What Have You Done To Your 2nd Gen Tacoma Today?

For the one front lower/inner point I used a short length of punched/slotted zinc-plated 1/16" thick bar I had lying around (for each side).

Not what I used, but similar to this:

$18 Stanley National N180-125 Stanley Slotted Flat Bar, 1-3/8 In W L T, Steel, Galvanized, 1.375" x 36" x 0.08"

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B002CTFEIA/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_fab_fKvDFbA78A3DP

I bent it in my vice to make a slight "S" shape to extend the mounting point downwards and forwards from the original location in the wheel well, so that it would meet up with the mud flap correctly.

I attached the fronts with four bolts (not including the bolt holding on the "S" shaped part described above), the rears with three. The rears didn't require any special adjustments.

The biggest PITA was getting the nuts in place to start them threading onto the bolts. I didn't remove anything when I installed, so I had to wedge two fingers into some pretty tight spaces, while holding the nut, and blindly trying to get it to line up with the bolt I was putting through the front side of the mud flap. Once the nut is initially on the bolt its fine, because a wrench fits in their easy--just getting the nuts in place and on the threads was a little bit of a hassle.

 

Hercuiner 1 quart can, about $20. Several thin coats will be needed.

 

No lift.

 

I ordered a pair of 4" lift knuckles and 1 1/2" strut spacer today. I'm preparing the truck for the larger tires I bought. I'm going from 37's to 37's. Lol. I'm ditching the 3" front spacers and stock PreRunner struts. I'm flip flopping like a fish out of the water on which front struts I'm going to buy. I'll need to relocate the mid cab body mount, I have no worries on that part. I've already done my half of a trade with a friend who owns a offroad shop so the alignment and the mount and balance will be free of charge. I forgot the brakes will need to be bled so I'll pay the same friend to do that on his fancy machine. I'll do all of the other labor myself.

 

So about a week ago, came home to a gift to me in my mailbox:
You can see why I needed them. They are LED and only like $14 from eBay, so why not.

I knew it would only take a few minutes to swap, so I didn't even go in the house after pulling them out of the mailbox, I just grabbed a screwdriver.

But I wasn't expecting that they'd be a bit different than OEM. Which was kind of a stupid expectation, this is like showing up to my college level Italian language class and not expecting the teacher to just start class in Italian. That was a humbling day for me.
As was this.



Man! Mother Smuckers. So as you can see, there's one tab on the OEM one and two tabs on the eBay one. What's hard to tell from this picture is that the inner tabs than hold the bayonet mount, press-and-twist bulb socket are thicker, so you have to push it in further before you twist. Which works fine if you take the o-ring off, but yeah, not doing that because I don't want to fry these when water gets in there.

So it didn't fit.
The tabs are supposed to fit in these notches because OEM ones are right and left but the eBay ones are not.


So when I took this picture, I thought, "you know, these are not likely to fit perfect with these rusty dents in here that broke the OEM ones in the first place." So I figured I could pound them out. I climbed under there with a hammer and found, no, that's not going to work without taking off the bumper cover.


An hour and a half later I wondered what trouble I had gotten myself into. But I got to play blacksmith; brushed off some surface rust and pounded those dents out nicely. The whole neighborhood heard me "massaging" those dents out. I have a straight bumper cover now, guys! The bumper is still a little saggy from probably a previous owner towing too much, but I'm not sure how to fix that.

A little rust converter paint and we're in business

It was at this point that I realized my feeling of success was premature. I still hadn't completed my five minute light swap.

Ok, so trim one of the tabs on each housing, no sweat with some side cutters. But it still wouldn't fit.
I found that reusing the rubber-ish gaskets was making them not fit. Because the gasket needs trimmed around the inner housing, which is bigger than OEM.


Bottom is trimmed and sits flush, top is not trimmed and shows the overlap. A steady hand and sharp razor blade work wonders. Now press/twist that bulb socket in there, which feels like you have to twist it just hard enough to not break it, but I got it in there with the o-ring.

I like these because even though they are LED, there's a diode or something in between the contacts, so it doesn't matter what orientation you plug them in, they work both ways.

And finally, nearly 3 hours and 15 min later, there was light. And I saw that light and saw that it was good.


I know I probably could have used a couple more coats of paint on those rusty spots, but I was already invested 2000% more time than I anticipated.

I hope these are not important


So yeah, that was my adventure. Makes up a bit for fudging up my sun visor the week before.

 

Looks good. Can you post up a night shot when you get a chance?

 

Nothing to my truck but I modified my Tacoma World viewing. My eyeballs appreciate it.


If TWs super white pages sometimes gives you a headache, follow these easy steps.

Step one *Chrome only: enter chrome://flags/#enable-force-dark into your browser.

Step two: choose "Enable"

Step three: enjoy

**It does make every other websites dark.

 

No, it magnetic. Heavy sheets of magnetic vinyl about 1/16-inch thick.

 

Just replaced my drivers side front and rear window weatherstrip. I probably should have done it 3 years ago, but I finally got off my butt and did it. Super easy. The hardest part is disconnecting the wire harness from the inner door panel.



First I rolled down the windows and took off the inner door panel. I don’t know if this was necessary, but that’s what the Toyota repair manual recommends and it did make it easy to see the inside of the attachment points. I then used a trim removal tool to pry up the outer edge, using a piece of plastic from the part packaging to protect the paint on my non-pristine door.


The i wiggled the old weatherstrip up and off the door.



I held up the old weatherstrip to see where the attachment claws are and pounded it snug with my hand.



The new aftermarket one doesn’t overlap quite as far as the old OEM part. I’ll have to keep an eye on it to see if there’s any issue with water seeping through the seam.




For the front, I also had to remove the side mirror.

 

Nice, I've noticed my weatherstripping there is starting to look like garbage. This will be on my list eventually.

 

Welp, not today but Tuesday I dropped my truck off at the shop as the 4WD & 4LO were flashing nonstop. I spent Sunday & Monday troubleshooting everything I could find and found water in the Transfer case actuator that may have shorted something when I tried to switch it to 4H from 2H. Tested ADD actuator and transfer case actuator and found that both still worked when tested independently so i'm guessing it's something electrical somewhere. I went to start it while testing my fixes and transfer case locked in to 4LOW and locked front diff so had to manually get the front diff unlocked and the best I could do was get the transfer case in 4H. 3 days and they're still hunting it down on what it could be.

It sucks having it away for so long especially when browsing this forum and seeing more stuff to do it

 

Everyone calls cold air intakes on Tacomas noise boxes because that’s basically all they do. And nope not smog legal

 

Damn. Anyone else feel like if they drive slower we won’t accumulate as many miles?
I know she’s still young but I just wanna leave her in the garage and get a beater.

 

Raptor Lined my US Off-road bumper today. Now need a winch and to get her installed. Anyone installed one? Pain in the rear or not really?

 

Looks AWESOME

 

Size?

 

Just picked up low mileage 2016 TRDOF suspension take-offs , going to upgrade my 2011 TRDSport with these to get a small lift... 2 questions, do you think I need longer/newer Ubolts (these new ones are 3 leaf compared to my 2-leaf springs), and do you have to use these newer UCA's or can I keep mine??

 

How the hell did you get this? You must have ordered over a year ago!

 

Homemade traction board mounts finally got done today

 

What mod did I miss?