Dick's Dank Yank Wank Tank

Sweet, prefect, thanks. I was actually bothering to google it just as you sent that. LOL.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=SNxu2_p5NkQ

 

Scott what offset are your wheels?

 

zero, 4.5 BS

 

Do you have a pic of them looking straight down the truck, showing how they poke out (or not)?

Enjoy your weekend alone, I miss the family dearly when they're gone, but I've only had 2 weekends of absolute freedom in the past 9 months and both weekends I ended up having to work.

 

I think this is my first time going through your build, truck looks awesome but I'm a little biased. My topper used to be MGM as well

 

Oh shit, that sucks. Last night was the best night of sleep I have had since August. Just went to bed at 1030 and drooled asleep until 630, alarm went off I told it to fuck itself, and slept another hour. I've been out in the garage or running to O'Reilly or Home Depot in pretty much all my free time.

Posted these in some other thread, can't remember if ST Maxx or SCS.









Which is part of why I got these

 

Thanks.

I forgot about the sleep, yes. The sleep is wonderful.

Eating like a bachelor wasn't bad either.

 

Yeah. Last two nights was take out. LOL.

 

Yes, a small flat blade screwdriver to pop the lens out. More like spreading the gap between the lens and the thin lip of the housing if I remember correctly, and maybe another small screwdriver or plastic probe to pop the lens out. The bulb is more of a challenge to get out, as its friction fit into its holder surrounded by a reflector that does not leave enough room for fingers. One trick is to use a piece of tubing (think clear tygon) to push onto the bulb, and when you pull the tubing tightens onto the bulb and tugs it out. That or a small plastic flat blade to pry it out between the base of the bulb and its glass. Pushing the LEDs in is easier. (Use the eraser end of a pencil is one idea)

 

Yeah, I had never bothered to actually search for it yet, and someone else provided a link to this video:
https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/the-war-room-scocars-um-build.395251/page-37#post-12106050
And in another thread some one posted the "tape trick" for extracting the bulb, which is basically make a little tube shape of blue masking tape, pop that over the bulb, twist until the tape closes up on the bulb snugly, then pull out.

 

Thanks. LOL so you bouthg a used tone too, eh? It was such a great deal, and not hideous, I figured I'd suck up the bit of extra TLC I knew I'd get into. along with paint, and use the extra $1k or so to put into other mods.

So did you paint yours, or did you have it done professionally?

 

Homeroshi update...a bit redundant with what already posted in WDYDTYTT-SG thread.

Working on the emblem to prep for colormatch last week, masking before sanding. In retrospect, I should have begun this step later, but I was so goddamn excited to have the house to myself for a few evenings and a weekend for the first time since AUGUST, I could not wait to get started on something...




Then a lot of measuring and counting holes to try to determine centering location. Height is the easy part. Width is not. Horizontally asymmetrical emblem is 14 1/4 inches from top of T to bottom of A. I had two stainless M6 flat head phillips screws on hand. The shank fit perfectly through the mesh holes. So this is how I arrived at how to secure it, and they provided handy markers for layout. I went and bought 6 more with washers, nylocks, and regular nuts.



The heads of these screws would not sit flat in the deepest parts of the letter recesses, but they would span the two rabbeted edges. I figured that would be adequate to lay in a healthy dollop of epoxy that could be pressed into the phillips + recess to improve adhesion and help resist against nut torque, and the dollop could then spread out into the recessed channel a bit to adhere to a larger surface area. I had to experiment with number and arrangement of screws for best distribution in the available holes that align best with available letter recesses. A bit of an art. The correct answer is 4, by the way. A balance of mechanical adequacy and mental sanity.

[new photos added 3/29]


The bevel under the screw heads provides a perfect centering locator into the mesh holes, too. The trick would be to avoid getting too much epoxy that might squeeze up onto the mesh surface while setting the screw heads in perfect position as dictated by the mesh holes and their centering effect. The plan is to later come back after the initial placement setting and lay in more epoxy molded just over part of the screw head bevels to better capture and retain the heads, without concern for accidentally prematurely epoxying the whole unfinished mess to the grill and fucking up...everything.

I agonized over several epoxy types with great concern for how much time it would take to mix, dab up all the screw heads (4) very freaking carefully with runny, drippy, sticky stuff, then flip the emblem carefully over them while blindly feeling that they were dropping into their assigned recesses and I was not mashing epoxy all over the mesh, tape down the emblem, flip the entire grill over, then inspect and precisely check the set of all heads and the overall position of the emblem. Pretty much a classic glue-up freakout where you need to do a dry run and take some notes before the real deal. During the dry run, I also discovered the slightly curved spring factor of the mesh, which made me stop and figure out a way to weight the damn thing down to get the screw heads set in properly. Note the rag-wrapped bricks later....

I considered these epoxies:

LocTite Plastic: adheres ABS and stainless! Woohoo! But 5 minute initial set time! Oh shit!
PC7: works on metal and "some plastics" (no amount of research would reveal which). Initial set time, I don't recall, but I think about 10 minutes. Hmmm.
JB Weld. Good old, standard, it-will-repair-a-lathe, JB weld. Initial set, 4 hours. How can I go wrong?

I was going to test each for consistency given how I had to apply, but after mixing up the JB Weld and testing it, I felt it would be manageable.

Example of dollop in place, and showing the rabbeted inlays of the letters.



Making final position tweaks with slotted screwdriver levering against emblem protrusions.




The weighting game. LOL.


After set up. I'll layer a bit more epoxy over the screw head bevels next.
[new photo added 3/29]



Now I went to town on the other stuff.

Horn relocate. Followed write up by Cape Codder. Good stuff, just had to go get a few more stainless washers.



Behind-grill blackout of the AC condenser, a couple AC lines, a tiny bit of radiator frame peeking through on either side, and some rather large areas of sheet metal. The OEM grill hides much of the sheetmetal on either side. The mesh grill reveals it.

I also read up endlessly on the debates of painting thermal transfer assemblies, types of paint to use, etc. Bottom line, really doesn't matter for this application, this stuff doesn't really get very hot anyway, so I used some Krylon satin black paint with primer mixed in.

Masking was a time-consuming PITA. I disassembled the AT cooler brackets so I could move it and work around behind it. It is in the paper bag. No, that is not bourbon.



















Still working on the emblem....but I really like how clean it is with nothing.

 

Thanks. It was nice, no, a luxury, to have the time to just get lost in it uninterrupted.

Huge changes aesthetically from 9 months ago. Feel like I've made it mine, now.

 

Your truck is looking great!

 

I need to black out my radiator to make my chrome pop. Great write-up.

 

And I thought I was a bit OCD...

Great to see it on the truck!

 

Thanks, Chief. Ram Pal Guy.

 

Agree on the black out grill.

Any reason to use the letters? Nostalgia? Attachment?

I always miss my grill center being all black. Like.. literally every time I look at it.

 

I do like the old style Toyota badging. Takes me back to my 93. And since I've used removable hardware on my badge, I got opshuns.

At the same time, headed toward debadging all the modern chrome stuff.

But also at the same time, one might say simultaneously, I've thought of getting some old school decals to put at either side of the lowest part of the tailgate, below the crease, in gray (on top of Silver Sky), so like sorta ghosting old school.

Tacoma on one side, then SR5 and V6 on the other. Or the 4 Wheel Drive instead of SR5. No big TOYOTA logo. Photo just for reference to the smaller decals. I'd cut off the LX too, of course.





This is the general idea for placement:

 

Neat!