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

Drove the truck up to help @MikefromCT do some electrical work.

It think it gave me a little nudge to get off my butt and finish my electrical.

 

Woke up with a guilty conscience today. Bashed a guy on another forum (not TW) last night. He said someone followed him home and offered to buy his 3rd gen. Said the stock V6 3rd gen was the best running truck he ever owned. It is the only Tacoma he ever owned. Being completely honest I told him that he obviously never drove a 4.0 2nd gen. If so he would have done what I did. Sell that slug and buy a 2nd gen V6 that actually has low end torque and proven long term reliability. After posting I realized that I was picking on him for being naive. If he had a tune then I wouldn't have made my comments. To me, getting out of a stock 3rd gen, returning to a stock 2nd gen felt like getting a tune. I think what really opened my eyes was that, when I upgraded my spare vehicle to a Ford Escape 2.0 turbo, I preferred driving that stupid Escape because it felt like a dragster compared to the power of my 3rd gen. In comparison, on the test drive, when I nailed my stock 2008 from a stop light it actually got squirrely and smoked the tires. That NEVER happened on pavement in my 3rd gen even after adding a CAI and a much better flowing exhaust. I had one 3rd gen and won't buy another. Had three 2nd gens and that's all I want. Runs better, shifts better and drives, rides and feels just like the 3rd gen. Was I wrong for being honest. Do I owe him an apology.

 

*I should double mention that nearly all my repairs, mods and upgrades were performed by Toyota-trained, shop mechanic, Jason Watson... best known here as 'Speed Freek' (a Baja and desert motorcycle racer) at his Vista, CA home repair shop with full hydraulic lift. Jason (or Speed Freek) is a TW member and moderator of the San Diego BS thread here on Tacoma World. He has been my mechanic for at least 15 years on my latest two Tacomas.

>>Speed-Freek aka Jason is a ASE certified automotive and motorcycle mechanic. With over 30 years experience in performance and fabrication, he can fix about anything.<<

https://www.tacomaworld.com/members/speed-freek.11676/
https://speed-freek.com/

 

Wow that’s a big project. What did the total cost for the swap end up being?

 

Anyone running a 35/10.5?

 

Haven’t done the final total yet, but I think it ended up costing me about $3700. Mixture of used parts, new parts, add switch harness, custom driveshaft, regearing, custom y-pipe + borla exhaust. Just parts only. Did the labor myself.

 

Thank you for your help, really appreciate it!


Pictures of everything. Also has a chase light-strobe function which I cant get with a picture- but strobes the high power brake light for better visibility in dust and rain.

Running light

Brake light

Reverse Light

Bed light

Wiring route- will probably clean this up with clips and run the wire along the bed stiffners

Weatherproof harness clip- also have plugged spare clips to keep everything closed off and clean if I pull the tent off

Engine bay- will have to clean this up a bit with new battery terminals, and figure out a better spot for the fuse

Got bigger screws to mount the control panel- should have time to do this today- but mock up of how it will look


Edit- made a template and drilled the console. Got some hardware including washers to space the mounting points to take into account the curve of the console.

 

I most certainly can appreciate the time and labor it took to do this. My thought is wouldn't it be more cost effective to buy a 4 wheel drive and sell yours. I would think the costs might be similar but would save all that labor. Also while you were in there anyway did you service or replace your steering rack.

 

I drill a hole through the console and ran the wire under it and the double sided taped it down, hasn't moved yet

 

Black headliner! Woot! Painted with sem

 

Nope, I would have to start all over again. My truck is immaculate condition that has been well taken care of. Synthetic oil change every 5k miles, all maintenance service done more then periodically. Upgraded suspension, bilstien 5160/6112, icon control arms, old man emu leaf spring pack, upgraded brake system, fender flares, stainless steel brake hoses, oem roof rack, Molle panel system and bed rack, csf full aluminum radiator, Baja design lighting system. The installation of all these parts and swapping parts over and getting oem parts would have taken more time, money and labor then doing a swap. A replacement truck like this in immaculate condition in 4x4 offroad would easily cost 20k+. California taxes alone and registration would have been 2k+ for tax, title, license, smog + canceling insurance and adding insurance. Trust me I looked at a few off roads 4x4 same year, with similar mileage and most of them have been beaten. Timing cover leaking, heavy offroad use, leaking struts, accidents, paint fade, major dents, etc and asking a high price. I say I probably put about 20-25 hours worth of labor into it. At the same time I was able to regear with a factory 4.10 front diff, and Yukon rear 4.10 and got a manual transfer case upgrade. I’m a mechanic, so this was easy breezy for me. Only thing that was time consuming was making a shifter and the transmission support. Everything was straight forward. I had the front diff, axles, bearings, trans, and t case removed/installed all within 10 hours.

Maybe for someone who is not mechanically inclined, it would be better for them, but not for me.

but no I didn’t replace my rack, it is starting to show signs of leaking but not dripping yet though, but I’ve been debating a tundra rack upgrade.

 

Excited to see this installed. I'd love an all black interior

 

My wife was not happy when I brought home a MX-5 for a daily driver... I owned it about 4-5 years and then eventually made here happy, and sold it.... and now my life is a lot better too!... and my Tacoma became the forever truck and found TacomaWorld, and my life became even better!

 

These quick fist mounts from BAMF are awesome. Fit under my cap and very sturdy. One of the less expensive options too!

 

Mother nature thought i needed more HP. Lol

 

Added new horns since my old ones died out. Raised the tranny cooler up for better air flow. Added a small cooler for the power steering unit which will be hooked up at a later date. New fog lights. Also added new head lights to replace ones I damaged when I crashed sometime ago. Replaced the front end damaged parts and straighten out what I could. Also painted the front end with Rust-Oleum safety red paint since the clear coat was peeling off and paint was faded. There were also minor rust spots underneath the old paint of the hood from where the truck was previously keyed which was causing the paint to flake off so took care of that with the paint job. Have plans to paint the rest of the truck.

 

Is that a lizard or a snake Slender glass lizard

 

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/the-skinny-on-skinny-tires.529656/

 

The truck is an 07. Headliners in general tend to start failing at the 10 year mark. From the foam in between separating.

while it’s out you’d be better off re upholstering it with new parts and adhesive.

 

I did about the same amount of river rock last week. Little taco did great