Madjik Man's laugh-at/with-him "build"

woo whoo!

im well to bet..my truck..is lower then your truck..

 

I found a generic color that matched my truck pretty damn well. Il have to find the can. I think I have pics in my build thread

 

Front end swap almost complete. Just waiting on the bumper fillers and corner lights. Will color match them on install them.

 

Great minds think alike

http://www.tacomaworld.com/forum/1s...7-tacoma-front-end-diagram-2.html#post5329280

 

Looking good , are you switching bumpers or leaving that one

 

Thanks.

For now, leaving this one. It's not too bad of a fitment.

Eventually I will get an 01-04 bumper/valence and use that.

 

Yeah that's what I thought , that bumper seems to go with the 97 grille pretty good

 

Yeah, the 98-00 grille's lower edge is lower than the 95-97.

So the top of the 98-00 bumper/valence is a relief in it to accommodate for that. So there is a little bit of a gap, but nothing too bad.

 

looks awesome! Which 5x7 lights did you get?

 

Ended up using the Rampage ones.

 

Subbed for an awesome bumper conversion


Nice meeting you man, hope that works out!

 

Likewise. Sorry so brief... I had three kids and stove top of taco meat cooking when you showed up.

I'll first mount it to see if it'll all work. If so, then I'll either color match and black it out or just black out the whole thing.

 

These photos suck. They're all pretty well color-matched.

What pisses me right the fack off though is while moving them inside to cure, I put a fackin finger smudge in the clear coat of the driver's side corner light

Also, even with 30 minute masking jobs to each light, I couldn't prevent some overspray from getting into a seam on these cheap pieces of crap corner lights.

 

So I ended up trying something different.

I spray painted the emblem semi-gloss black.

Then I held the Sunfire Red Pearl paint about 24" away and dusted a light coat over it. Then I clear coated it.

It looks black but if you tilt it in the light (or presumably when the sun hits it) it has a Sunfire Red Pearl glimmer to it.

Who knows... it might look absolutely stupid or really freakin' cool.

 

I don't know what half of the pictures are of... but I must say, they match the painted cardboard quite well.

 

back of the corner lights (blacked out)

front trim of the corner lights (color matched)

bumper fillers (color matched)

And of course the screw heads... color matched

 

Finished installing the color matched bumper fillers and corner lights. These pics are weird because those four pieces are brand new paint and totally clean while the rest of the truck is covered in winter road grime. You get the idea though.

A couple of things still bother me.

1. The gaps between the headlight housings and the grille

2. The 95-97 grille has a plastic backing behind the emblem. The 98-00 was open air. So the emblem looks pretty stupid to me. If I care enough in the spring, I think I'll color match the plastic backing behind the black emblem.

All in all, it looks pretty decent IMO. I'll have to fully embrace my "good enough" philosophy.

 

Very nice!

 

Thanks man, your truck is one of many that inspired me