it appeared as if I were looking over a city at night.

 

DWF= guilty lol

 

I'm really thinking of getting this bumper. Do you have to do the blinker mod in order for it to look good as well as chop some of the metal off in front. I want to keep it somewhat stock so if I decide to sell my truck down the road I can put it back to stock and sell the bumper seperate.

 

Hey Taco as we know, blinkers are required and yes I cut some off, but very little and was not necessary. The TG winch did not fit very well at all, and had to cut into the grill to fit. The winch is another reason I had to place light bar where you see it. Perhaps one day I will rewire winch and place the light bar inside where it should be, although the light is amazing lol.

 

I didn't do the blinker mod. There is a blinker set you can buy and they hook up to your existing blinker wires. I didn't chop anything. Another thing is the TG bumper shows all the sheet metal behind it where you didn't see it before since your stock bumper covers it up. So I painted the metal behind there black cause it didn't look good at all with the stock color showing. Here is before & after I painted the sheet metal behind the bumper. And here is how it sits now.

 

This is great. I like how minimal they are. I plan to paint everything behind the bumper black to match the bumper as well, like you said, it makes it all look much cleaner. Thanks for the response!

 

Here are my TG sliders & TG rear bumper. I Raptor lined my front bumper but primed & painted the sliders & rear bumper.

 

Looking awesome! You're making me want it all!

 

Hi @Tacotruck7, this bumper is not the best choice if you think you might return your truck to stock form in the future. You don't HAVE to cut off any extra sheet metal or the stock bumper mounts if you don't want to, but it would look really bad:

There would also be a big white washer fluid reservoir hanging down right there as well. I'm guessing this person has removed the reservoir and was in the process of deciding what to trim off when the photo was taken. There are also large chunks of plastic inner fender liner that need to be cut off. That ugliness right there is why I went through the trouble of cutting metal, re-routing wiring, relocating blinkers and finding a different washer reservoir that fit in the engine compartment.

 

This is all really good info. I'm not decided on what I want to do yet as I don't know if having a bumper will help or hurt resale value. I want to make my truck mine but not go too crazy. I have no intensions of selling it but with any of my assets I try to keep that in mind.

 

I see this is an old thread but CLL17P what type of winch did you setup on your TG bumper? I'm looking for options.

 

I am looking to get a trail gear rear bumper for my 2011 tacoma.
On their website, it says the bumper comes unfinished and in oil.
Did yall paint your own bumper or take it somewhere for someone to do it for you?

 

Painted mine with rustoleum satin black and it looks really good.

Makes sure you degrease it really well, like hose it down with simple green, acetone, whatever

I used rustoluem self etching primer, 2 coats, then let it sit for like 30min and get nice and dry.

Sprayed about 7 fairly light coats of satin black and it looks exactly like powdercoat black, albeit not as furable but a hell of a lot easier to touch up.

Devote an entire warm sunny day to this and take your time. It’ll come out great!

Also, pick up one of those spray can gun handle things, makes a world of dfference

 

I also used Rustoleum primer and semi-gloss black spray paint. It's cheap, durable and a thousand times easier to touch up than powdercoat.

 

The last thing I cared about when I bought this winch bumper was on-pavement handling. But this flimsy-ass stock crossmember had to be causing loads of chassis flex:

Replacing it with the 1/4" plate crossmember completely changed the on-road behavior for the better. It's controlled and smooth going over bumps, instead of bucky and jittery. Cornerning feels very planted and in crosswinds it is a lot more stable and requires far fewer steering adjustments. It is now surprisingly civilized on pavement for a small truck with pizza cutter tires.

Where did you take that crossmember from? I've got a 97 5 lug that looks like the one that used to be on the end of the frame. After this install I feel like I'm driving a damn boat. I'd love to make a stronger one like you but I'm not sure where you even got that from. Can you take some pics of it for me?

 

That photo is of the stock crossmember that I removed when I installed the Trail Gear crossmember and front bumper. I don’t have the stock one anymore.

The Trail Gear crossmember looks like this:
http://www.trail-gear.com/product/4716/rock-defense-tacoma-front-bumper-mounting-plate

It’s also included in the price of their 1st gen Tacoma front bumpers. It’s the Trail Gear bumper and crossmember that greatly improved handling. It’s made of 1/4” steel plate, unlike the OEM stamped sheet metal part.

 

Hmmmm maybe Its time for an alignment then because my cars acting pretty loose since installation

 

How old are your shocks, ball joints, tie rod ends and steering rack bushings?

 

I know the shocks and ball joints are about a year old but further examination of the tie rods shows me that they're completely destroyed haha