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

Discussion in '2nd Gen. Tacomas (2005-2015)' started by kwalton, Feb 2, 2008.

  1. Sep 15, 2022 at 3:57 PM
    Mully

    Mully Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Feb 12, 2014
    Member:
    #122907
    Messages:
    5,255
    Gender:
    Male
    First Name:
    Chris
    CA
    Vehicle:
    12 DC 4x4 Lifted Sport
    Lifted, Kings, Locked, 295s and more.
    Full detail, inside and out.
    Spent 7 hours on it.

    Sanded down bumpers, side bars, and then sprayed a fresh coat of paint on them.

    New rims and tires going on tomorrow.
    Stepping up to 295x70x17.

    20220915_154417.jpg
    20220915_154437.jpg
     
    dpele, jackn7, srspicer and 7 others like this.
  2. Sep 15, 2022 at 5:23 PM
    IvanhoeTaco

    IvanhoeTaco Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Aug 4, 2019
    Member:
    #301199
    Messages:
    2,901
    Gender:
    Male
    Eastern NC
    Vehicle:
    2005 Supercharged Converted Prerunner
    Total Chaos 3.5 LT, King Coilovers, 35x11.5r17 on Falcon T2, ADV 4 inch fiberglass, 4.88 gears, FJ cruiser transfer case, 4 runner front diff, Cab mount relocate, archive hangers, shackles, king 2.5x14 rear shocks, icon rxt leaf springs, king hydro bumps
    I had those wheels, i kinda miss them
     
    Mully[QUOTED] likes this.
  3. Sep 15, 2022 at 5:23 PM
    IvanhoeTaco

    IvanhoeTaco Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Aug 4, 2019
    Member:
    #301199
    Messages:
    2,901
    Gender:
    Male
    Eastern NC
    Vehicle:
    2005 Supercharged Converted Prerunner
    Total Chaos 3.5 LT, King Coilovers, 35x11.5r17 on Falcon T2, ADV 4 inch fiberglass, 4.88 gears, FJ cruiser transfer case, 4 runner front diff, Cab mount relocate, archive hangers, shackles, king 2.5x14 rear shocks, icon rxt leaf springs, king hydro bumps
    0530221419_HDR.jpgon 35s
     
  4. Sep 15, 2022 at 5:45 PM
    Mully

    Mully Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Feb 12, 2014
    Member:
    #122907
    Messages:
    5,255
    Gender:
    Male
    First Name:
    Chris
    CA
    Vehicle:
    12 DC 4x4 Lifted Sport
    Lifted, Kings, Locked, 295s and more.
    Real nice truck you got there.
    A re-gear is next, how does the 4.88s do on the Hwy with 35s?
     
  5. Sep 15, 2022 at 5:46 PM
    IvanhoeTaco

    IvanhoeTaco Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Aug 4, 2019
    Member:
    #301199
    Messages:
    2,901
    Gender:
    Male
    Eastern NC
    Vehicle:
    2005 Supercharged Converted Prerunner
    Total Chaos 3.5 LT, King Coilovers, 35x11.5r17 on Falcon T2, ADV 4 inch fiberglass, 4.88 gears, FJ cruiser transfer case, 4 runner front diff, Cab mount relocate, archive hangers, shackles, king 2.5x14 rear shocks, icon rxt leaf springs, king hydro bumps
    Does great, cant tell the tires are 35s or the gears are 4.88s.

    I would run 33s on 4.88s if I had to.
     
    Mully[QUOTED] likes this.
  6. Sep 15, 2022 at 5:47 PM
    Mully

    Mully Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Feb 12, 2014
    Member:
    #122907
    Messages:
    5,255
    Gender:
    Male
    First Name:
    Chris
    CA
    Vehicle:
    12 DC 4x4 Lifted Sport
    Lifted, Kings, Locked, 295s and more.
    What's your RPM at 75mph?
     
  7. Sep 15, 2022 at 5:50 PM
    IvanhoeTaco

    IvanhoeTaco Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Aug 4, 2019
    Member:
    #301199
    Messages:
    2,901
    Gender:
    Male
    Eastern NC
    Vehicle:
    2005 Supercharged Converted Prerunner
    Total Chaos 3.5 LT, King Coilovers, 35x11.5r17 on Falcon T2, ADV 4 inch fiberglass, 4.88 gears, FJ cruiser transfer case, 4 runner front diff, Cab mount relocate, archive hangers, shackles, king 2.5x14 rear shocks, icon rxt leaf springs, king hydro bumps
    Around 2k
     
    dpele and Mully[QUOTED] like this.
  8. Sep 15, 2022 at 5:51 PM
    Mully

    Mully Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Feb 12, 2014
    Member:
    #122907
    Messages:
    5,255
    Gender:
    Male
    First Name:
    Chris
    CA
    Vehicle:
    12 DC 4x4 Lifted Sport
    Lifted, Kings, Locked, 295s and more.
    Nice. Thanks for the info brother.
     
    IvanhoeTaco[QUOTED] likes this.
  9. Sep 15, 2022 at 6:04 PM
    HIghlande2

    HIghlande2 Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Apr 20, 2017
    Member:
    #216802
    Messages:
    1,628
    Gender:
    Male
    First Name:
    Chris
    Wilmington, NC
    Vehicle:
    15 DCSB Sport
    Little of this and a little of that
    It flies right by you on the interstate. :rofl:

    If I did it over again I would have done 4.88s instead of 4.56s. with running 35s
     
  10. Sep 15, 2022 at 6:08 PM
    IvanhoeTaco

    IvanhoeTaco Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Aug 4, 2019
    Member:
    #301199
    Messages:
    2,901
    Gender:
    Male
    Eastern NC
    Vehicle:
    2005 Supercharged Converted Prerunner
    Total Chaos 3.5 LT, King Coilovers, 35x11.5r17 on Falcon T2, ADV 4 inch fiberglass, 4.88 gears, FJ cruiser transfer case, 4 runner front diff, Cab mount relocate, archive hangers, shackles, king 2.5x14 rear shocks, icon rxt leaf springs, king hydro bumps
    Hey now that was my wife driving
     
    HIghlande2[QUOTED] likes this.
  11. Sep 15, 2022 at 6:29 PM
    MasonSTL

    MasonSTL Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Sep 30, 2019
    Member:
    #306745
    Messages:
    414
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    Male
    Green Bay, WI
    Vehicle:
    06 TRDOR AC MT
    Last edited: Sep 15, 2022
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  12. Sep 15, 2022 at 11:57 PM
    nickybee123

    nickybee123 New Member

    Joined:
    Sep 15, 2022
    Member:
    #405919
    Messages:
    2
    Gender:
    Male
    First Name:
    Nick
    Vehicle:
    2012 Gulf Blue/Orange Tacoma
    See epic post ;)
    Ok. Slightly epic post. I have been meaning to get a Tacoma for a while - and finally needed an island truck for Maui and I got a great deal on a 2012 (4.0L V6 4x4 maxed out on trim). It was a hair over 120k miles but the entire undercarriage was spotless so I grabbed it.

    Best part was it already had slightly beefier tires and a slight lift.

    Anyway I did a bunch of things to it - a LOT with the help of this forum so I thought I'd share.
    With the exception of the overall paint swap for the entire truck - I did everything myself or with a friend (and it was mostly pretty easy stuff)

    Here's the truck in its finished state. (It started out as a bog-standard Silver Mica)

    hero_rear_right.jpg

    The inspiration for the color scheme was the old Gulf-Oil colored Porsche (the official colors are apparently called Powder Blue and Gulf Orange)

    Main car body was blue - Toyota Emblems, Faux Hood Scoop and Brake Calipers were painted Orange as contrasts.

    hero_side_right_front.jpg

    Had to sneak a few quick photos near a parking lot in Santa Monica before I dropped it off at the shipping brokers.

    hero_rear_left.jpg

    Let's do the mods from the outside in - since we started with the colors I'll show some closeups of that since I feel they turned out really really well:

    midclose_left_front.jpg

    Ah yes - the grille - I didn't like the OEM 2nd gen grille so I swapped it out and grabbed the Raptor lights at the same time. Here's a close-up detail of the grille:

    grille_sideview.jpg

    I followed the same pattern for painting all the plastic pieces - scuff with Brillo pad, two coats of Adhesion Promoter, 3 coats of Base color, 2 coats of 2K gloss. Be careful with the aftermarket grille screw holes on the letters - I had to "help" a few with epoxy as they are crappy quality.

    closeup_side_door_emblem.jpg

    I've of course seen plenty of people with Black Matte Emblems on the sides - but for some reason not many people use contrast color here. I was very happy with how it turned out.

    closeup_tailgate_emblem.jpg

    Really annoyingly - I had to do this one twice. Because some asshole peeled off the orange TACOMA letters the 2nd day after I did. So if you happen to see someone in the LA area with a single Orange TACOMA emblem - he stole it ;)

    Let's see what else is on the outside - HID headlight upgrade:

    hid_projector.jpg

    Definitely looks way better/meaner than the stock setup. It was somewhat of a pain to install but YouTube/Google/just look at it and twist it around and eventually it will fit is your friend ;)

    Ooh - totally forgot to take pictures of the Hydraulic lift arms for the hood. Fairly easy to do - and definitely worthwhile.

    rubber_pad.jpg

    This rubber pad for that bed wasn't really much of an install (just roll it out and that's it) - but it fits extremely well in a 2nd gen.

    stubby_antenna.jpg

    Stubby antenna makes it look like a funny RC car - but I liked it. I had to dremel the end a bit to mate smoothly but it didn't take long.

    Last but not least - the calipers. I only have disc brakes on the front wheels - but I had some spare orange paint so I decided to do this - here's some pics of the process:

    caliper_original.jpg

    This first pic is what it looks like when the wheel comes off at first.

    caliper_basecoat_white.jpg

    It's scuffed and masked and then (after adhesion promoter) it's covered with a coat of white as both primer and to make the orange color easier to fill out. (the metal is dark and the color is light)

    caliper_basecoat_glosscoat.jpg

    3 Basecoats and a glosscoat later - the wheel is ready to come back on.

    caliper_final.jpg

    And there you go - Brembo Taco ;)

    Ok - now we go inside - the first thing I did was the short shifter. Didn't take any pictures of it - but I was surprised how quick the process was - and the instructions online were decent.

    Then I did the Fire Extinguisher - for those who don't know the Fire Element - google it - it's an awesome piece of kit (basically gives you 5 times as much time to put out the fire as a FULL SIZE fire extinguisher - even though it's tiny). Here it is attached to a seat rail bracket (which I slightly modded to change the angle and make it smaller. My girlfriend has a habit of kicking it otherwise.

    fire_element.jpg

    Then I did AJT design knobs (I got the keyfob cover also) - I did all 4 even though the picture only shows 3.

    ajt_design_knobs.jpg

    And now we come to the head-unit - which took - well - way too f***ing long.
    Selecting it was fairly easy - Schosche TA2111B was my go to for the faceplate - and it mated perfectly with the ATOTO S8 (I maxed out the RAM on the ATOTO since I know Android head-units can be sluggish)

    For what it's worth I got the ATOTO S8 ULTRA (Amazon)

    I upgraded the front door speakers at the same time.

    But the speakers were trivial in comparison to doing the head-unit completely.

    atoto_s8_headunit.jpg

    It looks lovely once it is done - but you will find that the following 3 things can be somewhat of a pain.

    1. SWC (steering wheel controls)
    2. BT Mic (re-using the OEM one)
    3. Rear-View camera (re-using the OEM one)

    SWC was eventually easy enough - got two pieces from Crutchfield to make it work - but it required manual reprogramming - and crucially I needed to override the auto-detection of the head-unit to set it to "Pioneer" in order to make it work.

    BT Mic took foreeeeeeever - because me and my friend were being idiots about ground-loops.
    There is a thread on TW that discusses this in detail - but in essence - you open the panel between the two vanity lights:

    bluetoothmic_LED_upgrade.jpg

    (Picture also shows LED upgrade which I did to all interior lights)

    Once you open the panel you can extract the entire Mic and you have to bypass the Pre-amp board to make things work. (even if you decide to use your own mic you do not have to run new wires down the driver side A pillar - you can use the existing wires)

    Once we had that working - all that remained was the rear-view camera.

    Well - let's just say I shorted two of them.

    Mostly because I was a moron - but also because one of the wiring diagrams suggested online is incorrect. Fortunately there's a good thread on TW for this also.
    Once you figure out which wire is the Reverse Switch wire (hint - it's brown and it goes hot/12V when the reverse gear is engaged - keep probing until you find it) then you can just cut that wire and run the hot side into the Head-unit.

    This is of course assuming you do NOT want to have Reverse camera view into the Rear View Mirror - but just into the head-unit - and you do NOT want to have a Blue-screen flashing there momentarily.

    Since I wanted neither of these things - that's what we did.

    working_reverse_camera.jpg

    Once you're done that's what it looks like.

    There might have been a few more things (custom fit floor mats in the front come to mind) but these were the main ones.

    By all means ask me questions if you have any while this is still fresh in my mind. Thanks again for all the help while I was figuring this out.
     
  13. Sep 16, 2022 at 4:05 AM
    99TacoDriver

    99TacoDriver Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jul 8, 2011
    Member:
    #59531
    Messages:
    6,861
    Gender:
    Male
    South Louisiana
    OME 885x/5100s/LR UCA/3 leaf AAL/275/70/17 Terra Trac X-Venture
    Pretty good first post there, welcome to the money pit
     
  14. Sep 16, 2022 at 4:52 AM
    rnish

    rnish Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    May 9, 2014
    Member:
    #129450
    Messages:
    8,558
    Gender:
    Male
    Peoples Republic of Maryland (USA)
    Vehicle:
    Tacoma 2nd gen
    King's, Camburg UCA, Dirt King LCA, armor
    Added Dirt King and TC decals


     
    Z7Xtreme likes this.
  15. Sep 16, 2022 at 7:06 AM
    OverlAnderson

    OverlAnderson A dude playing a dude disguised as another dude

    Joined:
    Sep 23, 2017
    Member:
    #230862
    Messages:
    2,126
    Gender:
    Male
    First Name:
    Anderson
    San Antonio, Tx
    Vehicle:
    14 TRDS DCSB 4X4
    stuff and things
    We went through north Texas into Arkansas. Made it all the way from SA Texas to Nashville in one days drive that was a trek!
     
  16. Sep 16, 2022 at 7:09 AM
    OverlAnderson

    OverlAnderson A dude playing a dude disguised as another dude

    Joined:
    Sep 23, 2017
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    #230862
    Messages:
    2,126
    Gender:
    Male
    First Name:
    Anderson
    San Antonio, Tx
    Vehicle:
    14 TRDS DCSB 4X4
    stuff and things
    Brian422[QUOTED] likes this.
  17. Sep 16, 2022 at 7:11 AM
    OverlAnderson

    OverlAnderson A dude playing a dude disguised as another dude

    Joined:
    Sep 23, 2017
    Member:
    #230862
    Messages:
    2,126
    Gender:
    Male
    First Name:
    Anderson
    San Antonio, Tx
    Vehicle:
    14 TRDS DCSB 4X4
    stuff and things
    I mush say yeah my McNiels also weren't in the best of shape they needed a lot of prep work before paint but I’m happy with the end result
     
    IvanhoeTaco[QUOTED] likes this.
  18. Sep 16, 2022 at 8:12 AM
    Yacob_D

    Yacob_D It's Fine, Leave It.

    Joined:
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    #337449
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    The J
    Vehicle:
    08 Red, AC
    Couple nuts and bolts 4x converted
  19. Sep 16, 2022 at 11:34 AM
    Tactical_Panda

    Tactical_Panda Armchair Anarchist

    Joined:
    Mar 6, 2017
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    Messages:
    7,163
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    Tim
    Fredericksburg, VA
    Vehicle:
    2015 Tacoma Double Cab, Off-Road Edition
    AJT Designs Shifter AJT Designs Battery Hold-Down ARB Awning 2500x2500 ARB Twin Compressor w/ Slee Offroad Mounting Bracket Avid Brush Bar Avid Step Bars Black Rock Wheels Series 997 Type 8 Circuit Breaker/Relay Panel Custom TRD Decals Bulletproof Fabricating Raptor Grill Bulletproof Fabricating Cooling Panel Bulletproof Fabricating Tow Hook Duluth Trading Company Dog Hammock Exhaust Breather Mod eBay Special 3-Gallon Air Tank Expedition Essentials TPAM EZ Down tailgate damper Flagpole Mounts, Dual Foglight Mod Front Camera Rear Camera; full time available General Grabber tires Goat Armor Hella Supertone Horns Iggy Switch Panel Icon Dynamics Stage 3 Suspension Katskin Leather Interior KickAss camp shower LED Bed Lights LED Interior Lights Midland MXT275 GMRS Two-Way Radio OEM Audio Plus Reference 500 audio upgrade Plano Cases. 42" roof mounted, X2 Pop-N-Lock Tailgate Handle Prinsu Cab Rack Prinsu-like Shell Rack Redline Tuning Hood Struts Rigid Industries 40" Light Bar Rigid Industries Ditch Lights Rigid Industries Spotlights Toyota Bed Step UltraGauge EM Plus v1.4 Vixen Air Horns, Four-Trumpet Whole bunch of decals worth about 5HP each Yakima Road Shower, 10-gal
    Big upgrades.

    First I added new DV8 bumpers last month along with a Smittybilt winch. The front bumper was not compatible with the factory skid plate so I had one made. Also, the rear bumper was not compatible with the factory trailer hitch but now the two are integrated together so they both work with each other.

    Second, since I have so many aftermarket accessories I upgraded to a high-output alternator (240 amp) and a super duper deep cycle AGM battery by X2 Power. The battery was designed for use in an RV and has separate terminals for accessories.

    And finally, really neat isolation switch for the winch since I won't be using it all that often.
    https://www.lambtekinnovations.com

    Big shoutout to Chance at AZ Fabrication and Repair for making all of this happen.
    https://azfabricationandrepair.com/

    Front.jpg

    Rear.jpg

    Skid Plate.jpg

    Trailer Hitch.jpg

    Alternator.jpg

    Battery.jpg

    Winch Switch.jpg
     
    loyaltothetaco likes this.
  20. Sep 16, 2022 at 12:58 PM
    Mully

    Mully Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Feb 12, 2014
    Member:
    #122907
    Messages:
    5,255
    Gender:
    Male
    First Name:
    Chris
    CA
    Vehicle:
    12 DC 4x4 Lifted Sport
    Lifted, Kings, Locked, 295s and more.
    New wheels.
    Stepped up to 295x70x17 with a full size spare.

    20220916_115634.jpg
    20220916_115540.jpg
     
    4ALLUDO, dpele, K-DubTaco and 10 others like this.

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