TruKnight's Autobot Build

That. Looks. So. Good!

Great Job - I think it looks put together more tight than mine from the factory. That Blue is awesome also. I also like that you did the interior as well. I know a lot of folks that do this mod only do the front end. If your going to do something, mine as well do it right the first time.

2x on how much did that cost you?

 

dude that's epic. great work!

 

thanks! I think all this started with just wanting to upgrade the head unit, and then some parts of the interior, then the whole interior and then I just went all in...

that's why I went with oem parts, aftermarket just never fits tight enough for my liking, but it did raise the costs considerably...

it breaks down something like this (prices include shipping costs): used grill off ebay, 120. used bumper cover off ebay, 125. bumper crash bar and mounting hardware and lower bumper cover off ebay, 300. used foglights and side bumper flares from tw member, 150. used turn signal mirrors from tw member, 350. new hood skewp assembly off ebay, 115. new hood off ebay, 457. finding any oem scooped hood was hard. new sport headlights off ebay, 555. there were no deals on oem headlights anywhere sadly. the hood and headlights alone were 1k. also the headlight trim fillers and the pile of little connectors and misc small parts I needed ran out to about 250. I could have gone full hog and gotten the pro grill but tbh I don't like how it looks and prefer the 12-15 regular style one.

just in parts/shipping, it totals at $2,422 - my budget was 2k at first but I went the extra mile for the signal mirrors that most would skip. the used parts I bought would have been 2-3x more expensive if I had gotten them new. if you went aftermarket for this stuff id guess its around 1k maybe.

the toyota metallic paint alone then cost 530 , with 1170 for labor and installation and taxes, totaling $1,700 yesterday, double what I had originally thought it might cost. but the paint job is practically perfect tho and having the professionals put it on in less than a day was worth the 250 installation cost.
thus making the grand total for this mod at... $4,122..

but bear in mind this is offset by the past and ongoing sales of my take off parts and other junk ive tossed on ebay. by the time ive sold everything I expect this will actually have cost me 2k, and ive already sold over 1k of stuff. plus my truck was paid off in January so its really only like taking on another 4-5 months of payments in terms of cost, so its really not that bad.

and this doesn't count the interior mods, which ran about 1.5k, the majority of which was the radio and wheel/abirbag assembly.

plus it being the only swb 12-15 style had some attraction too. but if you want to do this yourself and use oem parts, this is about how much it will cost you if you start from scratch.

that said, welcome to tw, where we have all blown entirely too much $$ on our trucks, but hey life is too short not to have a little fun project or two.

 

time for a new sig imo (see below)

 

I'm so excited to do this conversion to mine !

 

Wow!Nice Tru!

 

good luck! report back when its done

thanks man!

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bonus pic of mine at the shop 2 minutes after I saw it for the first time:

 

the lighting looked nice this morning so I snapped some more random pics









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Looks freakin sweet man! I can't believe you did this! Now I want that facelift for my Tacoma!! Seriously jelly man!

 

thanks bro! yeah im still in shock myself at how it all came together.
youll have to get in line lol, I may be the only one for now but I doubt it will stay that way for long...

 

still getting used to seeing the new skewp from inside, makes a bigger difference than I thought. and I hadent realized the hood had the deeper, inset lines on either side going down to the grill too. but the lighting was perfect yesterday so I took some moar pics!

this one looked amazing so I wanted to share:


love this shot

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Did you end up going with the SR headlights (smoked chrome)? They look good, not too flashy, but definitely not as dark of a black as a BHLM with flat black.

 

yep I got the smoked chrome sport headlights. I think it pairs well with swb and ties together the black and regular chrome. I also plastiderped the lower bumper before it was installed, it was more of a dark grey but I wanted it black to match the grill.

 

Excellent job on the conversion! SWB has always been my favorite color. I was bummed when they discontinued it. So cool to see this!
Personally, I'll be doing the front end only. Hood, headlights, trim & grill will get me there.
I've already got a set of the TRD pro headlights and of course the grill. Just need the hood & headlight trim to make it happen.

 

thanks homer! it was love at first sight when I saw my first swb sport. I couldn't believe they stopped making it too, I loved the angular lines on the 12-15's but I did not like any of the color choices enough to trade, so I did this mod instead after a lot of soul searching, number crunching and talking with some guys on here that have done it already.

also after I saw the 3rd gen, I knew I was keeping this one for the long term lol.

I ended up going all in with mine. let me know when your conversion is done, or pm with any questions you have about parts.

 

Actually, correct me if I'm wrong but doesn't the 2012 headlights have an additional plastic clip that attaches to the metal pieces on the bottom support?
I've taken a few of the 2012 girls off and I think I might need that piece too...
Also, the hood latch assembly is identical correct?

 

Creepin your build again... can't get over how sweet the 2012 - 2015's look in this color!

 

they do, but I forgot about it and didn't order it. they told me about it at the shop, but even with it not on there, the headlights are solid and don't move at all so I guess you can skip that bit if you want to, the other connection points seem to be sufficient.

the latch is not quite the same, it has a slightly different connection point height, so I got new latch and brace hardware for it. everything else on the hood is transferrable. ive read tho that you might can mod the old latch to fit the new one somehow, but im not sure what that entails. but im sure you can make it work with your considerable fabrication skills!

lol well you are more than welcome to browse, that's what its here for. I keep staring out the window myself...

 

congrats on your conversion, i have a question, is everything plug and play once your get all the right supporting bases , i mean the exterior. also what about the steering wheel and faceplate for the cluster.

 

tanks! yeah its all bolt on if you get all the parts and connectors. older trucks will need some additional wiring modding done to make the turn signals and fog lights operational tho. the interior steering wheel and faceplate swap is fairly easy by comparison.