What have you done to your Tacoma today? 1st Gen Edition

my '98 has the original plastic...

 

I really enjoy the way mine turned out with the raptor lettering

 

How hard is uniball UCA and coil-over install? I'm getting quoted $350 for labor and I'm thinking I can probably just do it myself. I installed my OME suspension but I didn't need a press or anything for that.

 

Not too bad. Hardest part is removing the bolt for the uca and the ubj. The press you can rent from the auto parts store kinda works for the ubj

 

I somehow missed this yesterday until Mike mentioned it in my build thread this afternoon. (Thanks Mike )

Normally I'd be with you 100% on the negative bonding. But, I thought about that and completely separated the batteries to see if there was still an issue: there was. The RFI from these LEDs is so bad that it's creating a field being received by the antenna. Almost like when you drive under the awning at some gas stations.

...and this is why I'm looking for a different solution.

 

I don't blame you my led head lights make my reception on my normal radio suck ass.

But rf chokes should help a lot. And they are really cheap. You'll probably need them for the hid hellas as well.

So I'd still recommend using those.

You can also go through the truck and add grounding strap to a lot of places. Frame to engine. Frame cab. Frame to bed. And frame to exhaust helps lower the swr a lot.

I've also read but haven't tried putting aluminum foil around the back of the head lights help.. but I'm a bit skeptical about that.

I too am going to go halogen on the daily again with some 100w osrams and hella housings.

 

Finally got a phone for the truck.

 

That's some OG Wolf of Wall Street stuff right there

 

I’m more like the Raccoon of 42nd Street.

 

Unclear to me at this point.

The only data point I have is this: https://adventuretaco.com/mod-wars-usb-charger-blocking-ham-radio-communication/

With the USB charger, my APRS was limited. I didn't notice it at all when manually transmitting or receiving, but the RFI did inhibit APRS, likely because the signal to the modem is obscured by the noise.

Looking at my most recent track to/from DV - much of which was done at night, and thus the headlights were on - my APRS packets are few and far between. I do not know if that is normal (I have no other trip to compare to), but I'll surely do another trip once I put some new halogens in. Will be interesting to see if there is a difference - I really have no idea if there will be.

This whole thing is quite interesting to me. I thought I would dislike the LEDs for one reason, and that's proven to not be the case. This second reason wasn't even something I'd considered when I started. Life is funny that way.

 

The truck came with the chrome rear bumper. I got the front on RockAuto.

 

I didn’t notice any difference, but I don’t have any data to back that up

 

Got the rago fab bed stiffeners installed thanks to @betterbuckleup forbhelping out while I was cutting shit up with his plasma cutter!

 

Has anyone installed Canada Flag/American Flag decals on their first gen? Just wanting to see some photos of size and location. Anything would be helpful!

 

Mine

 

Nice did you remove youre toyota tacoma bagde? Mine is right where you installed the decal

 

Yes sir. Removed all my badges

 

Ahh i figured

 

It's so shiny