Tim1o9's Build Thread

So, as most people who will end up fabricating things, buying things, and installing things on vehicles I too shall partake in posting a build thread. I regret not doing it for my classic bronco, So i will capitalize on the opportunity now before any modifications have begun on my Tacoma \m/

Be warned, I tend to type a lot and its a bit of a clustered mess because i wrote a lot then decided to break it up into sections in case someone thinks my writing is worth following in the future.

Day one: Argue at dealership for hours, Come home with working vehicle



Lighting

Ditch Lights
Day like 3 months later: Decided that I have worked enough overtime that I can afford to start adding things, I was going to make my own Ditch light mounts that attach to the hood mounts, but I figured my ability to work metal is limited right now due to my lack of a functioning drill and I really wanted it to be powder coated and I just dont wanna make a powder coat oven in a rental property. I will post a picture of the truck now and once I get the brackets and stuff I will upload pictures and what not of that as well.



I also had some Alpena Quadfire lights, 16 Watt 1500 Lumens, laying around that i bought while i was working at AutoZone, so I will use these for my Ditch lights. Kinda upset that they came with no wiring kit but, The price was right with the discount and the sale that happened. They dont have much information for amp draw, but a quick google on the wattage and volt put it at like 1.33 amps for one of these and 2.66 for two of them it was a crude cruching with minimal thinking so there is mild doubt. Ill probably give it a 10 amp fuse and shrug the days away.

The Cali raised brackets came into today, they look awesome with the alpine pod lights!
I was rather impressed with the quality of the brackets, nice and sturdy! Installing them by myself was not the greatest thing in the world. The driver side was much "harder" than the passenger side. I kinda just grabbed the hood with one hand and unbolted with the other, the hood slid around on the hinge bracket but the lack of paint where it once sat made it easy to line up once again. The passenger side did not slide at all while installing the bracket. It would be nice if the flat part where the light mounts to was about a quarter inch higher, my wrench barely fit in between the bottom and the hood but none the less got them secured.

They look great, I tried to put them at about a 30 degree angle or so (centerline is 0) and just mildly downward facing. Once my Amazon shipment of wiring stuff comes in I will get them wired in and try them out! Until then, enjoy the picture and pretend there wired! They look cockeyed in the picture... they might be

I dont remember if i explained how I wired these elsewhere in here. but read the fuse panel section because that currently has how i wired the two buttons in the center console. Back to the topic at hand, for the wiring I ran the red wire threw heat shrink male female spade plugs and ran them to the blue wire of my relay on my relay panel and the black wire to the ground on the fuse bus (really read the fuse panel section to get an idea of what im talkin about). I ziptied the wires under the cowl along the fire wall there is a thicker cluster of wires and thats really about it. the fuse panel was made and installed to make installing lights super easy.



Fuse Panel

I started acquiring items to build a fuse and relay panel for my aux lights and other accessories I have yet to commit too. So, I read This mans thread for fuse blocks and stuff (along with the ones he linked too)
https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/wiring-an-aux-fuse-block-relays-and-switches-in-a-2016.401253/
and upon reading it decided to get BLUE SEA SYSTEMS 5025 fuse block. It has 6 30Amp lines and 6 negative lines and a common power and ground. I also bought a 100Amp Circuit breaker off of amazon for the lead in power to prevent the fuse block from blowing up incase shit hits the fan. I also aquired some generic 30amp Relays among other needed items such as a heat gun, 12 gage wire (600ft cause I do alot of stuff) some heat shrink spade connectors and heat shrink cause I want all of this to be really pretty when its done. I want to incase it in a water proof box, but thatll be later down the road once i find one I like, I also Bought switches they were pricey but finding them thatll fit in the center was rough...But ill upload pictures of them once they arrive... eventually...


All my things came in the mail today so I sat down and fabbed up a bracket to hold my fuse and relay panel. I believe I used 16 gage welding steel from home depot, and i more or less cut out a 10x4.75 piece of steel, might of been a bit off ill add better measurements later, and then I added about a 100 Degree bend about 2 inches away from the end to create a large L. Then I drilled holes for 5 relays to mount on the bottom and some holes to mount it to the fender apron and some holes to mount my fuse bus and my breaker.
The 100 degree bend is approximate but it gets it pretty flat with how i mounted it in the vehicle. The bolts i used for the fender apron were M8x1.25x1 thankfully they were the right size \m/ In the future I will invest in some rubber washers to place between the cab and the bracket. I then test fit everything to make sure i could sink the bolts in with the electronic parts

It fit so i was happy, I ended up taking all of the parts off so I could paint it with engine enamel, it was a nice price at the lowes. So in the near future I will make the wiring for this section BEAUTIFUL and heat shrink it all and make it really clean and crisp \m/ I will probably grab a 5 prong trailer light plug to add a quick disconnect going threw the cab just incase i need to remove the fuse relay panel.

Switch Install Center Console

So today was overcast and pleasant outside so I set to work putting in these bastard switches
They came from aironboard or something like that, just a forewarning I tried to test the continuity on them before installing them to make sure they worked but nothing happened so I was worried but they worked so its cool the shipping was fast, just pointing that out because there website does not say how long itll take before arrive to your house. i just might of been close who knows...

Back to the herculean task that was at hand. Side not if your going to copy this be prepared it is not a fun task, but the end result is dope. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDH_rI72GEs&t=1191s This guy is the real hero, posting a video how to rip off the dash! but didnt answer my youtube comment so its a love hate thing. But basically I started by taking out the two bolts in the center console, taking off the shifter knob, push down and then twist the head... noone told me that tid but... then you can pull cup holder part off (has 1 cable connection) and all that attaches it will be the boot for the ebrake but i couldnt figure out how to get that off so it just dangled. then i went on seperating the two center console peaces left, the front peice has 3 bolts and is attatched to the rear piece with stupid clips, it takes some wiggling but they pop off by hand then you can pull the actual box back and away allowing for the front peice to be fully removed once the phone charging pad is unplugged.


I pulled off the trim on the bottom of the door jam on both passenger and driver side along with the kick panel. the kick panel have 1 plastic nut and 2 pop tabs. make sure they both stay with the panel. (there a pain in the butt to reinstall so tread lightly). With the drivers side you need to unbolt the bottom of the panel and pop off the entire right hand side next to the center area of the dash. make sure you get all 3 bolts. The passenger side you need to remove the outer most peice between the glove box and the door. then you need to unbolt the glove box with should be 2 bolts inside, one under the just removed panel then like 2 in the bottom. Id recomment popping off the piece around the radio as well, and the pad above the glove box. second recomendation might be debatable. So now that everything around the switch panel of interest is loose pray to any god who will listen and kinda just grab it and pull while wiggling the upper dude with the climate control. once it liberates itself (please watch the video, this is not for the faint of heart) your into the wiring shenanigans. the swtiches i bought had 4 wires, 12v in for accessory, 12v in for led light (in switch), a ground, and a signal wire going to my relay.

After much pondering, checking grounds and voltages i rage quit that and decided to run 2 12 gage wires into the cab threw the main wiring penetration in the firewall by the driverside left foot. I couldnt get it to flow with the wires so i just wedged my finger between the grommet and the wall and shoved it inbetween and faught to get it in far enough to reach the center dash. i did this with 4 wires. 1 ground, 1 12 v in. and 2 signal wires for 2 switches. if your gonna open of the dash you dont wanna ever do it again. I do admit having the wires between the gromet and the firewall is bad but with how tight they are i question if the vibrations and rubbing will be of concern or not. I will let yall know as soon as i know if i catch my truck on fire. Since I had 2 switches I butt connected (heat shrink of course) the 2 switches together and then to there coresponding wire (not the led part of the switch that comes next), ground and 12 v in, and then to there corresponding signal wire. the signal wire i used was smaller that 12 gage no idea what size tho maybe 16 if i had to guess. I ran those 4 wires up over the steering collumn and then under the carpet between the plastic stuff and the metal stuff and ziptied it out of the way so it wouldnt collide. then i added it to the growing cluster of wires in my engine bay by the brake cylinder.

So for the LED part of the switch... not my proudest moment but the wiring for the cig lighter spot seemed most tempting so i was gonna splice into it but toyota used some small ass wires for this then I had the wise idea of just looping the cunductor of the wire around the positive side of the male end of the plug than mashing down the female on top of it.

Buttoning up the dash was a pain in the ass. most specifically getting the switch panel to mate to the climate control panel and then getting the glove box to set in propperly. It was dastardly whoever designed that stuff. also the kick panels were a pain because i thought they went under the weather stripping but they actually go over it and ontop of that getting the plastic clips to clip in was a pain... but i got it all back together the lights work (oversight on my end was that the cig lighter always has power when the truck is on) so im happy. We will see what i end up wiring to the other switch. i just need to place something somewhere and plug it into my relay panel stuff \m/

Seat Covers

I just recently got my seat covers in the mail! I purchased the 2018 Toyota Tacoma Front seat covers from marathon. I got the Realtree AP and Black trim. The Cordura Nylon stuff its made out of is nice seems sturdy and doesnt get to toasty in the southern Virginia heat. The add-ons i got were heat rest covers (kinda upset those do not just come with the seat covers) the center console cover, a driver side knee pocket, and 1 set of burrito holsters.

I Like to believe a long barrel rifle would fit in the burrito holster tho.

Overall the seat covers were not that bad to put on. It was easier to do them with a second pair of hands tho (did one alone, and one with a friend) The only hard part was flattenting out the top part. To get it nice and flush ish you kinda need someone pushing the seat cover down threw the crack between the butt cushion and the back cushion while one of yall pulls the straps and tries to Velcro it. its a mess but it gets the job done.

I would like to get a matching steering wheel cover. price wise this was like just shy of 300, but i found a 10 percent off code and ended up paying 266. So it was expensive but replacing the seats later would be more expensive. plus they do decent with water repelling (I have not really tested them yet, but from the dripping of sweat and drink condensation i have started making assumptions about them)

Roof Rack

WORDS OF WISDOM OF THE 4 BOLT HOLES FOR THE WIND DEFLECTOR CROSSMEMBER DO NOT USE THE LOWEST 2 YOUR REAR VIEW MIRROR WILL RATTLE IF YOU GO OVER 59 DEPENDING ON ROAD QUALITY. OTHER OPTION IS TO PUT WEATHER STIPPING ON THE WIND DEFLECTOR IN THE LOWEST TWO HOLES.

requried tools: T-30 bit or screwdriver depends what you have, a philips head, a 3/4 drill bit of sorts, in my opinion clippers, some kind of sealant and time.

Issues: vibrations caused by wind deflector vibrating mirror violently. https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/prinsu-cabrack-vibration.556911/

I also recently got a roofrack because I wanted to get the canoe from my parents house and i did not want a 19 ft canoe sticking out of a 5 foot bed. So I bought and installed this roof rack

It is a prinsu rack and I will be honest i am not used to seeing it on my vehicle yet. I got the 30 inch light bar cut out and a 1 inch bar for behind the antenna. This thing was a bit odd installing. I watched some dude on youtube do it and decided that i could do it better than him. So when i got my roof rack in the mail i pulled off the black weather stripping with my fingers (not a screw driver) and pulled it up along with the foam tape stuff toward the back end of the weather stripping. I then placed blue painters tape on the roof around the 6 (3 per side) bolt holes and did my best to mark out where the holes are on the tape. I then placed the weather stripping back onto the truck and marked where i wanted to drill holes with a center punch. I will be honest i was not the best at placing the center punch in the center... there is a rib which is in the center and i misplaced one or two punches. So once the spots were marked I took the weather stripping off and tried to drill a hole in the spot with a 3/4 inch hole bit. This was my first mistake, it grapped the metal rib and kinda just went bad. but this was where some thinking came in. so i flipped the weather stripping upside down and used my angle grinder to cut threw the bottom of the rubber until i hit the metal rib. THIS WAS A BAD IDEA. THE GOOD IDEA WAS to use some dikes (the little clipers that can cut threw like anything but mostly wires) and clip the weather stripping on both sides of the bottom and then into the center up until the weather stripping.
I included a drawing to get my point across. You wanna make 2 of these cuts about an inch apart with the center punch mark centered inbetween the 2 cuts. I found the easiest way was to mark the center punch mark with a peice of tape and then flip it over and start cutting. then you cut along the metal rib (removing it) until the chuck pops off.

So the hole bit i used was a 3/4 and it was a bit of a mess. Maybe a spade bit would have worked better but this is what i had. So i shoved the center into the center punch and drilled really slowly... this was horifying and ripped threw and became a U cut out on 1 holes. You need to go really slowly and when the rubber starts twisting STOP and cut the rubber with the clippers. Once this is done they usually line up decently may need to trim a bit to get the bolt sleve to fit. Once i decided the bolts would be able to find there bolt holes i removed the tape covering the i guess nut that was imbedded into the roof. I did this by stabbing the nut spot until i had a clean hole. I wanted to keep the rest of the painted tape covering the roof nut because it seemed like a bad idea to remove. i then covered the weather stripping ditch with clear silicone and slapped the weather stripping back in. I then filled the holes all 10 of them ( 2 front 1 middle 2 rear, left side and right side) with the silicone and then slapped the sleves in them and placed the outside rails of the roof rack and did my best to get the bolts holding it down. This requires 2 people because noone wants to scratch a new truck. Once this was done i left the bolts a little loose for wiggle room and then placed the front cross member on. To start I placed the wind deflector bar on the tailgate and attatched the wind deflector with the 10 T-slot nut things. Kinda a pain but i inserted all 10 of them and just kinda slid the wind deflector along as i screwed in the nuts as i could see them threw the holes (this makes more sense if your aquainted with 80-20. I then bolted them into the lowest 2 holes (later regretted this after 7 hour drive of rear view mirror vibrations use middle 2 holes). I then bolted in the rear 1 inch cross member then inserted the rest of my cross members where i pleased and snugged everything up and it was good.

Without having weather stripping the roofrack caused vibrations which propogated to my rear view mirror, with the wind deflector on the lowest bolt pattern. So, I moved the wind deflector up on bolt hole and the vibrations stopped. From then, I decided to purchase some weather stripping and place it back to the lowest bolt pattern. The vibrations stopped and its quite and has minimal impact to my MPG.

Overall opinion of the prinsu rack after having it for a bit, I like it. I want to grab some 80/20 and connect the crossbars to distribute the load better, but honestly I probably should not be standing on it anyway. Apart from that it has minimal wind noise and has minimal impact on mpg. Still getting the same mileage on the highway. I wanna get a light bar to place on it and eventually mound lights aft on the rack for extra reverse lighting. It does a good job holding up my kayak so I am happy with it. Honestly a bit pricey for what ya get but when ya account the price of the 80/20, the price of the fasteners... its not over priced but none the less still more expencive than I would have liked.

To be continued once something of substance happens, or i get bored and do things \m/

Note: I would rather build my own things like bumpers, sliders and such but new trucks are expensive and nice, and I wanna keep it nice so that way if I meet a nice lady she won't see my truck and question my sanity more than needed

Plans include but are not limited to:
1. Arb front bumper with matching rock slides with the bar that attaches them cause bad ass
2. C4 rear bumper because I like how they guard the rear quarter panels(inacurate the remove part of quarter panel)
3. A snorkel, I might cry while installing it tho

5. Onboard air, Re inflating tires on a trail sounds like a great thing to me
6. More auxiliary lights

8. A log cabin, Renting sucks so i want a forever home with a big garage, or a log garage with a living quarters... that would be rad
9. Fall in love with a person, not a 4x4
10. Maybe a second battery for all the lights im gonna install
11. I want a front locker as well, but I need to see if I need one around these parts
12. A winch
13. Things to mount toys in the bed like axes, hi lifts, shovels, recovery gear
14. More skid plates, the stock one is nice, but i want more
15. Maybe a pet dog to go exploring places with me
16. Totally need a CB radio, not sure where i would mount it inside the cab tho
17. A lift kit and new tires, but I need to blow my shocks and tires before that is even considered
18.Find a new job, I am bored in the work place, and dont like the location \m/

Thank you for putting up with me, and have yourself a lovely day!

 

I like your switches
Nice truck! Keep modding brotha!