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

Ya that's fair. Id be painting and adding halos. Build everything from scratch

 

Buy a set of used lights.

You can scoop em up on marketplace all day for like 50$.

 

Ended up buying a new replacement engine.
Today we pulled the engine and transmission. This weekend I'm going to work on swapping the parts over. Fingers crossed I get the bulk of it done, if not outright finished by Sunday. I've never done a swap before, and its been ~15 years since my Dad did, so we've been having fun with it.

 

Got my secondary air unifilter mod and some rust prevention/remediation done!
Before (iPhone adjusted the contrast when taking the picture making the existing surface rust look worse, it really was not bad at all):


I wire brushed the surface rust, applied degreaser, power washed the undercarriage, and then applied Eastwood Internal Frame coating to internal and inaccessible areas, then Eastwood Rust Encapsulator Plus, then a top coat of Eastwood chassis black!




Now to let it cure and I’ll be going to town with fluid film next

 

I bought axles with high angle boot from cvj as well. They have been great and held up to a lot of abuse

 

Interesting for sure...

I would imagine this would be a great job for a 3d printer. McMaster-Carr has some large 3" diameter ball valves you could use https://www.mcmaster.com/products/ball-valves/. I would take some ingenuity to look professional and clean but it could be done.

 

Nice.

Where do you live?

Give us annual updates on how that Eastwood holds up.

 

Thanks! I live near Hampton roads, Virginia but don’t really go by the coast at all. Rarely get snow here and don’t see much salt exposure so I’m hoping it’ll continue to hold up. Time will tell but I’m doing my best to make sure it lasts!

 

Replaced cabin air filter.

 

I used Maguires headlight restoration kit and loved the way it came out. Longest/hardest part was taping off around the headlights. Here's some before and after pictures. Great project to do with instant gratification/results Even under the influence of your favorite garage "drinks" and some tunes. Took my time and about 2hrs from star to finish with some refreshments in-between

 

Keep wax on those sumbitches!

 

Removed the seats, center console and carpet. Cleaned the floor and wiped down with alcohol. Laid down Noico 80 Mil black with Noico RED liner on top of it. Did the roof years ago. Back wall is done. Still need to do the doors. Maybe this Tuesday.

 

Digging how much more aggressive the front end looks without the chrome.

 

Finally did the vinyl wrap on the roof and hood! Feels good to check that one off. Happy to spend ~250 and a few hours instead of the 1900 they wanted for the paint job.

 

$1900 everything or hood and roof?

 

Rebuilt my rear axels with new bearings and seals, Abs speed sensor and wiring harness, new brakes, new Amsoil severe gear diff oil, and new yantitas(tires).

 

Upgraded my speakers with some kickers! I have an issue where my left side is not working on Bluetooth but all speakers work when playing a cd. Head unit is probably going out which is fun/more $$$.

 

More info please. Did you have to sand down the hood & roof first?
Will the vinyl wrap stick to a failing clear coat?

 

Just the hood and roof! Highway Robbery, and that was the cheapest quote I got.

 

It was a process, but mine included additional steps that may be optional depending on how bad your paint is. Mine was completely gone in some spots and very flaky in others.

Steps I took -

1) Sand down paint on hood and roof (I went 400, to 800) to smooth it out a bit and remove flakiness. This was my first mistake, if I had taken it down to bare metal everywhere the rest of the steps would have been easier. I don't think there was any reason for me to save any paint since the rest was failing so badly. If I could go back I would sand the fuck out of everything.

2) After the sand I had multiple large places where bare metal was visible. I covered and taped off the truck to avoid overspray and hit the hood, roof, and door frames with about 3 primer coats followed by 4 coats of glossy black spray paint. The spray paint was my second mistake, I did it outside since I don't have a garage and it was too windy. The paint ended up being alright but it looked like a complete DIY spray paint job (this was more user error than environment, I believe).

3) A week or two later, I used a random orbital to wet sand the hood from 1000 to 3000. This actually did a great job removing the orange peel from the spray paint and I believe if I had taken the truck down to bare metal this would have really improved the look of the spray paint. Since I had not taken it all the way down, it look splotchy, spray paint mixed with some original paint. I also sanded a bit too aggressively and the primer was peaking through in a few spots. I did not sand the roof, which ended up not being an issue at all with the vinyl. If I had left the hood with the orange peel it would have been fine as well.

4) I borrowed a family member's garage and the help of my uncle who has wrapped some car panels before and he and I used 3M 2080 vinyl to do the hood, roof, and door frames. It turned out WAY better than I expected.
We only had one problem when some stray vinyl pulled the old and fragile paint off of the grill. I wrapped the grill after that happened, but it turned out so poorly (I'm definitely not a professional) that I'm considering removing the grill and sending it down then hitting it with plasti-dip or spray paint to cover the mess.

All in all it was a super fun experience and I love how the truck looks now!
If I could go back I think I would just sand it down to bare metal and then primer and paint then lay the vinyl, no sanding the paint.
I didn't want to just wrap over the metal in case of rust, and I learned that it's easier for the vinyl to pull off the primer unless you have a coat or two of paint on top.

Before


After Dry Sand

Before Paint/Primer

After Paint

After Wet Sand

After Vinyl