What Have You Done To Your 3rd Gen Today?

Spent like 2 hours metering fuses, cleaning corrosion off of the terminals and putting dielectric grease, only to get 1 tail light working correctly. The others turn signals, brake light and reverse light works but not the tail light itself. So say it's been frustrating may be an understatement but that's likely because theres about 95% humidity.

 

Parked at a nearby Publix and ran into a fellow Tacoma owner who bought this 22 off-road short bed said he loves it. He said the biggest thing he hates about it is the transmission I told him about getting it flashed w/tune and he was like won't that void the warranty? I said I guess it might. remind me of waiting until I hit 36,000 miles and that was the first damn thing I did got the KDMax Pro.

 

Put the VLED footwell lights in.

 

This really seems like the only legitimate bolt-on front recovery hook. The only thing I wish could be different is where the 'point' is located. It always seems like a shovel in terms of approach angle.

 

I had and liked this type from Bulletproof Fab. Just had to grind some swing clearance on the skid for the shackle.

 

New bumper arrived today.

 

I may be wrong but that one doesn't mount to the frame but only the radiator crossmember. I think these, and all the rest, are fine for a light straight on pull but the ARB is the only one I know of that is structurally a legitimate 'bolt-on' recovery point. Just don't love the diminished approach angle.

 

Curious to see this install.

 

It's the Body Armor Hiline bumper with the high clearance wings. Lots of cutting.

The boxes in front of the tool box are a winch, 20" light bar and 6" LED light bars.

Gonna be fun!

 

PSA: do not attempt to install precut auto tint. I just wasted $60 and ruined the film.
I know I botched the install, but I'm still pretty sure that precutautotint.com is a scam. The instructions on their site deliberately didn't mention roll-down window installs or how to work with window trim. There is no way you can slide the film under the rubber seals to install the film!

Either way, I am stubborn and I will be removing the front windows in order to install it. I'm getting really good at disassembling the door after replacing the side mirrors for the fourth time. And the window is only held in place by two bolts. At that point, there's no sense in buying precut tint, just use a roll and trim the excess. Thank you for coming to my TED talk.

 

Nope. Mounted just like the others. 4 bolts directly to the frame on passenger side. Rated 8250 pounds and had a 9000 pound rated shackle. This isn't like the "cute useless" shackle mounts like some people use.

 

This uses 3 bolts that mount to the radiator crossmember in the same place as the oem tow hook.
The arb uses those 3 bolts and another in the frame

 

You are braver than I am to be ok with cutting your bumper. I have been looking for no-cut solutions.

 

Just installed Toyo ATIII all weathers on my 2018. So far, so good. All balanced and aligned, no excessive road noise. Report on snow capability to follow …edit: when there’s snow.

 

Same. No WAY I'm cutting into my nice painted bumper like that. Why I got a nice looking SSO hybrid with a bull bar.
Each to their own on that, but after a few thousand miles driving our DCLB stock towing our off-road trialer to some crazy spots we definitely should not have been stock, I can definitely say I don't believe we need a viper cut/winged bumper to improve our major issue, which has been approach/departure angles.

 

I agree about approach angle but I think they made it stick out far like that to avoid damage to the stock bumper configuration on pulls.

 

They look nice, could you let me know how they handle the snow and ice before winter so I know what to buy?
More seriously, I've found some tires that are great on dirt and snow, but then they aren't good on ice. Or the ones that are good on ice don't go off-road well (get torn up due to the soft compound). I'm probably expecting too much from a single tire but I watch what my Minnesota and Canadian TW forum friends put on their trucks for ideas. I'm still running OEM tires and they got the job done last winter. I've previously run GY Duratrac and they were great on everything but ice. Those ATIII tires look similar.

 

Yeah, that has crossed my mind, as well. I'll definitely be measuring 5000 times, cut once.

The DV8 bumper is a direct bolt on, no cutting, but I didn't like the look of it and it's not compatible with the TRD skid plate.

https://www.extremeterrain.com/dv8-...ount-winch-capable-front-bumper-fbtt1-05.html

 

I put my ARB in as well. I ended up painting the back half black so it wasn't as bright in the fender well.

 

You may want to check out the Victory 4X4 Blitz bumper...they have steel & aluminum versions.

https://www.victory4x4.com/product/VT3FB.html