What Have You Done To Your 3rd Gen Today?

Bumper on! Grill on the way!

 

Put a pro grille on today. Working on getting rid of all the chrome.

 

Brought it home finally



Changed radio knobs

 

Congrats on the second mod.

 

Got tired of the old TRD sticker, changed it to the punisher

 

mine lost right at 1 mile per gallon from my calculations, but for some reason when I installed the RCI skid plate I seem to regained it back or truck is just breaking in more. Only have 6k on it.

 

That was really thoughtful, buying Clazzios for your neighbor.
Are you going get a set for yourself as well?

 

Zero incentive for them if people believe they can just aim their lights down as a solution with an existing product rather than them developing a new product.

 

I had mixed feelings about this mod well before I did it... I'm not a huge believer in the benefit of cell boosters; often people mistake them for a magic wand that will get them epic download speeds in the middle of nowhere... really they just help add some consistency, and can help bridge some gaps in rural areas where towers are spaced just far enough apart to cause a break in usable coverage in between. They can also help in fringe areas where you have an almost usable signal... but the gap between an almost usable signal and an unusable signal is usually fairly small.

Many of our road trips fall into that gap bridging scenario... and we're about to drive halfway across the country and back, and thought this might help out some. So yesterday I installed a weboost 4g-x, and today I installed a cobbled together modified trucker antenna.

Now in some scenarios, cell boosts can work exceptionally well. But that requires a tall antenna mounted well above the roof line (good for RV's, not so much for an off road vehicle) or a good directional antenna (not very feasible for mobile use)... I'm hoping this will fall somewhere in between.

The kit I ordered came with the 24" trucker antenna - while this would work well, it wouldn't survive long down a trail, and I think it looks quite goofy (I believe in function over form, but I do have some limits). They also sell a 19" version, but it seemed to be backordered everywhere... I found one on Amazon that was an open box, but what I got was a trashed broken used antenna with a cable that looks like it was used for a chew toy (someone in returns had one job to do, and they didn't do it). With our trip only a week away, I went to plan B... I shortened the 24" one into a stubby , then used a replacement spring that I had to drill out to run the cable through (the big can thing is the actual antenna, the rest is just a fiberglass pole that the cable runs through). It still looks goofy, but I can tolerate it, and it should survive offroad.

Testing in my driveway, I was surprised to see it hover between a 7 to 15db gain (around -118 to -122db with it off, around -105 to -111db with it on); and that was with the front of the truck pointing away from the direction of the nearest serving site. May have been a little better yet if it was facing it. So it is doing it's job (-120db is nearly an unusable signal, -105db isn't stellar, but usable, and my speed test hit 10mbps download 4 upload, I'll take it!). Doing a day trip across state tomorrow, so should be able to see if it will genuinely help hold on to LTE on the highways.

Funny, I used to love long road trips to get away from technology... and here I am now trying to make sure it comes with me.

 

@kpb810 - Looks stealthy like an antenna you would see on one of those blacked out Suburbans the Secret Service drives around in when the Prez comes to town.

 

3M scratch remover.

 

I removed mine a few months ago and haven’t really noticed a difference.

 

Awesome!

 

Just got my the Pro taillights today! But my truck is at the dealer getting a new 3rd brake light and new headliner installed. Factory over torqued the 3rd brake like causing water to leak into cab.

 

Awesome mod! Thank you!

 

I’m gonna have to get one of those skid plates. Thank you!

 

"All game some......Some gave all"

I just want to take a minute to thank all of the great men and women on Tacoma World that have served in our military and made sacrifices to protect all of us in the great USA. I would hate to think where we would be without them. THANK YOU!!!

 

This

 

Well put!

 

I'll send him a picture of what happens when someone installed the Clazzio seat covers themselves. Maybe that will deter him from taking them.