Crashnburn80's 1st Gen TRD Double Cab Build

Yes, we are a Noble Fir family! Thanks, Happy Holidays to you as well!

 

@crashnburn80 did you ever decide on a fog mount for this truck? I've been trying to figure out a subtle fog option for my 2001 extracab and after extensive reading through your fog pod page and research across the rest of the web have been seriously considering the DD SSC1s of Morimotos 1Bs mounted in the valence the same way you pointed out earlier in this thread. However I live in Alaska where we have lots of cold, dark, and snow. I'm more concerned about good cutoffs and shedding snow than absolute brightness hence why I've been leaning towards the SSC1s over the SSC2 Pros. I'd really prefer not to put a bar on the front of the truck, but Am considering it if necessary.

You've put more thought into this than maybe anyone and since you have the same mounting goals for your first gen I'm curious if you ever decided on a solution

 

I've been trying to get him to mod his 1st gen since he bought it. He's an EV boy now

 

Sold the Tesla. The Taco has resumed daily driver status. Neglected upgrades are now in order and the truck will receive significantly more attention.

13WL Tundra brake upgrade coming this weekend, with a fresh twist.

 

How has this been nearly a year???

Admittedly I never came to a good solution on the fogs. There are bull bar mounts for the first gen great for light mounting but a bit dated in appearance. If going with a bull bar, you can get amazing performance out of some hella 500 fogs. If going LED the Morimoto 2 bangers are currently the highest performing for the compact size, better than the SSC1 and SSC2 Pros. The pattern isn't quite as wide, but much higher intensity with a gradient and better cut offs while running hot enough to clear snow in the HXB form.

 

Installed the Tundra front brake upgrade on Sunday.

The Tundra brake upgrade is basically an OEM big brake kit available at a very reasonable price compared to aftermarket big brake kits. Adventure Taco aka @turbodb has a great writeup here, so I won't reinvent the wheel with the exhaustive info and keep it to the highlights. I recommend following his writeup.

On my previous Tacoma I used StopTech slotted rotors which are also available for this Tundra upgrade, however the StopTechs are made in China and the OEM Toyota rotors are made in the USA. OEM USA vs Aftermarket Chinese, I decided to stick to OEM and forgo the slotting. (OEM Tundra rotor L/R pn: 43512-0C01)



The Gen 1 Tundra calipers are slightly confusing. The Gen 1 Tundra came 13WE calipers which were recalled and later replaced with the larger 13WL calipers, both fitting the same rotor size but taking different pads. So you may not be able to trust systems based on year/make/model for parts and need to go by part number. The larger 13WL calipers are the ones to get. Many reman caliper options are available for the 13WLs, I went with the Napa Adaptive Ones (L: ADC 1766XA) (R: ADC 1766XB) mainly due to documentation thoroughness of what had been done and was included vs the competition and Napa's premium products are going to be relatively decent quality.



For pads the usual suggested pad is the OEM Tundra pads (pn 04465-35290). I went and picked up my parts from the dealership since Amazon delivery was too far out for my desired timeline. In talking to the parts guy, who happened to own a Gen 1 Tundra with 13WL brakes, he instead advised the made in Japan Land Cruiser pads that are interchangeable and according to him 'superior in every way, especially bite' over the Tundra pads, saying he's used both and significantly prefers the Japanese Land Cruiser pads (pn

$60 Toyota Genuine Parts - Fr Brake Pad (04465-AZ200)

04465-AZ200) which are also slightly cheaper.

So Japanese Land Cruiser pads it is.



While the rotors, calipers and pads all directly bolt up between the Tundra and Tacoma, the brake lines do not. You need an adapter kit to mount the lines to the tundra calipers. AdventureTaco sells a kit to swap Tacoma-to-Tundra Hard Brake Lines. There are other kits out there too that are more expensive.


Part Numbers

• 2 OEM Tundra brake rotors L/R: 43512-0C01
• Napa Adaptive One 13WL calipers (L: ADC 1766XA) (R: ADC 1766XB)
• Land Cruiser Pads 04465-AZ200 OR Tundra Pads 04465-35290 (I used Land Cruiser)
• Brake pad shims for Tundra/Land Cruiser (L/R: 04945-35120 or 04945-0c030)
• AdventureTaco Tacoma-to-Tundra Hard Brake Line Upgrade Kit (needed for the Tacoma to Tundra brake line conversion)

Tools

• 10mm flare nut wrench (
  $14 DURATECH Flare Nut Wrench Set, Metric, 3-piece, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, 17mm, CR-V Steel, Organizer Pouch Included
  I used this one)
• Brake bleeding line or kit (
  $10 OEMTOOLS 25036 Bleed-O-Matic One-Man Brake Bleeder Kit, Featuring An Opaque Brake Bleed Bottle / Transparent Hoses and Tapered Fittings, No Mess Brake Fluid Bleeding , Multi color(Packaging May Vary)
  something like this makes it easier)

Supplies

• DOT 4 brake fluid (I managed with a 12oz container perfectly)

Stock brakes


Tundra 13WL caliper left vs Tacoma right


Tacoma rotor left vs Tundra rotor right


Tacoma rotor left vs Tundra rotor right


The stock dust shield will need trimming to fit the larger tundra calipers, I'd recommend a Dremel with a cut off wheel. Not pictured, but I painted all my cut surfaces with high temp Rustoleum paint to inhibit corrosion. Cutting the shield will likely be inadequate. Test fit with the Tundra rotor and spin the rotor. I had contact in multiple places. Using a BFH adjust the dust shield back away from the rotor till you have adequate clearance for free spin.


The most difficult part of the swap is the cramped brake line flare nut removal/install on the inside of the frame rail to swap the new stainless lines. Limited space for hands and movement.


Pic bleeding the brakes but only one I took that shows the new lower Tundra caliper hardline to stainless hose conversion. The cheap bleed kits are really nice when you are bleeding brakes and does allow you to do it solo. I was sure to flush out all the old fluid till we had new clear fluid come through. I used 12oz of fluid to do both sides, but that was just perfectly enough. Had there been any issues I would have been short. Note that DOT4 and DOT3 are compatible. The 1st Gen Tacoma specs older DOT3, DOT4 has a higher boiling point and is better, it can be used in DOT3 systems. So I'd recommend always going with DOT4 on DOT3 specs when possible.


In the above photo it looks like the hardline interfaces at the bracket perfectly with the stainless line. That was not the case out of the box. The hardline had to be manually bent in order to have a correctly oriented connection to thread together. The suppled brackets also put the stainless line right into the base of the spring with very minimal clearance, way to close for comfort. I took vice grips and bent the mounted bracket to angle the lines away from the spring.

Finished product with 1" Bora spacers installed


During the install process, brake fluid ended up being spilled on the calipers. Brake fluid is highly caustic. On my 2nd Gen Tacoma StopTech BBK, when brake fluid spilled on the calipers it ate the powder coat right off the ~$1700 brakes. In the case of the NAPA calipers, the coating was completely unphased by the brake fluid, excellent durability.

After checking everything for clearance, ensuring free spin and buttoning everything back up I did a brake break-in run consisting of many 60-15mph hard braking sessions in rapid succession. That first hard brake nearly caught me off guard, the heavy E-load 285 KO2s shrieked resisting the pavement at near lock up from 60 as the truck decelerated hard. Very impressive and a huge improvement over the stock brakes.

After repeated hard stops trying to heat soak the system, I heard a foreign noise. Distinct metal on meal sound. The dust shield was contacting the rotor again. Heat cycling must have caused it to flex in a way that is now problematic. After investigation, the contact point was near the center of the caliper. Arg. Fortunately I was able to use a screwdriver and bend the shield away from the rotor without removing the caliper proving adequate clearance.

In looking at the dust shield and rotor clearance, I realized with the lower hardline conversion going to a fixed mount on the spindle, the caliper will no longer swing away freely when unbolted from the hub like it would running soft lines as the lower hard line is fixed on both ends. It will make the next brake change a bit more work, but that's a future issue for another day.

 

I've been curious how the best performing DS +250 H4 bulbs (covered in post #5460) would perform in the smaller 1st Gen assemblies vs the 100/90 Osram Superbrights. In 2nd Gen the Superbrights outperform the stock wattage DS +250 bulbs by ~9% peak intensity on low beam (impressive for a stock wattage bulb vs a high wattage bulb). However, high wattage bulbs have larger filaments which are generally more forgiving in larger assemblies, as the assembly gets smaller with everything else being equal, those larger filaments start to reduce performance. So would the smaller 1st Gen assemblies perform better with the ultra high efficiency DS +250 over the larger 100/90w Superbrights? Only one way to find out.

I don't have spare 1st Gen assemblies for bench testing like the rest of my tests, so this is a driveway test with the truck running (imperfect due to voltage flux).

DS+250 left vs Osram Superbright right, both run on HS HD harness + HKB voltage booster


Laser measured test distance, 21' 1"


DS+250 vs Osram Superbrights


The Osram Superbrights come in at 9.7% higher output intensity, extremely similar results to 2nd Gen. The Superbrights are a fraction of the price of the DS+250s, though they do require the HD harness. The results favored the Superbrights more than I expected. Based on the empirical evidence I will continue to run the Osram Superbrights.

 

Good looks on the pads and rotors. I might be swapping mine because I think my rotors warped on my 13wl setup.