deusxanime's 2020 Cement OR 6MT mods/upgrades/build

Maybe I shouldn't browse the What Have You Done To Your 3rd Gen Today? thread, because now I'm starting to buy things I didn't even know I needed!

Saw those interior liners on there and thought I'd give them a try.

Here's pics of a few of them:





There were a few extra because they send you the inserts for both automatic and manual trucks. Even so, I had this one extra and can't figure out what it is supposed to be for. Any ideas?

 

That was it for last weekend. I got to the trailer brake controller (and MESO panel to go with it) later during the week. That post will be fairly long with lots of pictures, so I'll try to get to it later tonight!

Also, updated the OP with post and product links and part numbers for up to this far.

 

solid weekend. All those lights are now on my short list

 

Got busy again running around and getting ready for winter! It came a month early this year in MN so I had to scramble to get leaves picked up, stuff put away, garage/shed rearranged, etc etc. And we are getting another good snowfall as I type this! So a bit of a delay on the write up for the brake controller and MESO panel, but I knew it would take a bit, so wanted to give it the proper amount of time.

As you may remember (I think I wrote about it in a previous post anyway), I bought a MESO custom left side panel with BBBB on top (and stock setup on the bottom) and tried to install it previously. I ran into a problem because the OEM switches from over there did not fit in the universal B cutouts that MESO uses. After messaging him, he offered to trim them out some more for me if I sent it back to him. I did so and got it back no problem, and now the switches fit in there without the "keys" binding on the sides!

I pulled apart under my dash again and got everything ready to swap it out. I took the old left side panel out and tried to install the MESO panel and I have to say the fit was not as good as I hoped. I realize the custom ones are 3D printed and not molded (not sure if the standard ones are molded either though), so maybe not as precise, but I was having a lot of trouble. Unfortunately I was looking at it from behind trying to line up the clips when pushing it in there and not keeping an eye on the front. I really had to force it to get it in place and finally managed to snap it in after quite a bit of struggling. I turned it over after and sadly could see where it was binding when I was pushing it in because the panel got scuffed up where it rubbed. Sadly I'm kind of anal/OCD about that and it is going to bug me every time I think of it now...





Also there is a pretty decent size gap on the other side:


Not going to dwell on it anymore or it will keep bugging me, so moving on...

Now that I had it in place I could see where I had to do cutting to get things to fit if I wanted to use the top left or right buttons:


I'm guessing something used to use that bracket and holes for mounting, or there was some plan to, but they aren't needed so you can cut them out with no issues. I only plan on using the left side for the time being, but decided to just do the right one as well since I had the dremmel out (had to buy one which added another $70 to this project). It doesn't affect anything and would save me time in the future if I ever put something there.

Let the cutting begin! (Actually it seemed more like the dremmel just melted the plastic rather than cutting, but oh well it worked either way.)





I taped up a plastic bag behind it because I didn't want any little bits to go into the wiring and harnesses back there. I ended up pretty much using the "bump" as a guide and just cut it out around that. As I said, it more melted than cut it, so there wasn't a whole lot of "saw dust" but there were little bits of plastic around so I'm glad I did put up a bit of protection. Just vacuumed up the whole area afterwards because it was hard to see the little black plastic bits on the black carpet. In hindsight maybe I should have put a bag or cardboard or something on the floor to catch some there as well.

Here's the finished product:


And here's how it looks now with the panel in front. All clear now!


Next step is installing the brake controller itself, so I'll leave that for next post.

 

Now that the panel area was prepped, I had to figure out where to mount the brake controller's "brain" module. There was a bracket just behind the panel and under the steering wheel that worked pretty well, so I "mounted" (aka zip-tied) it to the bracket:


It took a bit of routing of the wires over the top there and many zip-ties to keep them in place, but I got it in there pretty well and out of the way of the clutch pedal assembly. Luckily the wiring was pretty long and that gave me enough room to go over the top and then down the left to the truck side of the brake controller harness, which you can kind of see back there:


There was a ground wire that I found a bolt to connect to and it was pretty much set!

Btw, I can't remember if I posted this previously back when I did it, but I used a Tekonsha wiring harness/pigtail to connect from the truck to the Redarc. Here's a picture of that assembled:


Next was re-mounting the switches into the panel, including the new Redarc button (and an OEM blank on the other side for now). I bought a small switch mount with the brake controller and it made it super simple and clean to put in there. Almost looks factory!


Here's another view with the lower trim reinstalled (and winter mats too):


Again the fitment of the panel was a little disappointing. The OEM switches/buttons now fit without binding after the cutout was trimmed on the sides for the "keys", but a in a couple holes this didn't snap in very well at the top and bottom where the main clips were. When I was reconnecting the wires to them I actually ended up pushing a couple of them back out because they were a bit loose and floppy. Once it is mounted you of course won't be pushing from behind, only from the front which is solid and isn't going to push through in that direction or anything of course, so they work fine now, but again I KNOW they are kind of loosely in there...

[ Note: One other warning, not panel related, but I ran into this problem and almost caused some major issues! When I tried to pull the cargo light switch out I couldn't figure it out. After some fiddling I found a couple clips I thought might release it, but it turns out that actually separates the switch in half, exposing the internals of it. When I pulled it apart, stuff went FLYING! There are some internal parts that use springs and are pretty delicately in there and it just sprung when it came apart. Luckily I found the pieces that had gotten away and was able to figure out how to reassemble it. Be careful though if you are pulling that switch out of the panel that you do it correctly and don't end up taking it apart like I did!! ]

Once everything was done I tested all the switches and buttons to make sure they worked and then took it for a drive around. You have to drive with it for a little while and do stop/starts for the brake controller module to learn the direction of travel etc. and calibrate itself. So I drove it around a while to let it do that and then got back home and just hooked it up to my parked camper trailer to make sure it was working. Everything seems to be good and I'll be dropping the camper off for winterization and then storage here this coming week, so a couple around town trips to make sure it is fully good-to-go.

 

So any tips on getting the cargo light switch out the right way?

you had a Tekonsha before? Redarc is better?

 

Finally, to catch up to current times, on Tuesday I got a strip of XPEL PPF put on at the top of my tailgate, just above the handle. This is where you usually would grab it to lift and close it, so I thought a strip of film would help protect it from getting scratched by fingers rubbing dirt and salt into the paint there.

 

It's hard to explain without pictures and it is all reassembled now so don't want to take it apart to get them (in hindsight I should have taken some), but I'll try to remember...

So the entire cargo light switch slides into a rectangular cutout "box" and that cutout has a couple holes on each side. There are a couple "wedges" on the switch that slide into those holes and that is what holds it in place. Usually with switches there are tabs or something you depress to pull out the switch, but that is where I was mislead. There is something you can depress and pull out but that is what disassembles the whole switch as I found out! To just pull the switch out of the panel, as I said is it just the wedges on the side that slide into the holes on the sides of the "box". Unfortunately the wedges don't depress or anything that I could see to make it easy to slide out, you just have to bend the sides of the "box" up enough to get the wedges to back out. It is a bit concerning because you feel like you are deforming the mounting box, but I couldn't get it out (properly) any other way. Hopefully that makes sense or will make more sense if you try it yourself and have it in front of you to see what I mean!

As for the brake controller, the Tekonsha P3 I had before worked fine (after the botched wiring was fixed), but it is all-in-one and so it was kind of a big, bulky thing sticking out from that left side. I used the ESP mounting bracket that went into the old cubby slot, and that caused about half the Tekonsha to jut out. The Redarc has separate brains and button, so the visible footprint is much smaller, as you can see in my pictures. Also due to that, it almost looks OEM, which I appreciate. They are both good Pro controllers, so I don't think you can go wrong with either as long as you are OK with how it looks. @MESO now has a cutout on his custom panels for the P3 that hides it very well. I already had bought the Redarc to install when he came out with that, or I might have reconsidered and just stuck with the Tekonsha and gotten that panel setup instead.

 

Updated the OP with related product links and part number for the above stuff.

Between winter being here and mostly being done with my current plans, things will slow down, but there's still a few things coming up:

• I managed to snag a @MESO flip fob in Cement! As some of you are on that thread (there are two threads so it gets confusing...) and know, I'm probably going to wait a bit and see if a "new" key can be built (@tonered is attempting with parts from various places) without having to destroy one of my existing keys. So that will be a WIP and I'll get to it when I feel it is ready. Luckily that is an "indoor" project so no worries about winter there.
  
• @MESO sent me resistors for the Total Taillights Stage 1s since I had the reverse+blinker hyperflash. Since they stick on with adhesive, they may have to wait until a good warmup or spring comes since I'm not sure how well the adhesive would adhere in freezing or near freezing temperatures.
• @7r41lbr34k3r has made a new design for his shift boot collar holder-upper and he sent me a couple to test out - one in black and one gray. I'll be testing them out and we'll see how they look and if the grey matches the Cement or TRD ball knob at all!
• A bit further out, but I still have my 4Runner TRD Pro SEMA 17" wheels that I want to use. Going to run the Off-Road wheels and tires until next spring/summer and then will look at what kind of tires I want to mount on the T4R wheels. Current fav is Toyo Open Country A/T III's but there is a bit of sorting out to do on what comes with what as different ratings seem to have different sidewalls. Hopefully it'll be figured out by the time I'm ready to buy.
• 2Lo mod!

 

Yeah, I saw the MESO Tekonsha cubby and thought that was where you'd go, hence the q on Redarc. I've seen others pick that one. Highly likely I make my choice following yours if I get anything to tow in the future so I wanted to understand the reasons. Small footprint and hidden brain are nice +'s. I suspect the lever on the Tekonsha might feel more satisfying to slide with it's larger range of motion? But perhaps turning a knob to a setting and leaving it on that setting is better for actually towing stuff?

I'm considering aborting on the switchpros cubby I have and going full OEM small + cargo + tall for clutch start cancel like you have. That might be more future-proof and versatile, minus the trouble with switch fitment/filing you had to deal with.

Now, if switchpros had an integrated brake controller...

 

The Tekonsha you adjust the brake % for general towing using buttons and it activates when you push the brake pedal on the truck. The lever is for momentary/emergency braking and is manually triggered.

The dial on the Redarc is for adjusting how much braking % for general towing, same as above is activated when you push the truck's brakes. You push it in like a button for the momentary/emergency/manual braking.

So they both operate with similar concepts, just different placement and functions of buttons and dials/levers.

 

Despite the weather not wanting to cooperate, I put the new @7r41lbr34k3r shift boot cap on. Decided to go with the grey "Pro" one for now, maybe I'll change my mind later! Couple pics here, but a ton in the thread if you want to see more and what the black one looked like.

 

Btw, I forgot one of the most important mods I still need to do in my "to do" list I posted a few days ago (added it now)! I have had the 2Lo mod sitting around for a while that I need to get in. Another thing I bought for my 2019 but ended up waiting since I didn't want to tear it all apart, install it for a few months, and then have to tear it all apart again to pull it out before trading in. Again, at this point, I'll probably wait until spring for that and do it when the weather is warmer and nicer.

 

Did a bit of a write up on the effect of the SumoSprings and Redarc on towing my camper trailer. Go check out the thread and post if you are interested in reading that.

 

That's a fun mod

 

I have one of the new @MESO flip fobs and am working towards getting that setup. With @daveeasa's help I've programmed a new/used key to gut and move components into the flip fob. I was able to get that key's lock/unlock buttons and transponder programmed tonight, so next step will be the actual disassembly and extraction.

On another note, when I was backing up and it was dark I noticed one of my license plate bulbs looks like it is out already. Disappointing since I put the LED replacements in there with the hope that I'd never need to touch them again, or at least for a long long time, and it has been less than a month I think. Not looking forward to pulling that apart again; if you remember I have the underbody Woolwax'ed, so everything is slippery under there now. I'll have to see if just fiddling with it gets it going again, or if it already went completely bad. Not sure if I can still return/exchange to runnin4tacos or will need to warranty it through the manufacturer. Either way, a PITA for something that was supposed to be fire and forget!

 

I have extras. Bought my set from the dreaded beast before I knew any better and they sent me two kits instead of one. Plus I'm planning to yank my map lights to do MESO there so I'll have extras from the first set once those are in (they are the same bulb).

So, yeah, lemme know if no bueno and I'll send you a pair.

 

Awesome, thanks for the offer! Too bad I didn't find it out before you sent me the cable and key or you could have just tossed one in there. Oh well, hopefully r4t will be good and replace it without hassle. I'll report back on what happens.

 

A little behind as this was about a week ago, but I did get the @MESO flip fob in Cement. With @daveeasa's help I got an old used key, reprogrammed it, and moved the guts into the flip fob. Brought it to Home Depot to get cut, which they did for free since I already had the "blank" and it has been working great! Didn't even have to file down the buttons or anything crazy.

 

Black buttons on cement look good. This is my most likely FF#2