A non-enthusiast's Tacoma build

See, hard cases come back into production unexpectedly and BAM!, you are back in the mod game!

 

Quick shots I took tonight comparing output at the varying “levels” I have available.






My only gripe with the Morimoto ditch lights thus far is the weird spill emitting perpendicular to the direction they’re aimed. Not distracting or anything, just sloppy design.

 

Well, it finally happened. Something on my truck broke. Okay, something on my truck broke that had nothing to do with mods.



I caught some sort of debris while bebopping down the highway the morning of this past Saturday, 02 SEP. I didn't even notice the damage until nearly 12 hours later. As you can see above, the crack was spreading pretty steadily, so the only option was to replace the windshield.

In the interest of brevity (since this post is more for my own reference than anything else), I did a little poking around. Safelite installs crap-quality windshields, and the wait time to get an appointment with them was way too long. Glass America had an immediate availability, but they don't do what they say they'll do. I specifically requested quality, non-Chinese glass to be installed on three separate phone calls with three separate people. Apparently that word didn't get passed on to the people actually doing the work.



Note the DOT 563 marking, which indicates that the windshield was manufactured by Shenzen Automotive Glass in China. Compare this to my stock windshield:



DOT 177 corresponds with LN Safety Glass out of Ohio. Source here:

https://www.carwindshields.info/dot_db

I'll stick with the crappy off-brand windshield for now, but when it breaks, I'll go to Glass King out of Norfolk. Despite the painfully slow comms with their people, their installer is clearly a knowledgeable guy who understands what it means to do it right the first time. I imagine that's why a couple local dealerships recommended them, since they also handle the dealership's glass replacement work.

 

If you want to come to Maine I am good friends with the local glass shop manager.....

 

Well that sucks that after all that, you still got some shitty glass installed.

 

I wish I was surprised, but I’m not. The lack of competence displayed by most local companies I’ve dealt with is alarming. Glass America, Bert’s Alignment, Checkered Flag Toyota…

I know doing all this stuff myself isn’t a feasible option, but still.

 

Dropping a quick note to myself for future reference: don't wash your truck if the weather is too cool for the wash water to evaporate.

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Okay, details. It's a holiday weekend for us fedbois, so I figured I'd make the most of it by knocking out some time-intensive maintenance ahead of its scheduled interval. Doing the whole clay bar + sealant thing is a mighty sucky task due to the time and effort required, so that's what I elected to do.

I cleaned the interior in about 3 hours, which wasn't too awful. I then did a thorough wash of the outside, including rinsing it down a bunch (3 separate times, because claying be like that). This took another 4 hours, and ran me right up to sundown. I figured I'd park the truck in the garage and let it air-dry overnight, instead of putting even more work into towel-drying. I'd get to sealant application and waxing the next day.

The next morning, I started the truck to run out and grab something before kicking off the second day of work. This is when I noticed something weird with my headlights. With the headlight selector on the stalk...

- Set to "off": the passenger side headlight was on, low beam.
- Set to "DRL": the passenger side headlight was on, low beam. DRLs functioned as intended.
- Set to "running lights": the passenger side headlight was on, low beam. Running lights functioned as intended.
- Set to "headlights": both headlights were on, high beams only. I was not able to get the high beams to disengage, no matter what I tried.

Well that's not great. Didn't change the fact that I had to drive somewhere, so off I went. I drove on the highway for about 15 minutes before getting to my destination.

After wrapping up what I had to do, I started the truck to head back home. I did a quick check to see if the weird headlight issue was still present. Much to my surprise, it had vanished. Everything was functioning as it should. Hmmmmmmm.

Now I've never had anything like this happen before, and I think I know why. I usually skip washing the truck when it's 55 degrees or lower, especially if that temperature is accompanied by cloudy weather. That's the sort of weather we've had in VA Beach for the past few days. I'd wager that the wash water couldn't evaporate due to the environmental conditions, so it had time to work its way into my headlight connectors and cause some sort of short or feedback in the system. Driving on the highway for a short period of time probably forced this water out of its troublesome little spot, restoring normal function.

I schwacked some additional dielectric grease in the connectors, just to be safe. Crisis averted. Oh, and my truck is very shiny now.

 

Rolled 100,000 miles on the odometer yesterday. Nothing especially noteworthy has occurred since my last update, other than working through the laundry list of maintenance tasks that come due at the 100k mile mark:

Coolant drain and fill: was a pain in the ass, mostly because I’ve never done it before. I didn’t drain the engine block due to concerns with “air locking” the coolant lines/pump; just draining and refilling the ~4 qts out of the radiator and reservoir made plenty enough mess for me.

PCV valve swap: I do this every 50k miles. Straightforward, other than me fretting about the new valve not going into the engine block flush. I always forget that the threads on the valve are tapered, so flush isn’t possible.

Power steering fluid flush: another 50k mile item. Kinda tedious, but not overly difficult. The hardest part was figuring out where to dispose of the old fluid, which turned out to be the Hazardous Household Waste depot at my city dump.

I also checked my idler pulleys, wheel bearings, and carrier bearings for squeakiness and lateral play (respectively). Everything looks pretty solid.

400,000 miles to go before she’s scheduled for retirement.

 

I, too, just rolled over 100k miles in my 4R. She's not getting the Austin treatment though.

 

Let's talk about your flair... er, your maintenance binder.

 

Creeping up on 113k miles with no major issues. Yeah, my new windshield ate a rock a few months after I got it installed, but the resulting chip is small enough (and not expanding at all) to leave alone for the time being.

Swapped my spark plugs, based on my napkin math recalculating this maintenance interval to every 75k miles (instead of the recommended 30k):

These plugs have 71,710 miles on them. Average gap was 0.048", with the largest gap at 0.05" and the smallest at 0.046". Looks like my ~75k mile estimate was about right.

While I was greasing my driveshaft zerk fittings, I noticed some play in the carrier bearing. Maybe a half inch in each direction laterally, not quite as much as this video shows:

While there are no obvious symptoms indicating a driveshaft or carrier bearing issue (like howling noises/vibrations), I feel like tackling this proactively could be the right move. Based on my research, the estimated service life for the carrier bearing is around 100k miles, and the driveshaft u-joints is 120k miles.

I got in touch with my local driveshaft shop, Gregory's Fleet Supply. I'm planning on bringing my rear shaft out to them for a complete rebuild at the end of the week.

 

Got my rear driveshaft rebuilt by Gregory's Fleet Supply, a local shop that specializes in driveshaft-related work. According to the tech who performed the work, my carrier bearing was a little rough, and at least one of my u-joints was basically toast. The guy seemed very busy and a little scatterbrained, so I didn't ask for more details on his findings.

The following parts were installed in my rear shaft:

Spicer 5-1330X non-greasable u-joints, qty 3
PTI 1380-60 center support bearing (this part can be interchanged with the Spicer equivalent part P/N 5002007 according to Action Machine: https://www.actionmachineinc.com/products/5002007?variant=40214994026647)



I lined up the index marks on the driveshaft yokes and transfer case/rear diff, which I made prior to removing the driveshaft. I then reinstalled the bolts and nuts at the front and rear, torqued them to the factory spec of 65 ft-lbs, and finally installed the carrier bearing bolts to 27 ft-lbs. The test drive was easy, new-car smooth with no vibrations whatsoever.

I didn't have any work done to my front driveshaft. I hardly ever use 4WD, so I assume the wear and tear on those u-joints is minimal.

 

Wow, that’s a great price for the work done. Looking at my Amazon receipts from 6 years ago, I paid $170 for a spicer carrier bearing and three u joints. Another $100 in labor is a no brainer to not deal with that ass pain.

 

I watched a couple DIY videos on swapping the carrier bearing and u-joints, just to see if it was feasible. While I'm sure I could do it given a couple extra tools and enough time, balancing the finished assembly is another thing entirely. I've been very lucky with my lack of driveline vibrations, and I would like to keep that going for as long as I can.

 

Austin, it’s new tire day. I have good news and bad news and I think you can guess both from this pic.

 

The blue oval claims another victim. Randy nooooooooooooooo!

Seriously though, I hope it's good to you. What model did you get?

 

I hope so too. The good news was that I got the Michelin grandpa tires, piggybacking off of your research. So far I like them!

I got a 2022 f150 with the 2.7 ecoboost. So far I love it, hopefully that lasts.

 

Small update on a small part. I noticed one of my license plate lights flickering this morning. These are the same Diode Dynamics HP5 LED bulbs I ordered back in March of 2021, along with replacement LEDs for my reverse lights:

I ended up getting a little less than 4 years of use out of these, which is a bit of a bummer since they cost $20 a pair:

https://www.diodedynamics.com/194-hp5-led-bulbs.html

I decided to go back to halogen bulbs, buying some Philips 168LLB2s I found locally for $6/pair. LED replacement bulbs are just not as reliable as the original.

 

The issue I had with my headlights back in November 2023 resurfaced recently:

My area got hit with some intense rain this past Sunday, which continued through the night and into the next morning. I got a free car wash out of the deal, then parked in the garage when I returned home. The next morning, symptoms manifested similar to the ones described in my quoted post above. Well sh!t, that's not great.

I ordered a replacement Morimoto Motocontrol H4/9003 wiring harness from Lightwerkz, the same guys who did my RX350 retrofit. I didn't replace the wiring itself, just the gold-colored control box. I also slathered a whole mess of dielectric grease into every connector I could find. The weird malfunction is resolved, and hopefully it stays that way.

 

The same headlight malfunction I experienced in November 2023 (at 90.9k miles) and March of this year (at 116.9k miles) appeared once more a week ago (at 117.9k miles). This sort of trend is indicative of a root problem that needs to be addressed. Time to do some digging.

Thankfully, TW is an outstanding resource for all sorts of troubleshooting. I stumbled across a few posts from @BadDNA, who seems to have experienced a nearly identical issue with similar symptoms:

Corrective measures

In BadDNA's case, water intrusion led to the pins inside the IA1 connector shorting out on each other as well as corroding. Considering how similar my symptoms were, I thought it wise to try the same approach.



I got all up inside my driver's side footwell, located the IA1 connector, and unplugged it to take a look.



While it's pretty hard to see, the lower-left pins in the connector are a blue-green color. This clearly indicates water intrusion and corrosion.



I grabbed a toothbrush and scrubbed out the connector as best I could, cleaning up with some q-tips. I then applied an alarming amount of dielectric grease to the connector, to prevent further water-induced issues.

Plugging the connector back in yielded results that were different, but not better. While my headlights were now turning off when ordered, my high beams were still stuck on with the headlights engaged. Further investigation was required.



I removed the DIM (high/low beam select) relay from the under-hood fuse panel and disassembled it. I also pulled the HEATER relay to use as a reference, since it is the same type of relay. As you can see, the DIM relay's contacts are welded together, rendering the little lever arm immobile. That certainly explains why I don't have low beam functionality.



I ordered a new DIM relay, OEM P/N 90080-87025, and installed it. Testing yielded proper headlight function



Preventive measures

I fixed the immediate problem, but I had not addressed the root cause. Where was the water causing these issues coming from?

After I got my replacement windshield installed back in September 2023 (at 86.2k miles), I recall feeling moisture on my left foot while driving in inclement weather. I didn't think anything of it at the time, so I didn't bother contacting the installer (Glass America) to ask what was going on. Looking back at the timeline of events, the correlation between windshield replacement and headlight issues is apparent. The corrosion I found on the IA1 connector - which is easily within the "drip path" of water coming through the bottom edge of the windshield - solidifies this theory in my mind. While I don't have any conclusive evidence to prove this accusation, I believe my logic is sound.

As such, I have scheduled a windshield replacement appointment with Glass King, my local dealership's preferred glass guy. I suspect this will prevent further occurrences of these weird electrical issues.