What Have You Done To Your 3rd Gen Today?

after a few weeks of neglect...gave her a bath in preparation for some matte black tailgate inserts and possibly plasti dipping the Tacoma badges. Have been lax in the mod department lately.

 

Finally got around to installing the puddle pods!

 

You've got the essentials. Yes, the shark fin kinda' sucks as an FM antenna. The standard length for an FM antenna is 31" which puts it somewhere in the middle of the FM broadcast band. Ideally, this antenna would be positioned near the center of the roof to take advantage of the surrounding metal to act as a ground plane. It's not an ideal world, so a hood mounted bracket would be acceptable. You can buy antenna assemblies for cheap that would have the antenna, a base meant to mount in a hole in sheet metal, an attached length of cable, and a connector at the other end (most often referred to as a Motorola-style connector) that would plug into the back of the radio. Looks like this:



You would mount the antenna to your bracket, bolt the bracket to the hood, run the cable down into the engine bay and through the firewall, then just unplug a similar cable coming from the shark fin at the head unit and plug in your new cable. Done.

My own plan was to get rid of the shark fin and replace it with an oem, flat, satellite radio antenna (the shark fin has both FM and satellite antennas). Then mount a whip antenna back by the tailgate for FM. I thought about a hood mount, but up here where winter mornings are spent scraping snow and ice off the windshield, a hood mounted antenna would just be in the way. Ran into a snag with the tail gate antenna bracket and the floppy sides or our synthetic beds. Not enough clearance between the tail gate and the fender. Need some bed stiffeners but that's another longish story.

PM me if you have any questions.

 

400 mile tank on 20ish gallons.

 

I won’t need this set anymore or my extra CVs Installed RCV axles and found a cracked gusset on my spindle.. these axles are so beefy... I will now go buy the Camburg spindles. My TC 4340 cvs +2 I will sell on CL for 400$? Had to remove both shocks to get the new monster CV up in there. And I’ll remove all my skid plates and beef those too as the Rubicon was not kind to some of my parts ...

 

How was the install?

 

Started raining mid install! The only bad part is fishing the wires through the rubber boots!

 

Added Desert Does It panels (about 2 weeks ago), and finally relocated two fire extinguishers to those panels on the driver/passenger seats. Now I'm gender-reveal-party ready.

 

Thanks for your input. I was thinking of getting a victory 4x4 hood mount, 31" antenna, cable and a connector for the cable to attach to the back of the head unit. Should be pretty straight forward. Was just curious if the effort would give me the results I'm looking for. May do it just to give me something new to do to the truck.

 

Lol, what type of furry friend you got?

 

German Shedder. You can subtly tell he's taking refuge from the Florida heat underneath my truck in my profile picture.

 

Duh, profile name gives it away too! Did you mod his back seat?

 

I haven't altered the back. If I decide on taking him with me on long road trips or camping vacations, I may opt to temporarily take out the back seats. But garage space is at a premium, so I try to limit how much automotive gear I have that I don't keep in the truck.

 

I needed to do something as we used to have 2 dogs... This was super simple and gives extra room and comfort but can be taken out and stored with minimum effort.

 

Thats great!!! Gonna need to steal it!

 

So I just watched Tacomaholic's video on seat removal. Its a lot easier than I expected it to be.

I'll probably end up doing something like this next weekend.

Did you have cushions custom sawn for you?

 

You know I was just thinking I should take some measurements and post for all... originally I made it with a hinge and a back but it was way over engineered, this is just so simple. Makes it a little high for dogs to jump in though. I’ve now actually remove the 2/3rd seat and put the platform directly on top of the cubbies.

 

Search Google for antenna amplifier.
Had one back in the day, dash mounted, push button and used my existing antenna.
Crutchfield. Looks like the same one.
Off to work! Good luck.

 

It’d be appreciated! Just pulled the fridge out to fit the car seat on the driver side! Ullie is getting a little more leg room now! That would be perfect!

 

Fold out hinged ramp on the passenger side?

If I could leave the kids at home and just take the dog...