deusxanime's 2020 Cement OR 6MT mods/upgrades/build

Oh! One other thing I did add and that is the AAWireless box. That allows you to use Android Auto from your phone wirelessly (as the name would imply). Had it for about a week and working as expected, so not much to say on that, it does what it says!

 

Thanks for the update!

Lol classic midwest spring.

What's the lifetime woolwax cost? Also, where can I read more about AT3 vs. KO2? I was think Wildpeaks were the way to go over KO2s if you weren't doing off-roading due to less on road noise but I haven't read about AT3s. What size are you going with?

 

The lifetime woolwax (I think they also use fluidfilm on some parts as well like in doors, crevices, etc since it sprays finer so they can get in there with smaller wands) was just under $500 after tax. A bit much, but I didn't have to do it and get covered in gunk, they have all the wands and such to get into all the places, and I can go in as much as I want to get touch ups done - spring, fall, if I add new parts and want them coated, and so on.

I wrote off the Wildpeaks due to the unannounced recipe change they did a while back that seemed to degrade performance. It has been a while though, I should research if that is still going on, if they reverted, if it wasn't actually as big of an impact as some said, etc. Maybe it will be back on the menu as an option by the time I get tires.

There a pretty big thread on the Toyo AT3 and everyone seems to rave about them on there. Sounds like they have great performance on dry, in rain, snow (3peak certified too I think), basically a complete package especially if you are using them all four seasons. I wish they were a little better looking though, as they seem pretty bland to me!

For size, I'm planning on getting 265/70R17 (265/75R16 on winters since I'd put those on my OEM wheels). I'm thinking of going with LT/E to help with towing and hauling. I'm on stock suspension right now so that is the biggest I can go anyway. I might do a small lift in the future and increase my leaf pack to something a bit heavier duty, probably an OME pack or something, again for towing/hauling. The bigger tires would probably fill in a bit better with a lift too then.

 

Just back to say this spring/summer has sucked. It has been either 90s and depressingly humid on the weekends, or we've been busy, usually both! I guess I got lucky by delaying my 2LM install that I was able to get the illumination harness for it so I don't have to do any cutting and splicing. Just minimal attaching the IH to the 2LM. Still need to get that in and the MESO side marker replacements. The way it is going this year, we are going to go straight from 90s to below freezing and I'll never get them installed!

I also saw they released an official OEM lift now, which is possibly tempting, but I'd probably want to do an actual leaf pack in the rear rather than just blocks if I did that. I will have to see if the temptation pushes me to get it or not...

 

Yeah this weather has been totally awful

I full expect it to go from 90 to snowing this fall

 

I’m guessing that on top of that the MN mosquitoes have not made it any more pleasant.

 

Actually with the drought the Minnesota state bird hasn't been too bad this year. There's probably not nearly as much puddles and swamp to breed in with the low water levels. Small victories!

 

FINALLY AN UPDATE! We had no plans today and weather was finally decent. A bit warm in the 80s but no humidity, so I'll take it! This summer has been brutal - hot and humid in the 90s+ and drought. Yuck...

A bit of catch up, but I purchased the pre-built harness by @lapoltba for @BigWhiteTRD's 2Lo Mod quite a while ago. I had planned to use it in my previous 2019 truck even, if I remember correctly! Luckily since I didn't get to installing it I was able to find the illumination harness by @kmorgan3 as well when it popped up. This T's in to the environmental controls harness (apparently this works better for the manuals than the 4WD button's harness? I can't remember the reasoning anymore, but that is what worked best for my truck) and allows the 2Lo button to light up like a normal factory button. Nice! This would have required some cutting and splicing in the 2LM harness, but luckily since I waited even longer, he came out with a plug-n-play adapter to use with that as well! There was an issue as well someone who had gotten one of the illumination harness had found out, so I had to get some extra wires from @kmorgan3 and add them to his harness. He was great about working with me on that and the PnP adapter, sending out wires and replacements, etc as needed to make sure I was all set up. Who knew all that procrastination would pay off so well with PnP harnesses and other people "beta testing" for me!!

Unfortunately I forgot to get "glamour shots" of all the wiring, especially all spliced and connected together and ready to go, but here's one that shows most of the parts.



The 2LM harness is on the bottom, illumination harness on the top left, and 2WD LOW RANGE button (with unused wiring that came with it) from on the top right. Btw, the button is from Air On Board. It is the smaller button size for below the radio and in the "new blue" color which is supposed to match factory Toyota. I don't think it is quite there, but close.

I don't have anything showing the additional PnP wiring to tie in the illumination to the 2LM harness. Basically though it splices into the red & black wires on the illumination harness and then T's in between the green plug on the 2LM harness (that would usually be plugged in to the button) and the 2WD LOW RANGE button.

Alright, with that setup, let's get to work! I followed along with this post which helped a lot with pics and explanations. Definitely look at that for more of a step-by-step breakdown including where bolts, screws, and tabs are located from removal.

To start, I disconnected the battery. I was going to be working with the airbag and didn't want anything unexpected to happen with it. Also this involved plugging and unplugging wiring, for which I also prefer to have the battery disconnected. Then I waited a while (turned out to be over an hour as I got distracted by stuff) before starting just to make sure residual charge had all dissipated.

Next I had to pull off a bunch of plastic trim on the passenger. Door sill, color kick panel, and a couple pieces off the side of the dash. I also pushed the passenger seat all the way back and pulled the carpet out just to have more room and less things to catch on.



Next was pulling out the lower panel with the airbag and then the glove box. The lower panel/airbag was a pain. The bolts are easy to get to and remove, but there are 3 clips on top that are below the glovebox that you can barely get to. I had to use a trim tool to kind of create a gap and then stick a small screwdriver in the clip to release it. Luckily I was able to do that without breaking any of them. I carefully set that on the passenger side floor and tried to prop it against the side a bit so that it wasn't hanging off the wiring going to the airbag. Once that was out of the way you can get to all the screws for the glovebox and get that out.



With everything on the passenger side out of the way, I moved to the center stack. I popped off the vent and radio cover and then pulled out the radio. In hindsight I think I should have done something else with it, but I was able to leave it plugged in and just kind of balanced it on the stick. I think that would have worked better with an automatic shifter or the Pro one since they have a more flat top, but with my round ball shift knob, it was... not good. It was precariously perched and I kept tipping it over. Luckily nothing bad happened, but if I did it again I'd either actually unplug it I think or find something more stable to place it on.



With everything out, I was ready to install the harnesses! I was able to reach down from the radio's hole to get to the buttons and from the side, where the glovebox used to be, to get to the environmental control harness and push wires through in general.



Pretty simple from here. I just unplugged the harnesses from the 4WD ECU and environmental controls and plugged in the T's as necessary! Also I popped out the button blank and fed through the plug for that.







With the 2LM connected and wires ziptied up out of the way, I partially reinstalled stuff. I popped on the 2Lo button, put the radio back in, the glovebox, and then the lower panel/airbag. Mostly I wanted the radio in solid and the airbag back in it's proper place before reconnecting the battery and starting the truck and going for a test drive. BUT I didn't completely reinstall everything because that would invoke Murphy's Law and then there'd be something wrong that I'd have to tear apart the whole thing to fix!

I took it for a quick test drive and it seems to all be good! I'm able to engage the 2Lo button, put it in "4Lo", and then can drive it without the front tires binding up, so they obviously aren't engaged. Then I turn off the button and put it back to normal 2Hi mode without issue. Everything worked and no warning lights, yes!!

Just to show, here's how the button looks normally with the headlights and interior lights on.



And here's with the button pushed in and lit fully up.



As you can see, the words on the button light up with the headlights and picture with the button pushed in, so the illumination harness is working as well!

One nice thing about not reassembling everything, I was able to see the light on the 2LM harness light up when I pushed the button in (green light on right side), so I knew it was working properly at least that much.



With everything testing good and working, I reassembled and reinstalled everything else.



Looks as good as new! The only way you'd know is if you saw the button and knew what it was for.

I will have to see how it goes when I am next hauling my camper or another trailer, but I think it will be great!


Next mod up is the MESO side blinker LED replacements. Hopefully I can get those in still before winter hits, now that fall is upon us and weather is more reasonable.

 

Thread resurrection time!!! I finally got more stuff done on the truck! A couple new minor but useful additions, one of which was the side blinkers I meant to do last fall, so let's get started...

First actually was done a couple weekends ago and that was replacing the tailgate panel with a flat one. I heard about it in a thread here on TW, but lost track of which one. It was a MUCH less expensive version of those Mountain Hatch type ones at less than 1/2 the price, especially if you include the fact that it had free shipping. It's a big hunk of flat plastic, so not much too it. It does have a couple cutouts as "cupholders" and that is about it. The one minor nitpick is that it doesn't flare out at the side edges like the OEM panel does and so there is a bit of previously-unexposed (painted) metal there, near the latching mechanism. But it doesn't really affect anything so nbd for the price I think. Looking at the MH one and it is the same with straight edges, so no difference either comparing to that. Anyway, here's the ebay link and I'll also put it in the first post like normal after I get that post updated.

There really isn't much to the install, just use a T-30 torx bit to take out the plethora of bolts and swap it out. The before picture is just stock so I didn't do any of those either. Here's what it looks like now though.





Totally a creature comfort thing, but so much nicer on my knees when climbing in back there to get stuff, especially now that spring/summer is hitting and wearing shorts! The ribbing on the OEM panel always dug into my knees and I can't imagine I'm the only one. Also for putting things on there and having a flat, level surface.

 

OK, finally the @MESO side blinkers! The ones I have I actually ordered back in November 2020... so yeah been holding them for a while. These are the Ultimate Turn Signals, but I think he has released newer fancier versions since. But these are still much better than OEM and I paid for them, so don't feel the need to buy the newer ones... for now. There are five main benefits, in no particular order, to having these over OEM - 1) get rid of more random chrome from the truck, 2) they are smoked so blend in better with the black on the mirror, 3) they are LED (I think OEM are just halogen?), 4) much brighter than OEM, and 5) they include the resistor for the blinker electrical loop needed to counteract hyperblink if you are running LED taillight replacements like me and you happen to have your blinker on and then put it in reverse. So let's go! I did these over Memorial Day weekend, so just a couple days ago from this posting.

These are actually pretty easy to do, but I took quite a few pictures to help others. It is a bit nerve-wracking to pull the mirror covers off because you don't want to break them. I'm sure they'd be a pain to replace if you did manage to break one, especially since they are color painted to match your truck on many trims. On top of that mine have the PPE protection on them, so replacing them if they broke would not have been fun and would be spendy.

Here's a before picture, just for reference. Forgot to take a picture of the driver's side one, so you only get the passenger side OEM look!



First is prying off the mirror caps. I found it easiest to start at the outside upper edge where I could get my fingers on the lip sticking out just a bit and pull. I brace my palms on the black part to keep the mirror from moving and pulled on that edge to get it started. This got the tab on top to pop out a bit and then I could work my way around slowly pulling on the rest of it evenly and slowly. It is just held in by tabs so they'll eventually pop out. Not knowing where the tabs were though gave it a bit of a pucker factor as I didn't want to break them. The second one went much better than the first because I could look at the location of the tabs on the one that was already off and understand where I should be pulling on and feeling the resistance. So to help others, here's what the inside of the cap looks like so you can see the tab locations!



Green circle: Tab that tucks under on the top of the mirror. Here's a top view of them. (This picture was from putting it back on so you probably won't see this much of a gap when pulling it off, but just to show a better view I'm including it.)



Red circle: This tab I think is the big one that does a lot of the work holding it on and is probably where you'll feel the most resistance coming from.

Blue circles: These are like clips that go into tabs that are on the mirror side. This is on the inside edge and when I was putting it back on I found it easiest to put these in first and then kind of rotate from there. Here's a better angle on those.



Orange circles: A couple smaller tabs on the bottom. They are small so not as much resistance, but good to know they are there.

Once it is off, here's what's inside the mirror!



The blinker assembly piece is kind of partially covered by that black piece. You need to take the two screws out and carefully pry it back a little. It does not come fully out (at least from just those two screws), but that gives you enough wiggle room to work the blinker out. Once the screws are out you'll also need to untab it in a couple spots to be able to pull it back.



The upper red circle is a tab where you have to squeeze the prongs and then push it through and where the lower red circle is is just a post that goes into a hole to align things and provide some friction. Once the screws and those are out you can bend it back a bit and work the blinker assembly out. Then once that is out you unplug the wire and swap it out for the MESO version! The install is basically the reverse of removal. One thing I found with this version of the MESO blinkers was that the plug was really tight and hard to push in on them. I think they probably were sized just a tad too big and hopefully that is better on newer versions. I really had to work the plug to get it in and especially to get the plug's tab to snap into place. One thing to note is that there are rubber/weather strips above and below the actual blinker to try to keep moisture out of your side mirrors, so be care putting it in as you don't want to fold that over and mess up the seal.

With the new MESO blinker assembly installed, the tabs back in, and the screws screwed back in, it should be ready to put the mirror cap back on. If you haven't already, test them out before putting the cap on! When you are sure they are working as expected and everything is set, putting the cap on is straight-forward. As I said, I started with putting those clips on in the inner edge and then kind of rotated in from there and pushed the tabs in. Be sure the top tabs slot in correctly too and go around the whole thing and make sure it is snapped in to place everywhere. Should be pretty easy now that you know where the clips are!

Here's some shots of it in action! This is just from hitting the lock/unlock button, but I also tested to make sure the hyperblink went away (turn on blinker and then put it in reverse), just to be sure and for the satisfaction!

 

Yes! Glad to see these updates coming.

How has the woolwax held up?

 

That's a good question. I haven't looked at it after last winter and also need to get in for a spring touch-up. Maybe I'll try to get under there and get some pictures to compare!

 

I remembered to take some underbody pictures before getting my woolwax fall touch-up done a couple weeks ago. Here's how it looks after 2 MN winters:

 

Also a small mod, got a 3D printed phone holder/mount from etsy and it is pretty nice. You can clamp in your cord so that it is plug and play and it also came with some cable routing clips too. (It was from this seller, but seems they must not have any in stock right now because I can't find the product to directly link it.)

 

Thanks for the update. It looks like it’s held up well. Have you been happy with it?

This is very well thought through.

 

So far it is still looking good. It has only been 2 winters, but with all the crap they put on the roads in MN, I'd probably already be seeing rusts spots all over without it. So I definitely think it is helping and if it keeps it this clean I'll be super happy!

 

Do you have any kind of undercoating - Woolwax/Fluid Film or something else? Or just whatever the factory claims (e-coat?)?

 

Digging up my old thread as I have done a few small things this spring and hopefully a couple more will come as well eventually this summer!


Kids have gotten old/big enough to be out of boosters and so they lost their built-in armrests. Adding in a

$99 Moblorg Center Console for Truck Bench Seats, Vehicle Organizer, Medium, Made in USA (Black)

center console/armrest for the rear seats. No idea why they don't have anything back there now for armrests from the factory, and from the looks of it the next gen still won't either! Surprisingly there doesn't seem to be much of a selection anymore, probably because most companies have them built in to their vehicles...




Finally using my T4R SEMA wheels again with some new LT265/70R17 BFG KO2 tires on them. Also using some black lugs I got a while back to mount the "new" wheels. Been waiting a long time but I couldn't justify replacing brand new OE Goodyear tires without using some of the tread up. The Goodyears hit 30K and weren't performing well over last winter though, so I decided it was finally time to get it done. I'll probably use the OEM Off-Road wheels with some proper Blizzaks as winter tires later.




Upgraded my MESO map lights with the new(er) dual color map lights. Previously I had one of each red and white up there, nice to be able just switch between them now though.

 

Nice. My kids go nuts changing red to white with my duals. Wonder if your ladies are less rambunctious on that front?

Your color definitely rules over mine. Otherwise we have pretty similar rigs.

As for the center, when I had the massive toddler plastic car seat in for the cousin our middle rear seat got lots of use by the big kid. I just yanked that car seat today so I might look into a console, that one looks decent. Sure would be nice to have a fold down in the seatback, heaps of wasted space there.

 

My girls have been good about not playing with switching colors around all the time on the MESO lights, and they've even learned to make sure it is on red at night while I'm driving. Their crime though is leaving it switched on frequently! I'm glad Toyota added a timeout for them, even if they get left on permanently, otherwise they'd probably have killed my battery a few times by now. Especially with that hump in the headliner just in front of the rear overhead light, I don't notice it being left on from the front seat if I'm just driving during the day time.

As far as the armrest in the rear, I'm totally baffled they don't have a fold down one with a couple cupholders that tucks away in the middle seatback. Seems like it would just be a standard thing in any vehicle now. I thought for sure they'd rectify that in the 4th gens, but from what I saw a few weeks back when they showed them off, it didn't look like it.



I got sidetracked so I didn't finish my updates yesterday, but I grabbed some Diode Dynamics SS3 Pro amber fog lights during their Memorial Day sale. I got the one with the backlight as I thought it would be neat to have a little accent light on them when the regular lights are on, but don't need their full power. Since I don't like tapping/splicing factory lighting, I only got that option because they also offer the plug-n-play harness for the backlight, that plugs in to the marker/parking/head light connector. I started prepping to put them in last weekend, but as I was researching where everything plugs in, I found out that the PnP harness only works with the OEM non-LED headlights. Silly me for not considering that when I bought them, but there was no warning about it on the SS3 page when checking the box to add the extra harness, so it didn't hit me at the time I was ordering. Going back, if I go to the actual full product page for the PnP harness, it is written there in the fine print. Anyway I contacted them and they said they don't currently have a PnP solution for the factory LED headlight connector to power the SS3 backlight, so for now I'm sending them back. It sounded like they are working on that though and may have an option for it in a few months. Not sure if I'll order another set right away without the backlight, or wait a bit and see if they do in fact come out with the LED connector harness and get them with the backlight again at that time. I'm not in a huge rush, mostly want the amber lights for winter storm driving, so I'm leaning towards the latter and wait to see what they come out with, if anything.