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

And how did that go over?

 

Well not to bad I guess. I waited till she went to work before I told her lol. She seemed better after I told her I didn't use out tax return

 

Sweet. We do not need the wives hatin' our Tacos...

 

My wife and son get more excited about mods and upgrades than I do sometimes. The Tacoma is our family camping machine so they have an interest in it as well.

 

I am curious as to cost and procedure as well. It should not be necessary to perform this modification but it is what it is.

 

I think she secretly does to. She just tries to play it off like she dosent

 

I just get head shakes when she sees me doing mods.

 

Haha. GF came home today and asked why the house smelled like spray paint...

 

I got a set ordered, isn't the stars supposed to be in the other direction? Looks backwards

 

Took my truck in for the first Toyota Care service. Oil Change, Tire Rotation, Fluid Level Check & Vehicle inspection.

Also, Got tons of parts in the mail today. AAL, Centercaps, Wheels & Tires. Took the truck across town to borrow my parents garage and put on my 285/75R16 BFG KO2 & 16x8 MK6 w/ no lift today. Rubbed like hell. Now I'm driving the old man's Jeep Wrangler TJ until I install the AAL tomorrow night and Bilstein 5100 Wednesday night. Big week for the truck

 

No clue. A buddy of mine has them on his 1st Gen, and his are exactly the same. Apparently Bilsteins cannot withstand North Maine Woods roads. He sent pictures to Bilstein trying to get them replaced, and they replied stating that the "seepage" is "normal." In other words, "We're not replacing them, so fuck off."

12k miles:

Driver's side:




Passenger side:




Edit: On the plus side, looking at these pictures made me realize one of my airbags is loose. Going to fire up the air compressor and retorque it now.

 

You have to imagine the flag pole is there and the truck is moving. The stars attach next to the pole.

 

Think of the flag on a flagpole. The stars face forward regardless of which way you look at the flag. So if the flag is moving it flies stars forward.

 

Got bored of the stock colors so I decided to put in blue and red in myself.

 

I did that too with the old pads. I am giving the Raybestos a try but next time it will be OEM.

 

http://www.usflag.org/flagpatch.html

 

Never thought about it that way, so both sides of the truck fly the same way, like wind is blowing it, makes sense now, I stand corrected

 

I bought some smd led's from: http://lighthouseleds.com/led-compo...e-mount-diodes/leds-plcc-2-1210-3528-smd.html

Then using a soldering iron I removed the existing led's I wanted to replace and soldered in the new led's I chose. It's about a $10-15 mod and took me 4 hours to complete. If you want to do this mod by yourself just have patience and not try to rush. It really isn't hard, I followed this video on how to do it myself: https://youtu.be/VyEDHtdHx2M

If you don't want to do it yourself, I know there are some forums on here of people doing it for you if you ship them everything to do it. https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/denver-led-gauge-swaps.57487/

 

I could probably do that yeah.

Unfortunately I didn't take too many photos along the way but a quick breakdown.

The switch was very tough to initially find, it is from a 2016 Hilux Revo. I had one quote as high as $150 USD lol. After stalking a few Toyota ebay vendors one of them replied back that he had the switch in stock and would make a listing.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/1PC-GENUINE-TOYOTA-HILUX-REVO-2016-4WD-SWITCH/231835141416?_trksid=p2047675.c100011.m1850&_trkparms=aid=222007&algo=SIC.MBE&ao=1&asc=35694&meid=58eb9d1c70a943699228f86598f51f24&pid=100011&rk=2&rkt=10&sd=231803546343

I soldered in white LEDs to match up with the rest of the dash lighting, there are three of them in the switch... This is optional

http://www.ebay.com/itm/151427049883?_trksid=p2060353.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT

This is a fairly accurate picture of what the lighting looks like if you leave it alone



The new switch is around 0.200" smaller in diameter than our existing switches so I had the ring machined. I set the height of the ring so that the new switch came out of the dash by the same amount as the old one.

You can see on the dash trim that there is a ledge that the ring bottoms out on and ultimately the height you make the ring will directly affect how much the switch sticks out.



The final complication was since the switch is smaller than our original switches the 3 locking tabs and 1 positioning tab didn't engage in the dash. There is probably a number of ways to deal with that. Since I no longer needed my original switch I hacked up the tabs from that switch and epoxied them onto the new one. I just had to shim them out a bit.



Far from pretty on the backside, but it didn't really matter to me since that is all concealed. It did work out very well doing it this way, the switch clicks into the trim nice and solid, is centered and can't spin within the dash since I reused the original positioning and locking tabs.

I did a couple coats of clear coat on the steel ring just to make sure it doesn't get any surface rust down the road. Also a few dabs of epoxy on the ring so it doesn't slip around, although I had it machined to fit snug to the switch.

And of course the end result.



The cost I believe came out a little higher than the 4runner switch option, but was worth it for me since I didn't love the look of it. Where you do pay though is in the time it takes if you want it to fit like it was original to the truck. As far as I know the 4runner switch just pops right in.

I do know that @adio is looking into the possibility of using an illuminated Tundra switch so that may be a good option too.

 

Washed it. Nice to get the salt off from the weekend trip up in the mountains.