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

Yeah I did use it a lot and had weight on there when off-roading but its like all the dirt got under there and it was shifting. I'll take some pics here in a little bit.

 

I haven’t measured any output, and also haven’t had them on for long.. at all. But they seem to emit light well so far. The brights on the other side light up the night. I guess I could take out my light meter and measure lumens.. but typically use that on film production sets. Idk, seem bright enough for the heavy elk country I live in. Usually run the lightbar when driving at night anyways… baby on board.

 

I should also note that I 100% got these for their looks. Trying to hide my trucks age… 2005

 

Was your grill surround chrome or silver before painting?

 

Found an infamous Pelfreybilt Aluminum skid package

no dents / dings and just a few scratches

 

I’m peanut butter and jealous

 

It was silver when I purchased it. Then plasti dipped black by me. Now I hit it with some Spray Max 1K.

 

Tried to replace my drivers side crash sensor. Successfully removed the old one but now I can't get the new one to plug in. Some strange two piece plug from the wiring harness seems to want me to push the inner part down and plug it in and then the outer cover of the plug should slide down but I can't get the outer part to slide down even with significant force. Also not a lot of room to work with any tools...any advice?

 

Installed new U bolt flip kit + bump stops and driveshaft:

- Archive Garage U Bolt Flip Kit with Superbumps
https://archivegarage.com/explore-archive/ols/products/stealth-toyota-u-bolt-flip

- Tom Woods custom single piece driveshaft
https://4xshaft.com/collections/tacoma/products/toyota-tacoma-rear-drive-shaft

U Bolt kit + bump stop was added in prep for upcoming suspension mods. Driveshaft was done to eliminate driveline vibrations. Which it did completely. It's actually kind of weird now not having any take off vibes. Super smooth acceleration. Driving it now, I think I had more vibes before than I thought.

Stock drive shaft weighed 36 lbs. Tom Woods weighed 34 lbs. So 2 lbs difference @Chris(NJ)
Tom Woods driveshaft has thicker walls than stock, so while you ditch the center joints and carrier bearing weight, the additional weight gets put into strengthening the shaft.

On to the pictures:

Archive Garage did another great job at packing this shipment.


Comparison of stock vs new kit:


Installed:


New Tom Woods Driveshaft and stock:


Double Cardan (CV) joint:


Other End:


For the moment, I don't think I need to remove or cut my stock carrier bearing support. It's not centered between the supports, but I still have about 3/8" space on the side that's closest. I calculated the up travel of the shaft under full compression and I should be fine. Especially now with the higher bump stops.

 

Head unit is on its way but the wiring harness is backordered (of course) So I'll have the stereo on Friday but can't hook it up till that comes. I am wondering for anyone who has wired their back up cam into a head unit, I have the back up cam in my rear view mirror do I need to get a wire out from behind the mirror in order to wire up the back up cam or is there a connection behind the dash?

 

I am in the process of doing just this. Waiting on my friend that’s helping me out to complete. We are using the following video:
https://youtu.be/iIZZAtEcBqk

 

Picked up something to help fit some bigger tires I got recently.

 

Impressive work!!

 

Tire rotation, and some bushing maintenance.
21K since suspension and brake upgrades, all looks good.

 

Oh yeah, they look awesome for sure but the output leaves alot to be desired. I'm tempted to swap in a proper set of projectors to actually make these perform as well as they look.

 

Broke down and bought a cylinder and some welding gas so I could mig on the skid plate build. 3/32 7018 was going fine until I started blowing through the super thin frame tubing on my lowest amperage setting!

Finished result!
What it looked like before (that’s embarrassing)

What the removable front frame looks like before the skid is bolted to it. (it is way sturdier than factory!)

 

Installed the MBRP catback exhaust today. LOVE IT! Amazing sound.

I can feel a little power increase because I installed the spectre cold air intake last week and both exhaust and CAI together give it a little boost.

But the sound from the MBRP is really great. I purchased from eBay around $300 - $350 and worth every penny !

 

Not having an indicator light on the fog light switch has bugged me from day 1. Finally got around to changing it out to the FJ switch. Works great. The FJ switch came with an orange backlight bulb, just swapped over the green one from the oem switch

 

Thanks! Yeah, I'm definitely experiencing that howl now, but mostly at highway speeds or when it's SUPER windy (we're in a wind advisory right now [30+ mph gusts]). I'm not too concerned about mileage, but the howling may drive me crazy on longer drives.

 

Much appreciated. I don't plan on putting much weight up there; mostly fishing poles. But I may put some ppf on the contact surfaces just to be safe.