What Have You Done To Your 3rd Gen Today?

i have this on but would be nice to have two of the ARB on the back

 

more is better

 

I wish! But setting traps for the vermin is apparently frowned on by law enforcement.

 

lots of stuff happened this week.

Wednesday became oil change day in everything that spun.


then the front of the truck suddenly exploded apart, and an sdhq winch mount tried going in. SHDQ, YOUR INSTRUCTIONS SUUUUCK.. still annoyed by it, i had to use a carbide burr to round out the 4 outer mounting points. either my trucks mounting points are wider, or their hole cutting template is off by an 1/8" on each side.

they also kindly list all the hardware included, but then rarely mention which hardware is used where. their instructions also skip step 11...

i ended up with four M12 flange bolts left over, as well as two 3/8" nuts/bolts/washers that i still have no idea what they're included for.





i still need to figure out some sort of remote free-spool setup, as the knob ended up directly under that support, and there's no possible way to turn it.

future-plan is to get a replacement or 3, freespool knobs from harbor freight, and then see if i can cut/weld/drill/tap a socket universal joint onto one to extend to a more reachable location. still impossible to believe that only 1 company makes a free spool extension kit for any winch design...

i had to dremel the bumper grille back-side to thin out the grille so the winch didn't push the plastic bumper forward. fortunately it was only a 1/2". but still a ton of work.




and then curiosity got the best of me. i took apart the massive badlands 'winch controller' box, as i was already having trouble mounting it. turns out, it's much simpler than they make it seem.


everything re-mounted, in a much more compact form factor, with new custom-made 1/0 feed cables, and 4ga controller connection cables(oem is 2ga feed, with 8ga controller cables). just need to find one of those fancy boots for the main power cable bolt to finish the appearance off.


and the most nerve-wracking part was cutting my oem bumper with minimal templates. i had ordered a replacement, but ebay struck and it didn't fit. again, SDHQ your instructions SUCK. they kindly include a laser-cut template off the factory plate holes for 3 different fairlead designs, where all i needed was the center point... but they never once mention the 3/4" of variance their own winch plate has in vertical positioning of the fairlead, which could've given me a full 1/2" higher mounting positioning than where it ended up.






5/10. i recommend buying because it's the only hidden winch kit option with attachment points. the price isn't a good deal comparatively, the instructions sucked, the fit sucks. but the welds look nice, and the powercoat seems to hold up well after drilling it...

 

All looks great! Where did you find the Toyota logo decal? I added the lettering, but couldn't find a logo decal. Thought about painting it myself, but I'm kind of lousy at tedious stuff like that.

TIA!

 

Found a nice set of 2019 "dark" tail lights online for a good price. They were a tad scratched and dull (to be expected). Polished them up with 3 step

$23 NOVUS-PK1-8 | Plastic Clean & Shine #1, Fine Scratch Remover #2, Heavy Scratch Remover #3 and Polish Mates Pack | 8 Ounce Bottles

Novus Plastic Polish to like-new condition. Popped them in and ta-dah! Like them much better than the "clear corners" it came with.

The forum compresses images pretty badly, so they look a little blurry, but in person, they're very sharp and nice, especially with the VLED tail light kit conversion kit.

 

Been through this one… don’t remember having problems with instructions. But it required some heavy hammer blows to get it into place.

 

i was first going to resort to the BFH. but that was going to either bend or damage all of the oem studs, and i had no interest in that.. so i'll mod the new item. just entirely unexpected part of the build. i was expecting to mod the winch mounting plate putting a badlands winch on a plate designed for the warn evo series, but didn't need to. even if i complain to them, it's not like i'm going to leave the truck apart while the emails fly. and now that it's modded, it's not like it's returnable.

 

OoooOOOOoooo blinders behind the grille...mi gusta.

 

I have the same ones. Have been on almost 3years no issues

 

9" lights from Backwoods Adventure Mods.
They are incredibly bright. Will blind anyone in front of me up to a mile away lol

 

They wasn’t to hard to install, took me about 1 1/2 hours. I unbolted both front seats so I could lay them back, made it a lot easier to fasten the straps.

 

I swapped my OR tails out for the same ones that you did. I have been very happy with them and the appearance over the clear/chrome OR tails.

 

Got my Fab Fours bumper installed.
It's a proper 3/16" steel plate bumper, not like some of their other gaudy bumpers that are only 1/8".

Super easy install, took about 90 minutes to do. Without a winch it only requires cutting the bottom plastic off the bumper.
The only part that was hard was torqueing the nuts on the inside of the bumper, not much room to move your hands.

 

Can't you make an off set handle for the winch?

 

Anyone else kinda see a “transformer face” in one of the garage pics of the dismantled front end? I got excited scrolling down hoping to see a Tacoformer!

 

Destructatron?

 

I got an Ironman 4x4 Suspension lift. replaced the leveling kit it came with from the dealership. Rides alot better now!

 

Maybe it will transform into a Nissan Frontier.

 

My wife and I celebrated our 10 year anniversary yesterday, and she surprised me with these smoked sequential turn signals! So stoked!