Seagull's '04 DC Build

Just starting this thread as a placeholder for the starting details of my paint job, and pictures. I'll be adding the history of the truck and mods to date shortly.

As it stands today, 6/5/20, roughly 15 years into ownership









Weight today is 5140-5160, with full tank of gas, tool box, and other box of straps and such. I wanted to capture this weight for comparison purposes, as my summer project is to Raptor Line the entire truck, in the same color as now, using their tintable product. There has been considerable discussion of the amount of weight added when doing this. Using color should save me a good bit of time, by not needing to paint door jambs, under hood, etc, etc.

Back Story of the truck

I found this truck while searching eBay in the fall of 2005. It was located in southeastern Ohio. It already had a salvage title, and had been repaired. It had just under 15,000 miles. Price was $15,500. Young fellow I bought it from had family that were very into drag racing, building their own cars, and had made the repairs for him. It had been wrecked all down the passenger side. The repairs looked good (and held up reasonably well, until the last couple of years). It became my daily driver. I added a Century cap, with windoors, along with aluminum running boards and a class III trailer hitch.

Around 2008, I upgraded the exhaust to a Magnaflow stainless steel, as I only drove a couple of miles to work and back. In cold weather, the exhaust never got warm enough to dry out, and steel would rust out at a fantastic rate. From that point, I made virtually no changes, just kept up with regular maintenance plus rust prevention, until I hit the 100k mark. At that point, I did the major pieces of timing belt, water pump, belts, hoses, brakes, rotors, calipers, flushes of the transmission, differentials, transfer case.

One night I got very aggravated when trying to read something after dark in the cab. So I decided to upgrade to some brighter LED bulbs. When I got them installed, they wouldn't function properly, so I started googling to find the solution. That's when I stumbled into Tacoma World. I found the answer to my question, and rather than just leave, I started reading about what folks were doing to their trucks.

At that time, @BartMaster1234 was working on installing a set of Lexus seats. Boy, I thought, those would be a great improvement.
Salvage yard BMW seats and a lot of work to install



Homemade brackets

While I have the seats out, I might as well install FrostKing as sound deadener.



More reading and looking: Some off road lights would be great! Light bar mounted on roof rack, smaller bar on front, and fogs.

Added a second battery and inverter in the bed.

About this time, I looked out one day to see the gas tank skid hanging down, rusted completely in two. New skid from Low Range Off Road.



Now around 130k, and springs and shocks are getting worn out. Lots of reading and researching on TW, and sprung for the OME complete set for front and rear.

Also about this time, the A/C started to fail, so I did a complete rehab, new everything, with the exception of the lines.

Spring of 2018, when doing my semi-annual cleaning, and rustproofing regimen, I discovered a rust hole in front of spring hanger. Long, long story short, a replacement frame found its way under the truck. Mostly funded by Toyota, but a couple of thousand by me (due to salvage title).

December 2018, a woman backed into the rear of the truck, bending bumper and wrinkling side panel behind wheel. $1200 insurance check in hand, and searched out a CBI Moab DIY front bumper, a NWTI rear, and an inexpensive winch. Only invested a couple hundred plus my time to weld it all up.



Spring 2020, found a set of passenger side doors and a complete bed from a wrecked truck in central Florida, absolutely rust free.



Thank you Tacoma World for helping me

Next up bodywork and a Raptor Liner all over paint job.

 

First portion of Raptor lining the truck. Went reasonably well. I wound up with a bit of streakiness across the top. Mostly, the fault was with the spray gun that came with the kit. It was not adjustable to get a low flow of material. However, half way through, I switched over to the Professional version of the gun, and it was like night and day. Should have just started with it, but..... But the streaks remained a bit even after the second coat, but greatly diminished. Fortunately, they will be hidden under the basket rack anyway. This was a great trial run for when I start doing the remainder of the truck. Up next will be the new bed that I acquired in Florida. A little body work to do, mostly just bumps and dings. Fortunately, the bodywork will not have to be absolutely perfect, as Raptor will hide a lot of my sins.


This is after sanding and cleaning, ready for Raptor.



Here is all of the materials that I assembled



And here is the end result:

 

Nice! What color are you doing? I was thinking tan, grey, or green

 

I’m going with Lunar Mist silver, so not a change. It doesn’t appear metallic though, but they warned about that on the Raptor website

 

Right on

 

Here are the bed and hood with the liner applied. Splotchiness is shadows, not variance in the color. I truly am a shadetree mechanic/painter!!


Here are some images that were taken randomly throughout the painting process.

This is my new bed from central Florida, virtually rust free!!! Since I will be running a bedliner, I merely gave it a quick sand and did rattle can liner on the floor only. Before it goes back in, I will use a paintbrush to apply wheelbearing grease throughout the area under the plastic liner. This was done to my original bed over 15 years ago, and it kept the rust totally at bay.

Here is the grille, ready for a coat of bedliner in black. My intention is to eventually do a Satochi grille.




Here is my measurements to try to get the badges back on. I found that it was easier to remove the badges with a razorblade scraper than fishing line, since scratches wouldn't matter. Badges were soaked for about a week in WD40 to soften the factory adhesive, then I worked with fingernails and paper towels to get the resulting soft gunk off of the badges. After cleaning with acetone, they were affixed to Press and Seal kitchen wrap (to keep the small ones from blowing about), then sprayed with flat black. To reattach, I used 3M exterior double sided tape. Total pain to cut tiny little pieces to stick on back of the letters.



And here is the result




Here is a good comparison shot of the difference between the Raptor and factory paint. The roughness of the Raptor, by creating tiny shadows, makes it appear darker, even though these are the same tint codes.




Here is poor man's rust proofing that I applied to the inside of my new front fender. Wheelbearing grease.

 

Finished with painting my truck with tinted (color-matched) Raptor liner. I stayed with the same color, to avoid painting door frames, engine bay, under the hood, around tail gate, and so on. All in all, I am quite pleased with the outcome, although I have some streakiness on some of my panels. This was operator error, not really a problem with the product. It was partly because I did mine in a number of different sessions, sprayed the cap and hood first, then I did the box, then the body, doors, and roof, and lastly the two front fenders. Also painted the fender flares with black. Everything was sanded with 80 grit to provide good bite, except the flares. I removed most everything I could, including taillights, window trim, rubber weatherstrip. It was time consuming, but during Covid, I have plenty of time on my hands. I also masked all of the windows, and masked around the inside of the doors (to minimize overspray inside the jambs). I used 3 oz of reducer, 3 oz of color, and the required 8+ oz of hardener for each bottle. I used mixing cups, rather than just shaking the bottle, and felt this gave good consistency after thorough stirring and putting some back in the bottle and rinsing it out, back in to my mix cup. In total, I shot 8 bottles, and probably should have done another one or two. 70 lbs pressure. Also, I purchased the professional gun, and HIGHLY recommend this over the one provided with the kit. I tried the kit one first, but only shot one bottle with it. It just put out way too much product too quickly and is not adjustable. I removed masking tape after about an hour, pulling back over itself as is standard practice. Nothing much I would do different, other than try to paint the entire truck in one session.





Here you can see a bit of the streakiness on the hood. It was basically my error for not keeping a good wet edge. It was somewhat wet-dry-wet-dry. Wet areas settled and smoothed more than the drier ones. I may eventually black out the center section as a bit of a coverup. I had done that previously, just with plastidip, as an experiment. This time I would do in paint, with a pinstripe around the edge. Old school, as I am old!!

 

While I wait for the Raptor on my bumpers to cure, I began my Satochi grille. Got the center hogged out and trimmed down fairly close, using jigsaw and a cutoff wheel in a Dremel, using the flex cable attachment. This helped immensely. Next I'll try to sand those down smooth with palm sander.



I do intend to fiberglass the edge of the top, so that the grill will sit back in as far as possible, rather than cutting off out closer to the chrome edge, as Customcargrills suggests. I prefer the recessed look. Hope I can pull it off.

Day Two

Sanded the remainder off the cutoff areas down to even. Sorry no pic!

Then I sanded the area where I will be putting my fiberglass matte on the top of the grill. This is the cavity above the portion of the grill that you see. After sanding with 80 grit, I cleaned with lacquer thinner on both sides. On the side that shows, I placed a piece of gaffer tape, but you could use two or three layers of masking tape. Basically, you are building a bridge across the gaps. Then I put pieces of matte cut to fit in each of the gaps, with the tape holding them as they were dry.



Here are the gaps filled, and strips of matte cut to cover completely the area one each side of the gap. They were sized to go between the runners that come back to the edge closest to you. Then you mix the fiberglass resin, pour it into a flat plastic container (from the Chinese place), and wearing your nitrile gloves, dip each strip and get it fully saturated and apply. I did two of these longer layers. I also dipped my finger tip in the resin and gave each of the dry pieces a liberal coating before putting in the larger pieces.



Here is the result after curing for a couple of hours



Then I used my orbit air sander to bring down that top edge to the same level as the original plastic.



Here is the end result:



Then off with the tape from the good side:



For the most part, I wound up with a bit of a low spot in each of the gaps, so it was time for some body filler.



And here it is applied. I also applied some on the bottom side as well, as it had a few uneven areas, from sanding down the plastic from attachment points.



Post sanding, and you can also see where I have been sanding on the chrome in anticipation of painting it black.



At this point, I began test fitting the aluminum insert. As it came out of the box, it was perfectly flat. However, the opening has a bit of a curve from top to bottom. I worked quite a while trying to create a slight bend, and was not having any success. Then I realized that on each end were tabs that were bent at a 90 degree angle. I took my Dremel and cut through those tabs, and this freed it up to get a nice curve that matched the plastic grill. Be warned, this is very much a finnese manipulation, and not to be done with force and ham hands. Here you see the cuts and the slight curve.

 

Where upstate are you located?
I am getting ready to raptor line my DC as well.

 

Corning, in the Finger Lakes. And you?

 

Albany

 

Here are the grille and mesh after painting.





I debated whether to try to glue the grille in, or to use zip ties. In the end, I opted for zip ties. This would allow me to removed the mesh without much effort, and it made it good and solid. Basically, I looked for areas where I could use the Dremel to open up small holes and that would pull the mesh tight. I used 11 on the big panel, and three on each of the small side openings. I tightened them slowly, pulling everything in together, with even tension on all.





Next up was the Toyota emblem. The emblem is repurposed from a Landcruiser, I believe, and on the back, it had three mounting posts. Once I had the approximate position of the emblem, I realized that could utilize two of these as extra security for the emblem which is glued on. Both required considerable trimming, but I felt it was worth the time. The ones I used were the left and center ones, and I removed the right one completely. I applied the E600 adhesive to the flat portions of the emblem, that would come into contact first, and didn't try to cover all of the letters with glue. Once I attached the emblem, laying it face down on some towels to apply upward pressure to the emblem, I went back and added more glue in those same areas, basically filling the openings in the mesh that had the emblem right against it, and created a puddle covering all that I had filled.









Here is the finished grille! All in all, not a bad project.

 

looking great!

 

Relaced my steering wheel cover. Leather was still perfectly fine, just had an area where the thread had worn, where I hook my thumb when road cruising. Used the two needle, baseball stitch, with some heavier nylon thread.

 

Today, I finally had all the pieces to relocate the rear axle vent.

From Amazon:

$5 Differential Vent Breather

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B06XHBY38X/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o09_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

$7 Toyota 90404-51026 Intake Air Control Valve Union

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01H79JUQQ/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o08_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

From Home Depot 10ft of 1/4 ID clear plastic tubing and a 5/16 flat washer



Began by removing the plastic around the gas cap. 4 8mm bolts and remove the cap.



Drilled a 3/8 inch hole behind and slightly below the pin that holds the door closed. Inserted the vent through the plastic, added the washer, and then used heat gun to slightly soften the plastic tube to get it to go on, which gives you a nice tight fit on the barb, as the barb is actually meant for the next size larger tubing.



Next, I stuffed all of the tubing in behind the gas cap and reinstalled the cap and surround, and began routing in toward the rear axle. I went over the frame, and was able to zip tie it to a wiring bundle.



From there, it dropped pretty much straight down where I zip tied it along the thick rubber coated emergency brake cable. This brought me within a few inches of the vent. A 14 mm to remove the old (and rusted shut!!) vent. A little antiseize on the threads, and a 10 mm, and the new union (barb) was installed. Cut the tubing to length to allow a gentle curve into the barb, and a good slip fit and you are done!



About $25 for peace of mind about both the axle not venting and blowing a seal or going into deep water and sucking in said water!! Maybe an hours work at old man pace!!

 

I just read your whole build thread This evening!

Thanks for sharing and your efforts posting I really enjoyed!

 

Truck looks great. which professional spray gun did you end up using? Also have you re-weighted you truck since you applied the liner?

 

It was the one sold by Raptor. About $75.

 

I weighed it with exactly the same stuff in it, full of gas both times, and it weighed less after. No explanation other than scales are iffy!

 

Musta had more air in them there tires! Lol