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

Agreed, I painted mine black instead of color matching it though. I need to redo it cause I got lazy halfway through so I have some ugly textures.

 

Swapped out the orange Factor 55 for red. Also did a service on my winch. Still need to take the line out and wash it though.

 

I used a 3-jaw gear puller to get the bearing off and a ball joint press the get the U-joints in and out.

 

Yup TB, I like them. Bought them at the beginning of the pandemic when they were under $200. Ive only had two issues and one is the clear coat. Its pretty bad at this point, I need to buff em down and put a new coat on.

Two, they have halogens projectors. The output isn't the greatestest but I knew this going in. If you pair them with a decent pair of fogs or ditch lights etc you'll be fine. I recommend grabbing the LED version if you can.

I saw! They looking super sweet on your rig! Did you get the led versions?

 

Nice! I was starting to think mine was the only one left! After two years of owning it, I've yet to see another one in person.

 

You can buy yourself another one today, even with a 6MT

https://bringatrailer.com/listing/2012-toyota-tacoma-7/

 

And, headlights installed. Once my bumper is here and installed, all my current “major” mods will be done.

 

No pictures but I pressure washed all the mud off,cleaned the nterior in the first time in a year, greased my spc upper ball joints and lubed my total chaos lower uni balls

 

Oil change number 32 today along with a ton of yard work and some laundry. Now it’s time to grill a tri-tip and enjoy a beverage or two.

 

Thanks man, yeah I got the leds

 

You must be a fan of amber heard…
Seriously tho that c4 hybrid is fuckin tits

 

I have the same bumper with the lower profile hoop coming in about 5-6 weeks. That light setup is friggin hot. I’m just planning on running ssc2’s and 3’s as fogs, but I’ll otherwise have a similar setup

 

That truck sold for $37k today.

 

Doing 80 on 87 north. She running strong after plugs and oil change

 

Got the raptor lights installed, and sorted out the weather stripping. Will post a picture with the lights on when the grille letters arrive.

 

Oil change and replaced shocks/struts. Great day with my boys working on the truck

 

Plugs!

After another member mentioned them I got to thinking and after reviewing my Amazon history apparently the last time I did plug was in 2017 the year I got my truck...

Well decided it was definitely time and wanted to give the aforementioned NGK Ruthenium plugs a go.


Went to O'Reilly's last week, they didn't have them in stock which was honestly preferred as apparently it's somewhat common for cravk heads to buy NGK install them then return counterfeits to get half back.

They said they had to special order them directly from NGK, (why can't we order directly from NGK!?), I'm hoping that's true, it seems to be, but I know NGK plugs get counterfeit a lot so here's hoping.

They seem to be genuine as far as I can tell, I did try and call NGK but they were not open when I called and today was my best opportunity to install plugs so I decided to put them in anyway.

I checked and had to regap each to the correct .044".





Holy balz my old ones (NGK Iridium IX) were definitely done, I gapped them at .044 when I installed them; observe the gaps I recorded when I removed them:






Yikes, look at that nastiness, ground strap half eaten away, color, deposits, the massive gaps...







I can tell a little but what do the real experienced old timers see?


I think I found my irregular occasional "miss" feeling at idle, it does seem to be absent now but time will tell.

So far only put about 10 miles on the Ruthenium just to feel them out, truck is still learning trims and such as I disconnected the battery to reset the ECU but it definitely sounds and feels a lot stronger, starts faster, idle is smoother etc.

So long as I get 1mpg totally worth it.

Don't know if it even makes a difference on these modern engines but I decided it was only a little extra effort I may as well go all old school "hot rodder" and marked each plug with an orange dot to denote gap orientation and tried the plugs as I installed them to get the openings to line up with the intake valves.

You can just see the orange dot when installed, got all 6 to face the intake valves dead on.




Feels good, no codes, I like them so far.

 

Learned that at least one stud on 3 of 4 wheel spacers are bent. They were removed, new wheel spacers ordered and an attempt to remove and replace the studs on the old wheel spacers will be done.

Teaser as DSLR pics are coming tomorrow: