What Have You Done To Your 3rd Gen Today?

Old Girl girl some hubs.

https://youtu.be/bVKK69h02_Q

 

Anyone know of a molle panel in the bed that doesn’t obstruct the LED bed lighting?

 

Looks good!

 

Where were you?

 

Corolla 4wd beach. Love that place! We didn't see any wild horses, unfortunately.

 

Washed, wiped the under hood and installed the DD yellow Elites. Thx for the early Labor Day sale @memario1214.

I replaced the DD SS3 pro. I have not hooked up the backlight yet. I prefer the OEM look and wider beams.

 

It's been a while since I've been to Corolla. I usually head south to the Cape Hatteras National Seashore. It's always fun riding on the beach no matter where you are at OBX.

 

How do the DD Elites compare to the SS3 Pro? I've been waiting to see some reviews.

 

haven't checked the video yet, the app seems fairly straightforward, no issues yet. i will check video soon and let you know...

 

i think the fitcamx takes better video. in comparison fitcamx videos aren't as pixelated as the garmins, both night and day, and the colors are more vibrant on the fitcamx...

 

no i didn't do the rear camera.

after reading this post i decided not to:
https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/fit-cam-x-dash-camera.774259/

 

i just posted this in another thread, but I figured that people in this thread would like this info, since everyone likes learning little tidbits about tacomas so much. warning. there's a LOT of pictures and details. its gonna be long.


alright im back with pics, and it just so happens that I had a 22 tacoma come in for a windshield replacement, so I did some documentation of that one. Certain steps I couldn't take pictures of, just because I don't have the time to do it, and I have to get the next step done within a certain time, or the urethane will start to cure and then that fucks up everything for the rest of the window. Fair warning, this is going to be picture-heavy and documentation-heavy. if anyone has any questions, feel free to ask, but ill show a picture or two and then explain that picture.

first off. this truck was a 2022 tacoma, TRD OR with a 6MT, with 8600 miles on it.
to stay on the original topic of this thread, these are the cowl 'fingers' I was talking about in my last post on here. its hard to tell, but you can see the little outjuts on the cowl, and you can see how they slide under the window and 'grip' on, holding the cowl down

with these photos, there is no actual 'seal' on the cowl. the cowl isn't watertight, or have anything to do with how your windshield sits, or how it seals to the body of the car/truck. the main purpose of the cowl is actually just as a dust shield and aerodynamics, making it so that a ton of dust/wind turbulence doesn't build up in the engine bay/above the firewall. you can see with the fingers on the cowl, there's a lot of them, and the tolerances for them are pretty tight, so if the cowl is heatwarped/bent at all, it will end up making it so that one or two of them cant seat properly without having a lot of torsion on the rest of the plastic, risking breaking it, so there's no 'harm' that can come from having one or two of the fingers not lined up under the windshield(don't get me wrong, the OCD part sucks, and I'm the same way, but sometimes there's only so much that you can do about it without just getting a new cowl entirely, and the tacoma ones are stupid expensive for some reason).

for the next photo, I wasn't able to get a picture of the tacoma, but I got one of the RAV4 I did right before the tacoma, and the principle is the exact same.

you can see a faint black ring around the perimeter of the viewing area, and that is where the urethane bead lays, which is what actually seals the windshield. the main cause of windshield failure/leakage/wind noise is air pockets in the bead. its next to impossible(but doable) to run a continuous bead all the way around the windshield with only one stop/start point, but typically there are 3-5 start/stop points, and those are where the issue spots are. if the bead isn't joined properly, air bubbles can be trapped, and the as the urethane cures, the air bubble creates a weak point/passage point, where water or wind noise can come through into the cabin.

up next is one of the main reasons why I absolutely despise safelite and try to steer everyone away from them if at all possible.

its difficult to see, but this truck has had the windshield replaced before, and I later found out that it was replaced at safelite. when they were removing the windshield, they ran one of the tools along the entire passenger side A pillar, scratching the SHIT out of it, from the top of the windshield to the bottom(estimate for repairs on this runs somewhere around $4-7k(if done the proper way) because the windshield would have the be pulled, the entire cab primed and repainted to have a proper color match, and then putting the windshield back in). keep in mind. this truck has 8600 miles on it. its a 2022. nice new truck, and safelite fucked it up BADDDDD.

and then finally, the recalibration process. the longest part is just getting the stand setup properly, and making sure everything is in the right place which takes about 20-40 minutes depending on the car/truck, and then the actual recalibration part takes no joke 30 seconds tops.

 

Shout out to @tonered for 3d printing me a block off plate for the center portion of the lightbar area on my BA slimline bumper.

 

No joke, the only time I tried Safelight was for my old 99 Accord (old reliable, peeling paint ugly - just go cheap right?) HOLY SHIT did they fuck that thing up, warped the cowl all over the place, just terrible. Will never use those jalopies again, even for an older car. I'd be so upset if this was mine.

 

Very clean! Even knowing what I was looking for it took me a couple seconds to find it.

 

Good looking truck!
Link to the sale?

 

Ma pleasure! Looking good.

 

I wish you were in AZ! It's so hard to find people who take pride in the quality of their work.

 

Therefore, being in the windshield replacement business, do you recommend OEM replacement or anything but OEM?

 

First time in my life I put anything other than a gate pass or inspection sticker on a vehicle. I love the black lettering with my black SR5 wheels! I didn't cover the SR5 badges because I'm going to heat those off.