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

Mounted my transmission cooler, just waiting for some proper hose clamps to arrive.

 

wouldja look at that

 

link?

 

Hayden 696 w/ internal bypass, bought it from summit racing. The bracket is just aluminum angle and bar stock from Home Depot.

 

This weekend I sanded down the peeling paint on the hood, roof, and a frames, then hit it with primer and a shitty rattle can paint job! Felt good to bite the bullet and finally do something about it. Still need to wet sand the paint up from 1000 to 5k or so and hit it with a cutting compound and some polish.

If I could go back in time, I would sand it MUCH better. I hadn't initially planned on hitting it with a DIY paint job so I just smoothed it out a bit to accept a vinyl wrap. However, once I had it all taped off for primer, I decided to just paint it. We'll see how I feel once it's sanded and (maybe) clear coated.

 

LOOOOOONG overdue maintenance job for my Kings (yeah, yeah don't judge ). Replaced the spherical bearings, misalignment spacers and proper bolt for the lower shock mount. I meant to replace them months ago when they weren't bad but kinda forgot about them till they started squeaking recently. One side was so bad that I could only get the half eaten spacer out because the other one literally melted into the bearing.

 

Pretty sure I got a little water in the rear diff over the weekend while launching a boat, had some tire skipping on turns that started immediately after. Was less than 1k ahead of my change schedule, so went ahead and changed it. Old oil was slightly high (a decent bit came out through the fill plug when I popped it off) and just a little bit milky. Fresh synthetic 75w90 w/ additive for my limited slip diff and we seem to be all good again. Apparently it's time to do a breather relocate so I don't need to do this again for 30k.

 

I painted my roof about a year ago using one of those Rustoleum gloss black Turbo cans. Honestly, it’s about as close as you can get to a professional spray gun without having a full air compressor setup. The can pressure and paint output are impressive.

The key after priming is to start with a light dust coat, follow with a solid coverage pass, and then finish with a wet coat to even everything out. The Turbo can lays down enough paint that you can easily wet sand out any orange peel with 800–1000 grit, then either clear it or just finish with compound and polish.

I went with the compound/polish route, and it turned out great, no streaks, super glossy, and a smooth finish.