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

For those who want to change your light color this is something I came up with you can see the night shot please excuse the reflection off of the control knob. The only thing I used was a red sharpie pen to color the diffuser.

 

With Tacos being in the top 10 list of catalytic converter theft, I thought some preventative insurance was a good idea. After lots of research, I chose the CCM Cat Shield, which I installed today in my two car garage. My 30 year old floor jack died, so I had to use a 2 ton bottle jack to get it up on stands. Got to fix that floor jack!

 

I love my truck, but I am always looking to make sure I'm getting the most out of it, especially when it comes to fuel mileage. In my younger days (I just turned 63) I was a jet engine mechanic in the Air Force and learned a lot about the science of making fuel efficient power. One of those principles involved lowering the temperature of the incoming air. As anyone using forced induction will tell you, cold air makes power. Its true with NA engines as well. So today I applied some selfadhesive backed fiberglass insulation to the outside of my airbox, to help block heat rising up from the hot exhaust right under it. I will do the rest of the airbox eventually. Every little bit helps.
Update: I wrapped the air intake hose today. Part aluminum foil and part self adhesive backed fiberglass insulation.

 

What have you noticed in performance with this mod? Hoping you do. Makes sense. Thanks.

 

leave it! Have it on mine!

 

Replaced the upper and lower control arms, outer tie rod ends and sway bar end links yesterday. Last weekend replaced the calipers, pads, rotors, wheel bearings and added extended brake lines.

 

Nice! What year/mileage on the truck? Curious how long the ones you replaced (assuming original) lasted.

 

2006, 169k. Bought it new in 2006. All original.

 

I just rebuilt two of my floor jacks, with parts from the store below. Pretty easy, except for unscrewing the nut holding the hydraulic pump together - used a pipe wrench and a large cheater bar.

https://www.hcrcnow.com/shop/parts

 

How was the job? Did you use OEM?

I am about the same as you...an 06 with 190k and all original. j'm just afraid of getting in over my head considering the nuts/bolts haven't moved in 17 years and I live in the rust belt. I can't be without my daily driver for too long.

 

It was not bad, took about 4 hours. I did use new takeoffs, I think I paid ~$100 for upper and lowers, still had the Toyota part number stickers on them. Everything was easy, but I live in Texas. The underside of my truck still looks new. The videos I watched of Tacomas with rust had issues knocking out the cam pins as they seize in the sleeves. But a sawsall seemed to be the ticket to cut the sleeve and get them out. I would definitely recommend the takeoffs since you don't have to tackle trying to get the seized bushings out of the arms, you can just toss em in the trash.

 

Same with me. At least a few months.

 

Doing the fronts on my truck. Any tips? Some other members suggested spraying the existing bolts with liquid wrench before hand but otherwise pretty straight forward? Do you need to jack the truck up or can you swap them out with it just sitting?

 

My trip to the mountains earlier this week resulted in one of the wheel well liners to Crack, and eventually break off all together.

Thankfully I made the front liners in 2 peices so I only had to make a new rear portion. Cutting and molding only took about 30 minutes.

Then I did a tire rotation and an oil change.

 

Mental note: New stash spot found in my Tacoma.

 

Removed the WeatherTech mats and put in carpet mats.

 

Good for 15 years old. It took me 6 months to add this 1,000 miles on the old girl. At this rate I will hit 100k in the year 2030. Retirement RULES

 

Excellent addition and good idea to tiedown

 

Gotta love a low mile 2nd Gen. My ‘06 has 60k.

 

@CaliRaisedLed

Great set of sliders, they feel solid and the quality is there!

Unfortunately I’m missing hardware to mount these last 3 nuts/bolts, never came with them.