Rooty's "Tacfroma" Build

Very nice lookin truck Jesse. I wish I had the same bumper on my 08. At the time they only had the one without the foglight mod.
That is one nice job on the wheel painting and the front grill. The Truck is very sharp.

 

truck looks awesome jesse. keep up the good work!

 

Thanks dude! Yeah I was gonna skip the bumper till I saw that they were now coming with fog lights, that sealed the deal for me

Thanks man. Now I just gotta paint the center caps and put em on (I'm surprised no ones noticed that yet) and wire up my driving lights. I'm going with a three way switch (one position for on/off with the highbeams, one position for always on and one position for always off. Then I think I will be done for a good long while. I may lift it a bit in the future but I think I am gonna wait till I need new tires and shocks. Its hard to justify the cash otherwise, as I would only be putting it up 3 or 4 inches. Some Uncle Bud's under armor may make its way on there too at some point.

 

The new ARB's look great, your truck really looks good!

 

Thanks boss. I like yours as well, did you do the BHLM or are those the eagle eye aftermarket lights?

 

you still alive? hope all is well.

 

needs a lift

 

Badass

 

Yeah I'm still kickin, back at work
Where were you at the meet? MT Girl and I were the only ones that showed up! Geeze... missing the meet you set up, lame dude!

I know, I know. If you wanna wire me about 2 grand I'll get right on it

Thank you sir!

 

SICK!!! I like it alot. The bumper, all the color. It all comes together really well. A+++ from me.

 

Thanks for the props buddy!

 

nice tac-fro!

 

Spanks dude!

 

For the chrome grill surround I noticed that you said you painted it. I was looking at mine just now and seen the regular screws that need to come out. But I also noticed those one way snap and lock screws, do those need to get broken off and replaced or do I just take out the regular screws? Sounds lame but dont wanna f-up. And have you had any issues with major chipping or anything yet?

 

I'm not sure I understand your question completely but I think you are talking about the screws and pop tabs to remove the whole assembly from the truck. You dont have to break any of those. The pop tabs have a circular bit on the top of them. You just get a flat head underneath them, lift it up to release the lock and the whole thing will come out. Leave the circular bit up and when you are putting the grill back on put the tab back in the hole and press down on the circular bit to lock it into place. The tabs I was referring to earlier in this thread are the ones that hold the chrome surround onto the grill itself. Once you get the grill assembly off, look on the back side and you will see several plastic tabs that poke through from the surround on the front side. They are melted into place so you have to snap off the melted bits (some were stubborn and I had to use a dremel) in order to remove the surround from the rest of the grill. If you didn't want to mess around with all that I suppose you could just paint it in place. I removed it because I didn't want to deal with masking off everything else, plus it would be really hard to prep and paint on the edges in between the surround and the grill. I would suggest removing it like I did, just make sure you keep as many and as much of the tabs as you can intact so there is something to hold it together when you are putting it back on. Wait for your paint and clear coat to completely cure (unlike my mess up) and clamp the surround back onto the grill by lining up what is left of the tabs into their original slots. Then use some plastic weld (its like 5 min epoxy but is designed to bond to plastic) on each of the tabs to glue them back into place. As far as the paint durability; its holding up very well, though as I said in an earlier post I still need to do some finish sanding and polishing on the clear coat and fix the spots where the clamps smooshed it around. Remember everything (well most everything) is in the prep work. You are going to want to sand all the faux chrome off down to the plastic and shoot a couple of coats of adhesion promoter on there before you prime, paint and clearcoat. You can get everything you need from automotivetouchup.com

Hope that helps, let me know if you have any more questions.

 

i'm thinking about getting tail lights from Auto Lights Unlimited, how do you like yours? Are yours the medium or dark shade? Was the transaction sketchy at all, or are they easy to work with?

 

I love my tail/3rd brake lights, especially with the magnetic gray color and the BHLM. They are waaaayyyy nicer than any night shades tint job you will ever see and the finish is really sturdy. They can even be polished and waxed according to the website. They prep and spray them (not sure what the product is) and then they put them in a kiln for about 2 weeks to cure. I got the medium tint because I was concerned about getting hassled by the man. Montana's code reads something like: "No tail light shall have any decal, structure or tinting system that obscures the color or diminishes the visibility required in section (blah blah blah)". I emailed my local cop shop with a photo of the lights before I bought them to see if they were kosher and they basically told me that it would be up to the individual cop but that if they could still be seen from the 300 feet when illuminated and retained the colors for the brakes and indicators I should be fine. You can still see the red in the lights (barely) if the sun is out, and I roll with my headlights on at all times so the red running lights are illuminated anyways. No problems with the po-po's yet but I keep a copy of the email I got back from them just in case so I can show I did my homework at least. Mike, (they guy at auto lights unlimited) told me that the medium tint is 50 state legal, for what that's worth. Speaking of Mike, he was a pleasure to work with. I work overseas so I opted to send in my lights to get them tinted while I was gone rather than buying a set off him, which saved me a little money. He was very helpful, accommodating with my schedule and was prompt with his correspondence. If you can't live without your tail lights long enough to send them in (it takes about two weeks) you can just order a set from him and send in your old ones when the new ones arrive for a core charge refund.

Hope that helps your decision, like I say I was very satisfied with the experience and the product. Get the lights dude, you will be glad you did

 

Great I Started A Fad With The Taco Badge! I Know I Did HAHA!

 

awesome thanks so much Jesse, they look sick as hell. i just wanted to do my homework before i dropped $330 big ones for lights. and you're right, all the other alternatives look plain crappy compared to those. These are on my list!

 

Ahhhh you have good taste! FWIW I came up with the idea on my own though (not that it took too much creativity)