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

My upper control arms just arrived in the mail today. Looking forward to having them into my truck next weekend!

 

Decided against making it slide. Bolted down to uni-strut and nice and solid.

 

How do they sound? Any issues? I have a jbl system and I need to replace my speakers.

 

Not today but finished up my rear shock relocation, ubolt flip, archive speed bumps, and new shackles with poly bushings on Friday.

 

Are you running Dakars? And do I see leaf isolators?

 

So one of the mods I did this last weekend was actually to remove the "limo tint" (darkest they had at the tint place) film from the middle slider window on the back of my cab.
I have a Besttop softtopper and it has tinting as well on the vinyl panels and let me tell you, at night or when it's raining it's REALLY hard to see behind especially if there's also dirt on the outside of the windows too..

I also had the definitely not legal level of tint on my driver and passenger windows for a couple years but a Tempe cop noticed and gave me a ration of shit so I had it removed and went with the best quality ceramic tint at 35% I could get. I don't miss having that dark of windows especially when wheeling because seriously, you're like Ray Charles out there.

As far as 50% on the front windshield goes, I know there's no law against that but that would bother me (just from my own personal experience).

Rest of your rig is pretty tight! Guessing you're working on getting a front bumper at some point?

 

All you need is some antisqeak pads in the holes at the end of the leaf pack. I bought some off Amazon for cheap and trimmed them to fit. Works like a charm and i have 2 add a leaf's in my Dakar's. 8 leaf pack. Haven't had a speak since i put them in and ive been through all kinds of mud and dirt.

 

All good things to consider. I didn’t end up with Limo on the back of the truck at all. But yes it’s quite dark as you can see from the outside. I actually built that winch tray / backing plate there and I’ll eventually do tubework around it, sort of hybrid / trail gear style but not for a minute. I do wheel a lot at night during the summer but even the tint I had before hasn’t been a problem for visibility and I don’t have a ton of crazy and expensive lights

 

I have thought about getting some more of those also. I was upset when my AAL didn't come with them. I have been spraying mine down with Slip but that comes off every time I use a pressure washer on it. I just want a way to keep them quiet for good instead of spraying them every couple months. Might go that way but dont want to take them apart again. I do need another leaf though.
Also did you pick up the 2 inch or 1.75?

 

Good eye. I had to take apart the leafs to cycle the suspension setting up the shock mounts so figured I midaswell throw some liners in while they were apart. (The wood blocks were to keep the pack at the same thickness during setup)



This is what I used. It took 1 roll per leaf pack to fully line them.

https://www.speedwaymotors.com/Leaf-Spring-Liner-with-Lip-2-1-4-Inch,39823.html

My Dakars came from the factory with something similar - they were yellow plastic discs that didn’t do much of anything. I popped them out and trashed them when I installed the liners.

 

the yellow discs suck, you need thicker ones like the ones i added, think they were meant for chevy springs.

 

They sound great, the pioneer sub, the JBL 6x9 GTOs as well as the Subaru Kicker tweeters. Most importantly, no issues!
I still have the rear doors to deaden and the 6x5 GTOs to install, and will be back here to comment on the whole package once it’s done. Even with the rear doors being incomplete, the sound is incredible, I find myself taking the back roads just so I can listen to my music a bit longer.
Sound deadening went along way and I can not stress doing this enough. I am running the stock amp, and as you are most likely aware, the front speakers are essentially all bass and regardless of what speakers you put in, you’re going to be dealing with the exact same problem of rattle, rattle, rattle (in the front as well as the sub location) if you do not sound deaden the rear cab and front doors.
Feel free to pm me for any questions you have as you dive into this. I shall return to give a complete update once I finish the rear doors.

Edit:
Yes, everything is plug and play but you will need to order adapter harness’ for this to work. I will be back to post everything I bought later tonight to make it plug in play with the JBL system.

 

Finally got around to installing the Diode Dynamic fog lights that I purchased during Memorial Day sale. Polished up the headlights one last time as I wait for drivers side headlight to arrive to put my new ones in. Not pictured but restored the roof strips back to black as they were nearly white.

 

I've had those bookmarked for a while. I was thinking that might be better then just a disk on the end. But I wouldn't know. Thanks I was figuring it would be more then 1 roll good to know.

 

Decided I would try a knock-off TRD shifter knob for $13 (what do I have to lose but $13) I'm actually impressed with it!

 

The super dark tint looked sweet but wasn't practical or really safe on the sides and the 3M ceramic tint does a better job overall blocking heat anyways. Just needed the motivation of the threat of an angry cop writing me a fat ticket to switch.

35% actually looks fine and it's not that crazy of a difference from my rear side windows anyways.

The more I look at your rig the more I dig it. Definitely put in work on what you've got for sure, way more than mine! The cactus dude on your CB whip is pretty rad, haha

 

Finally I’m a cool kid!

Installed my Warn EVO 10s winch. Wouldn’t say it was my favorite installation on the truck. Figuring out a mounting location for the controller box and fabbing up some brackets and splash guards took all damn day.



And yes the truck is dirty. It’s always dirty. Long ago gave up on a pretty paint job.

 

So I had nice @mattgecko lights under the hood and in the toolbox of my 3rd gen. Excellent quality and great products. The problem, for me, was I very rarely opened my hood. When I did it was usually in the daylight. So I decided to hold off on those for the 2nd gen trucks. I bought 2 of these HFT magnetic lights that have plenty of output and can stick anywhere under the hood. I figure that they have enough light for night work, oil changes, etc and they have a wide base that sits on the ground in the event I have to change a flat tire at night. Not too shabby for $5.99 each. Raining outside thus poor picture.

 

Finally got my fog pods put in the front bumper - thread here

 

Finally I got the roof rack