deusxanime's 2020 Cement OR 6MT mods/upgrades/build

Nice work getting what you want at a good price. I saw exactly one cement mt or dcsb in dealer inventory here back when dealers had inventories. It lasted less than 24h.

 

Just for completeness sake and to link from the first post, here is the bed mat:

 

Also changed the first post here to reset for the new 2020 build. Testing out a new format and I'll see if it works and I like it or not.

edit: Oh, and the thread title too.

 

Man, I love everything about this thread! The truck for sure but your organization of info is on point! It's a super helpful reference for me and I'm sure many others.

 

Super busy day! Unfortunately not as much with Tacoma mods as I would hope for... took down a dead tree and did a bunch of trimming of the live ones instead!

But I did get a few things done on the truck in the morning and evening when I wasn't cutting up trees and branches!

Let's start with swapping the front license plate holder with a frameless one designed by @mrproduxn. This is a swap from my previous 2019, so it isn't new and shiny anymore, but should work fine. No plates yet to put on it though.

Old OEM/stock license plate holder:


Frameless holder:


Full view on the front:


This is very easy to do. Just unscrew the stock plate holder and the frameless one uses the existing screw holes, so you just slap it on!

 

Next I got the black emblem overlays for the "Tacoma" emblems on the doors.

Before, chrome stock emblems:


After with black overlays:


I got them off eBay. I didn't need an entire new set, so I just ordered an "Off-Road" package, which was the 2 "Tacomas" and a "V6". More on that later. Anyway, I can't be 100% these are OEM, but they look and work like it, so I'm good with them either way.

Again pretty simple install. I cleaned the emblems with some isopropyl alcohol, let it dry (takes literally seconds since it is mainly alcohol), peel the cover off the double-sided tape, and stick them on. Then apply pressure all over to make sure it seats well.

 

After that was a lot of tree work, but I returned to the Tacoma and did some additional stuff in the evening.

First, removed the "V6" from the tailgate. I think it is kind of pointless and looks unbalanced since for some reason they don't put the "4x4" on the other side with the Off-Roads. So I just took it off.

I started by warming it up some with a hair dryer on hot setting. I wanted to heat the adhesive up some so it would be easier to work on. Then I used some unflavored dental floss to saw through the adhesive as best I could until I was all the way through and the emblem came off.

Here's how it looked at that point:


Then I peeled off what was left by hand. After that there was still some residue so I used Goo-Gone and a microfiber towel to gently remove anything left behind. After it was clean of adhesive I washed with some soapy water and rinsed it off. I'll show the final picture of how it looked with the next post!

 

Next up was getting the "TACOMA" inlays put in on the stamped part of the tailgate.

I've had these sitting around for a while. I bought the full overlay/tailgate letter blackout kit back with the 2019 truck but didn't get to putting the tailgate letters on. So now I finally get to use them!

Here they are:


Again cleaned the letters on the tailgate with isopropyl alcohol as prep, then started putting them on.

It was tempting to stop with them like this!


Just kidding! I put them all on.


As you can see, along with the completed black lettering, the "V6" from before is also missing. I think it looks so much cleaner now and the black letters make that part pop!

 

It started getting dark, but we're going to my brother's house tomorrow and he's down a dirt road, so I wanted to get the mud flaps on to hopefully avoid too much rocks getting kicked up onto the truck. So I set up a work light and got down to it.

Using the RokBlokz mud flaps.

Side note to that - I had the OEM mud flaps on my 2019. When I went to pull them off the old truck to trade it in, I noticed they had really scuffed/scratched the wheel arch trim where they rubbed again them. I ended up leaving them on as I didn't want to get dinged for that on the trade-in. That was on a Sport which has the painted trim, maybe it wouldn't be as bad on an Off-Road with the plastic, but I didn't want to take that chance. Also, the OEM ones are not very flexible and I wanted ones that were now, so here we are!

Here's the mud flaps as shipped to me (bought on Amazon instead of manufacturers site since it was Prime).


I wasn't able to get any good pictures of them on there due to it being dark. Here's an "in progress" shot of putting it on the front though.


The backs where a little more difficult due to not being able to turn the wheels back there obviously and so thus can't get a screwdriver on the heads. I was able to rig up something by taking a 1/4" ratchet with 1/4" socket and putting a phillips head bit in there that fit. By doing that I kind of had a 90* screwdriver. Would have been nice to just have a combo phillips head/10mm bolt head to put on there from RokBlokz, like the OEM screws I took out to install the flaps. Oh well.

I'll try to get a picture or two of them all on there tomorrow when we have light again and add that to this post.

 

OK final mod for tonight!

This is a 6MT and the stock shift knob on non-Pros suck! I like the pool ball style knob and used the grey TRD Pro ball (which I think may originally be made for the FJ?) on my 2019. So I moved it into the new one of course! Since it doesn't have the connector on the bottom to attach the shift boot to, I use the shift boot retainer made by TW member @7r41lbr34k3r. Super useful little piece.

Here's how it looks when all done. Again, sorry about the lighting but it was completely dark at this point. Also, for some reason (camera flash maybe) the retainer looks reddish in the picture, but in person it does look properly black.

 

Updated first post with links to these, related TW threads, and the products on the web. Bed time!

 

Coming together great! I love the tailgate debadge and black inlay; it makes it look so clean.

It looks like you're planning to do change the taillights. Have you decided on which one?

 

Not sure yet. Leaning toward the 2020 Pro ones since they have the black strip instead of chrome which would match with the rest of the black badges and such. But if I'm going to replace the entire taillights and go LED on them too, might make sense just to get it all-in-one with the MESO taillights.

Burning through a lot of money on other stuff right now (Tacoma-related and other), so that is going to be end-game kind of stuff I think. Won't get to it for a while!

 

Makes sense. I don't know if Meso is doing those all in one taillights anymore. I thought they were just a one-run kind of thing.

 

Well he hasn't taken them down off his site yet, so we'll see if he ever restocks them!

 

Black decals look great on cement. I can’t decide if I like them on MGM or I don’t. Also can’t decide if I like the v6 or I don’t. The only thing I have decided is I don’t love the chrome rear bumper caps. But totally don’t know what to do about that. In the meantime, I like looking at pictures of your truck. Very nice indeed.

 

You could try to find replacement bumper caps. There are many on eBay that are paint-to-match. This seller even sells them pre-painted, but unfortunately I don't see MGM though. You could message them and see if they can do that color, since they seem to do many of the other colors.

There's also a company that makes covers that go over the top of them called BumperShellz. They make custom color ones that should be a close match, but looks like MGM is out of stock. You could also just get the black ones instead, the Textured Black TPO there are supposed to match the color and texture of the other parts of the rear bumper pretty well.

I think the SR or SR5 might come with plain matte black ones as well? If so, you could get an OEM set of those.

Finally, there is also plasti-dip too. Lots of options!

 

Been busy and haven't had a chance to post, but last weekend I reloaded everything up in to the cab finally.

Glovebox - Paperwork, insurance doc, state map, gum, work gloves (in case need to change tire or other random work), napkins, leatherman, etc etc
Glovebox organizer:


Center console bottom - Meds, bandaids, OBDII reader, kleenex, 12V USB adapter, various USB cables and adapters
Center console organizer:


Center console tray - car wash and other coupons, various loyalty and membership cards, quarters and dollar coins for parking and emergency needs, more advil, emergency salt =), also more napkins on top usually
Center console tray:

 

For the rear storage, here's what I use.

Behind seats - jumper cable, tow strap, netting, small metric set, ratcheting straps



I bought an underseat organizer a while back and tried to put it in, but it didn't really work with what I store in there. Here's a look at how it looked though while I had it in there to test out:


Ultimately, here's what I put down there - receiver hitch, uniball set, hitch pin

 

Don't have pictures right now (maybe I can add them later), but also put in the seat back protectors, rear car seat protectors, rear seat organizer, and then of course the booster seats for my girls.

Edit - Ok here are the pictures if anyone wants to see how it looks:



The rear seat protectors have held up very well. They are thickly padded on the bottom where the booster sits which helps protect the seat. After having them in my 2019 for the two years I owned it, I took them out to trade-in and you couldn't even really tell there were booster seats there the whole time. I didn't see any divots or creases in the seat, so I guess they did a good job!

I wish they didn't have the ugly green logos though...