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

Added fake pro-grill, swapped chrome grill surround for black, upgraded tires to BFGoodrich A/T KO2s (265/75R16).

 

What a weekend.

Put her to work yesterday hauling stone. Maxed out the towing capacity; first load two pallets and the last load was just one. Definitely felt the load and the difference between two pallets and one was definitely noticeable.



Sunday funday.

Hover mode engaged:



New brake caliper bolt installed. Found out Friday afternoon after a clunking noise under quick and heavier braking. Temporary fix installed on Friday, grabbed the bolts from the auto parts store, installed them today, torqued and marked.



Next up was replacing the old LED license plate lights. Inexpensive and I'll avoid getting a ticket. The old ones were definitely dim and on their way out. Bench tested them to besure. Not bad to replace every year and a half to two years or so; slight modification to fit into the Pelfreybilt bumper and it's done:


$14 VIPMOTOZ Full LED License Plate Light Lamp Assembly Replacement For 2005-2015 Toyota Tacoma & 2000-2013 Tundra Pickup Truck, 6000K Diamond White, 2-Pieces
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07N8M7D66/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_fabc_ND2WRWWQ1P42TW472WJC?_encoding=UTF8

Next, installed my OBDII port splitter. Got the idea from a Tacomaholic video. I can leave my

$152 ScanGauge - SG2 II Ultra Compact 3-in-1 Automotive Computer with Customizable Real-Time Fuel Economy Digital Gauges , Black , 5"

scangauge installed without having to remove it to scan the truck. Tucked the unused end up and easily accessible for the mechanic or the department of transportation:

$12 Right Angle OBD2 Splitter Y Cable Male Splitter to 2 Female Extension Cable 1ft Feet 30cm/12 (1male to 2 Female) 24AWG
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07K6MWQTB?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share

Last up was cleaning up the BAMF LCA skids. WHAT A MESS. Like the gas tank skid last year, CHUNKS of steel and dirt came off. Nothing crazy to where I would question running them again. Since they're only skids, I didn't waste too much time cleaning them up and getting them prestine. If it was something more important, I would spend more time on it. Considering how long it has been since they were installed, they are in pretty decent shape. Really a testiment to the build quality of BAMF's products. I'm getting them painted up with Rust-Oleum rust barrier right now. Plan is to coat the inside with Rust-Oleum high performance enamel and coat that with anti-seize. The outside will just be Rust-Oleum matte black paint for ease of touchups.

Before:



After cleanup:



Paint:

 

Added some rotopax the other day and decided to give the roam cases a try.

 

Finally got around to swapping out my struts with the 3rd gen's I picked up a couple years ago. Front end rides nice and smooth now, much better than my original suspension that just hit 174K miles. I've still gotta swap out the rear end, but I haven't played with leaf springs before and the previous owner installed airbags that I'm debating on keeping or not... I guess it wouldn't hurt to keep the airbags on just in case. Hopefully will be getting new tires soon too, and I'm thinking Duratrac's this time around.

 

Replaced the stripped out plastic screw retainers for 1/4-20 rivnuts and button head bolts for the tailgate.

 

Upgraded to

$192 Power Stop K137-36 Front Z36 Truck & Tow Brake Kit, Carbon Fiber Ceramic Brake Pads and Drilled and Slotted Brake Rotors For Toyota 4Runner FJ Cruiser Tacoma 6 Lug

Power Stop K137-36 - 1-Drilled and Slotted Front Brake Kit. Finally found a use for a turkey baster (getting extra brake fluid out of reservoir).

 

Nice light setup

 

Greased the driveline and cleaned my undercarriage yesterday.



Also, found these rather suspicious holes drilled in my exhaust, which definitely weren't there when I was last under the truck a few weeks back. Seems like it would be simple enough to just plate and weld over them.

 

that's definitely super weird that those holes are new and you have no clue how they got there.

 

Yeah, the only reason I even noticed them was because @Motofox pointed them out while he was under the passenger side helping me with the driveline. The only places the truck's been parked for an extended period of time in the past few weeks are the parking lot at home, the (mostly empty, card key-secured) parking lot at work, and at a campsite a couple weeks back.

 

A couple more shots of the back revamp..

A little recap: Added BAMF leaf hangers, newer used set of Dakars with a new AAL with new energy suspension bushings, new Archive Speedbump bumpstops, Archive shock relocation and new King 12” 2.5 shocks with adjusters.

 

Oh and you cant really see em here but added double shear limit strap eyes. Limit straps on order..

edit: and added extended steel brake lines from Wheelers

 

I’ve had struggles with this before. You were fighting the c-clip. I have found that rotating the axle a bit will help reposition the c-clip & this makes it a lot easier.

 

Yesterday I installed a set of @mightytacoman exhaust cam gears, fixed my valve cover leak, and cleaned up my throttle body while I was in there. Test drove it today. Wish I had done this a long time ago, the engine feels much happier.

 

how many miles? Top end looks clean

 

147,000. I was pretty happy with how it looked.

 

That worked for my PS axle... But the DS axle was a giant PITA at every angle. I went through the entire 360 degree rotation more than once at ~30 degree increments. Still took a butt load of force and a few broken tools to get it out. That C-clip can be a bitch.

 

Got a new set of tires on Friday. Great improvement from the bald ones I had before!

 

I love the "floating/hovering LED shop light" mod you have going on.......very futuristic. J/K....

 

Kustom!