What Have You Done To Your 2nd Gen Tacoma Today?

Finally got around to purchasing intermittent wipers for the truck. This is going to make driving in rain and snow alot nicer. No more low and high that are way to fast

 

Must-have mod for those who didn’t have it before! One of the first things I did.

 

I should've done it a long time ago! I wanted to get this knocked out before another fall winter spring

 

I cut a window out of tinted polycarbonate/Lexan as a replacement side window for my camper. I broke the original a few months ago, so I’m glad to get this back to being usable for about $140 in supplies and tools

I built a template out of plastic cardboard and then transferred that to the polycarbonate. I used a skil saw for the long straight cuts and a dremel with a diamond cutoff wheel for the rounded front corners



The finished product!

 

Finally got a chance to replace my left caliper which had seized on the inside. It's basically turning out that I have to replace the calipers every other brake change.
240,243

Previous caliper was so seized that the interior of the rotor is rusted… I'll have to see what happens within a week with the surface and my new brake pads. More burning smell than ever. I'll tell you that much when I was breaking them in…

Torquing the Caliper bolts is a crazy fit...


good thing I sprung the extra five dollars for the hard line because it's split as soon as I tried to disconnect it from the flexible intermediate joint.


All together again

 

Wow. That looks amazing. I have a broken slider on my shell, and I haven't been able to find a way to fix it. None of the Leer dealers in my area will get back to me. I might have to look into this!

 

Brake line was from Toyota parts. Side specific I think. 47318-04110 $6.52 good insurance.
Calipers are refurbished Duralast from autozone.

https://www.autozone.com/brakes-and...nt-driver-side-brake-caliper-c6051/198800_0_0

C6051 $64.99 plus a $25 core deposit you get back when you bring in your old one to recycle, no matter how bad it is.
One note on the after market calipers. The bleeder screws on them are like 5mm...so keep the Toyota 10mm bleeder and swap it. They have the same threads and you should have a 10mm (I have a 10/12) metric flare wrench for the Tacoma for this job.
Other possibilities are caliper mounting bolts being an issue. Pre-treat with PB blaster a few times for a week before.
First Remove the old pads and pins if you can...if not just get a gap so you can slide off the caliper. Then clamp the soft line like my picture.
1.Break loose both ends of the hard line and re-snug (if you're replacing it. Only loosen the calipers end if not)
2. Break loose the retaining bracket bolt that joins your hard to soft line
3. Loosen caliper bolts. Remove bottom caliper bolt and then disconnect hard line from the soft line.
4. Connect your new hard line to the new caliper...only hand thread it to be sure it's going in straight. Doing it now in the open makes it so much easier to align the threads. There was a white dash on one end of the new hard line I assumed meant "This side toward caliper"
5. Remove other caliper bolt and set the old caliper down brake line up so the fluid in the caliper doesn't leak everywhere.
6. Now be sure your loosely attached hard line is forward of the bleeder valve (see my pics) otherwise when you bolt on the caliper you can't get the hard line past the bleeder valve.
7. Attach your caliper loosely by hand threading the bolts.
8. Remove the bolts from the brake line hanger bracket and hand thread the top end of the hard line. I also cleaned out the threads on the joiner and then bled some dirty brake fluid (keep an eye on your reservoir) by having it loose you can align the threads.
9. Reattach the line bracket/bolt.
10. Torque on your caliper mounting bolts
11. Snug the hard line connections
12. Swap the bleeder valve and with the bleeder open release the pliers holding the line. When fluid comes out snug the bleeder. Look for any leaks on the 2 hard line connections.
13. Install your pads and hardware. Grease those pins too
14. Bleed brakes.
15. Beer.
That's just from memory

 

Did the 3rd Gen. suspension upgrade on my 2nd Gen. Only did the rear though , still waiting on my top plate spacer for the taco lean to do the front but looking good so far.

 

Thanks! I am stoked with how it turned out. The lexan does scratch more easily, but I am just happy to have this thing back in one piece. Feel free to ask any questions you may have if you decide to go this route. I wasn’t able to find much info on how to take this thing apart. Seems like most ppl just replace them entirely, but that wasn’t in the budget

 

I'm in the same boat, everywhere I've gone to wants upwards of $600 to replace the whole window, and that's what I paid for the entire shell. I may PM you some questions!

 

200,000 miles on the work Taco. All of that hard use as an off road LE truck. The only thing that has ever failed (that was the truck's fault) was the pinion shaft seal I just had to replace.

 

Fan quit on me on a 100 degree day for about 40 min and then started to work on and off again.
Replaced the resistor and the plug (It was pretty toasty) and now it's working great.


BTW: Anyone knows what that empty plug is for??? I know that the Tacoma didn't have a passenger seat ejector option.

 

Where did you get that plug / resistor replacement....reasonably priced?

 

good job.....didn't know polycarbonate sheet was that expensive

 

$20 bucks in Amazon for convenience
https://a.co/d/eOAgUU7


Dealer has it at $36 without the plug, (although the plug was very burned)
https://parts.longotoyota.com/oem-p...5oUT934aEzQr9QHpz4WywNMeq9PsoHPhoCqH8QAvD_BwE

 

Thanks, the polycarbonate was only 70 shipped but the blade to cut it was close to 40 and then I bought some jig saw blades and black silicone as well

 

Put wife in it first time since knee replacement, lifted and put katzkins in. Went over the mountain thru the woods to mothers house , exercised the h4 and put into 4-low going up to moms house.

 

Interior and exterior cleaning for the first time in months. I was going to wax but ran out of time. Good enough for now.

 

Cleaned my Softopper with Griots convertible top cleaner and installed a Diode Dynamics HitchMount light.