ScrewCancerAdventures Exploration Facilitation (1999 Tacoma 4x4 TRD)

About a month ago I installed sound mat in the cab.

I have since installed a vinyl rubber floor, pieced together a rear interior (this truck didn't have one when I bought it) and added Husky Liner floor mats as well as new seat covers. The rear interior doesn't match, but the price was right and it was just a few minutes away. At some point I will make it match. The floor was ordered through RockAuto.com and shipped from Auto Custom Carpets, Inc. It isn't a perfect fit and is hard to work with, but I'm sure someone with more skill would have a better time. I spent about 13 hours total on the flooring installation and still made a couple of mistakes. If you have a cut that is started, it is very easy for that to tear. I had that happen in the strip between the shifter bezel and the lower dash, so I have a tiny bit of a gap that I'm sure no one but me will notice just forward of the shifter bezel on the driver's side. The amount of manipulation with a heat gun and roller to get the floor contours right probably messed up the alignment of the rear under seat storage pockets, but I was able to make it work. As it goes through heat cycles the factory pressing becomes less visible.

A couple of tools were exceptionally useful during the flooring install. #1 is a heat gun. I think the vinyl floor would be impossible to install without it, especially here in the PNW where the temperatures are still in the 40-50F range on a good day this time of year. #2 is a roller. I had purchased a roller to install the sound mat, so I used the same one in conjunction with the heat gun to contour the vinyl to the floor pan. #3 was a set of hollow punches to use in a drill. I picked up and they did a great job of cleanly cutting the holes for mounting the interior components. #4 was a set of shears/heavy duty scissors. A utility knife and shears made it much easier to cut the flooring, though my hands still hurt for days after making literally hundreds of cuts to form corners, especially around the firewall. I'm sure someone with more experience could do the job way faster and make much fewer cuts, but this was the first floor I have ever installed and was being very conservative with the cuts as it is much easier to cut more than to put it back together.

This picture was the end of day one, about 9 hours into the install:


The crease directly below the shifter looks way worse in the picture - it is a formed hump over a wiring bundle. The creases under the pedals have since been resolved with some more trimming and heat gun forming.


This set of Husky Liners was on sale on Amazon for $69. Nice. I had to do a little bit more trimming on the passenger side to get the floor liner to sit properly, but they fit okay. There is a little bit of a gap between the transmission tunnel and the floor liner, but that is due to me not installing the carpet pad (I don't want anything to capture moisture in the cab as this is an adventure vehicle).


The rear seats came out of a 2001+, so the top trim panel is different. If anyone has a full rear interior (oak colored) including seatbelts and trim panels I'd love it if you sent me a message.


High dollar seat covers aren't in the budget at this point (I'm eyeballing a new set of seats altogether) and the neoprene covers that were on there were torn and oozing seat foam everywhere. This set of $35 covers from WalMart will do the job nicely for the time being.