A non-enthusiast's Tacoma build

Tis the season to spend a bunch of money on TruckStuff(TM). I've got aluminum RCI skid plates + cat guards, a Prinsu roof rack, and ARK splash guards en route, plus a metric ton of stainless tamper resistant hardware. I blame @EatSleepTacos for encouraging this spending spree.

I'm dropping a couple wiring diagrams in here, in the event I misplace the paper copies. I will be tackling one or both of these early next year, depending on my tax refund. All design credit goes to @caribe makaira, who was a huge help in speccing out both of these circuits.



*Edited to add*
The single-battery solar circuit I posted previously will not work due to the Victron solar charge controller's insufficient waterproof rating for engine bay mounting. The circuit shown below, utilizing a Redarc BCDC controller, is a much better option for this sort of setup.

 

I'm likely reading this wrong because it makes no sense, but that's setup to turn off solar when the truck is on, right? Not the other way around? How come? Also I assume the solar controller will be waterproof since it's in the engine bay.

 

Correct, this setup will turn off the solar power when the truck is running. Without this added function, the alternator and the solar charger would be yeeting electrons into the battery at the same time. Neither the alternator nor the solar charger are designed to work in tandem with each other.

Am I being paranoid and pre-empting a problem that may not exist? Yes. It is me, though.

The solar charge controller I selected is IP43 rated, which is more water-resistant than waterproof. I plan on mounting it vertically, with the connections facing downward, behind the battery/fuse panel on the driver's side. I'll mount it high enough to keep it well clear of any horizontal surface that could accumulate standing water.

 

I feel like with the work you're putting in for a nice bullet proof setup, that will be an eventual weak point (mounting in the engine bay and only IP43). Both from water and from dust. Perhaps a waterproof box it can go in to protect it, though space may be of concern.

 

I'm going to look into this. Are there any waterproof enclosure manufacturers you recommend?

 

None come to mind as I've never used one, but I know there are ones of all shapes and sizes out there. Perhaps McMaster Carr has some offerings, just a guess.

 

Also, I assume you're going to be running the solar wires down the windshield and into the engine bay? If so it's definitely worth keeping the controller in there for ease of running the wiring, versus what I did. Running solar wiring through the roof, to the controller, out of the floor and up into the engine bay.

 

Yessir, that's the plan. I'm shooting for the shortest wiring route possible, in order to minimize electrical losses along the cable run.

If I'm unable to find a suitable waterproof enclosure for the solar charge controller, how worried should I be about the IP43 rating being insufficient? Based on my research, IP43 rated components can withstand -

- Solid intrusion: Protected from tools and small wires greater than 1 millimeter.
- Liquid intrusion: Protected from water spray less than 60 degrees from vertical.

The most the charge controller will see is the odd trickle of water from above, where the hood meets the quarter panel. I can't foresee any circumstance where the controller would be subjected to water spray from below, or fully immersed.

 

In all actuality, I have no idea. Water gets into wild places, same with dust. It might not cause issues right away but over time it may cause fuckery. That's all speculation though.

 

I'll put my usual excessive amount of research into finding a waterproof housing. Here's hoping I can find something that fits both the components and the available space.

 

DIY may also be a solution. Small pelican box, add some pass through wire things exactly where you need them and you're all set.

 

I finally got around to ordering and installing skid plates.



For many of you guys and gals, skids are an essential part of your vehicle protection package when bombing around offroad. For my daily-driven pavement princess, they might seem a bit superfluous. Allow me to explain the “why” behind the “what.”



Skid selection

How many times do you have to hit road debris at highway speed before undercarriage protection becomes necessary? For me, the answer is twice. One time, I schwacked a pile of 2x4s on the interstate in my dearly departed F-150. In another incident, the front end of the aforementioned Ford ate a crowbar, which then bounced under the truck and hit a bunch of stuff on its way out. Both impacts lead to the already-sh!tty vehicle making funny noises for awhile.

Okay, correction. Two incidents for a vehicle I don’t like, zero for a vehicle I care about.

Note: I am aware that the best defense is attentive driving. I don’t bulldoze my way through road debris for funsies; I swerve to avoid it if I can safely do so. Traffic conditions in a dense population center like Virginia Beach don’t always allow for such maneuvers.

There is another sensible reason for installing skid plates: catalytic converter protection. Toyota trucks are frequently near the top of any list ranking vehicles most likely to have their cats stolen. Whether this is due to the design of the exhaust, the quantity of precious metal in Toyota cats, or a preponderance of jealous Jeep guys with Sawzalls, I cannot say. What I do know is, installing some form of catalytic converter protection is cheap insurance and good for peace of mind.

Why not get a dedicated Cat Guard/Cat Shield instead of the RCI transmission skid with bolt-on guards? For one, dedicated catalytic protection products aren’t meant to take a hit, while skid plates are. The other reason is ease of removal for performing maintenance. Assuming the correct (tamper-resistant, in my case) tools are on hand, taking off the transmission skid requires loosening two bolts and removing two nuts. The same cannot be said for dedicated cat protection products, whose install/removal processes are significantly more involved.

Why get aluminum skids instead of steel? Put simply, my use case does not require ultra beefy skids; daily driver duties are not that demanding. Corrosion resistance was another big consideration, because keeping the frame rust-free is enough of a battle. The final reason is keeping everything light, which will make maintenance easier. Sliding around on my garage floor already kinda sucks, so I’d rather not have to wrestle a 35 lb steel trans skid if an 18 lb aluminum skid is an option.

Why RCI? That one is easy: because they offer catalytic converter guards that bolt onto their transmission skid. I did place an order in early 2021 with Mobtown for aluminum skids, but this was before I gave any thought to protecting my cats (and before RCI released their cat guards). Mobtown went out of business before the order was completed, which was a blessing in disguise.

While RCI skids may make the most sense for my needs, they definitely aren’t for everyone. From conversations with those in the know (including the illustrious @EatSleepTacos), I learned that they aren’t the most durable option. Just looking at them, it’s plain to see that they don’t offer as much coverage as other skids either. If these are serious considerations for your use case, I recommend you look elsewhere.



Skid mods

With product selection out of the way, let’s move on to the mods I performed to the skids themselves.

The most important alteration is the addition of a 3/8” thick UHMW pad, which is situated between the engine skid and the factory front jack point:



I shamelessly stole this idea from @NukedTaco's excellent thread:

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/rci-front-skid-mod.654059/

The idea is to fill the gap between the two parts, minimizing the distance that the skid can flex before contacting a structural member. Material properties are an important consideration here: when bent, steel tends to deform while aluminum is more likely to crack.

Another important consideration is enabling load transfer to a point on the frame that is actually designed to take it. There is a thread somewhere out there, showing a guy who bent his frame after his aluminum (!) RCI front skid took a hit. He ended up swiss-cheesing the two vertical RCI skid supports with a bunch of holes to ensure that they collapsed before damaging the frame again. It is my hope that adding another point of contact will distribute the load sufficiently to prevent something like this from occurring.

To perform this mod, the first step is identifying the center of the jack point. This ensures that the UHMW pad is located properly. I stuffed a small plastic bottle, 0.93 OD x ~3” long, into the drainage hole in the jack point, then installed the engine skid and marked the outline of the bottle with a scribe. I also took a small piece of hard material and stuck it in the desired mounting location to determine the required material thickness. My measurements for locating this point are below:



With the jack point dimensioned and center point marked, I ordered a small 5 x 7 x 3/8” thick UHMW pad off Amazon. I then cut it to approximately 4 x 5” size, and added a notch to accommodate the weld securing the oil filter cover frame. Once that was done, I drilled a hole in each corner of both the pad and skid, painted the raw metal, and installed:



Could I have just taped the pad down instead of through-bolting it? Maybe, but that depends on the quality of the UHMW used. Cheap UHMW material is “skived,” and has a tendency to curl at the edges over time.

https://www.mcmaster.com/high-temperature-uhmw-polyethylene/

Since I bought Amazon-grade (crap) UHMW, it’s fair to assume that it’s the cheapest material available. Bolting the pad down will prevent curling, and will definitely keep it exactly where it’s supposed to be.

I added some EPDM sealing washers to electrically isolate the stainless steel bolts, nuts, and washers from the skid and (electrically conductive) UHMW pad. Galvanic corrosion is a real problem, and it’s one I haven’t paid any attention to until recently. A writeup on that topic is coming soon.

I also added some dummy-proofing to both skids with paint. The jack point is marked in white, the oil drain plug port is outlined in green, and the transmission drain plug port is outlined in no-no red.

 

Got some stuff done to the truck over the past couple days.

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I replaced my partially-shredded OEM splash guards:

... with some aftermarket ones, made by ARK. These were a bit fussy to fit, and required some modification:






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Next, I refinished my Slee foglight surrounds. The powdercoat on these failed in a little over a year, leading to a large amount of surface rust under the powdercoat itself. This problem is frequently reported with Slee's products, so be warned if you decide to buy anything from them.

I sanded the foglight surrounds down, cleaned them with alcohol, and painted them with gloss black auto enamel plus a couple layers of clear coat. I think I caught the issue before anything was structurally compromised by the rust.



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As you can see in the picture above, I added weather-resistant EPDM rubber washers between the foglight surround and the stainless bolts holding it in position. This is done to electrically isolate the stainless hardware from non-stainless materials, which is the only way to prevent galvanic corrosion between dissimilar metals.

...

Oh f**k. Almost every mod I have is secured with stainless steel hardware.

I had to remove every stainless bolt I have installed thus far and slip these same EPDM rubber washers in place. That includes 4 bolts per aux hi beam light, 3 bolts per fog light, 5 bolts per foglight surround, and 4 bolts per rear mud flap. That comes out to 32 bolts total, not many of which are readily accessible. It took an entire day to complete this, and it sucked.

The only bolts I couldn't outfit were those holding the rubber dock bumpers to the rear of my Mobtown HC bumper. Accessing these nuts requires removal of the HC bumper from the truck, which is not an easy task for one guy. Here's hoping the relative scarcity of electrolytes (i.e. water) in that location will keep the galvanic corrosion at bay.

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The last thing I accomplished was installing my newly-arrived SDHQ billet battery terminals. I got these because my stock terminals were basically maxed out, and I have some more electrical mods coming up soon (specifically, a single-battery solar setup).

SDHQ's installation instructions are beyond useless, so I highly recommend following @boogie3478's video instead:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i061RQGfizQ

I have one important note from the install process: DO NOT get rid of your OEM positive terminal cover. If you get in a collision, and your hood gets bent up, it's possible that the hood could make contact with the (now extra-tall) positive terminal. That will instantly turn your fender-bender into a vehicle fire.





It's almost like Toyota knows what they're doing.

 

Looking good, thanks for the tag.

 

I'm interested to see how the cat covers fit!
I ordered some cat covers from Greenlane but they are designed for a 3rd gen.

 

I'll snap a picture next time I'm under there. Like most cat guards, the RCI "wings" only protect the forward end of the cat. While not as secure as rebar or cable welded to the frame, I imagine it's enough to dissuade any would-be thief.

 

Yeah exactly. They will be able to chop the rear portion on the cat, but not the front.
It's just enough to say to the crackheads.

 

@dpele, I had my truck up on a lift today for an alignment. This should illustrate what the RCI cat guards cover.

I have also made note of a couple components making contact, which are the likely source of some worrying new noises. I intend to correct this issue in the near future.

 

Easiest option is to put a few washers under the carriage bolts at the rear of the transmission skid, spacing it down a quarter or so inch. Between the skid and the crossmember.

Best option is going to be to use a carbide burr to open up the holes on the RCI skid to allow more adjustability when bolting down the cat guards. I used a burr on mine, but after pulling the transmission skid twice because I didn't open the holes up enough, I put some washers under it. I'll pull it in the next week or two to do a proper fix.

 

I was thinking about inserting some sort of padding between the cat guard and cat, just to dampen the vibration. I'm wondering if this would work:

https://www.jbweld.com/product/exhaustweld