First thing you did to your 2nd Gen....

Recently bought my first Taco and joined this forum at about the same time. I'm about 21 days from returning home and based on pictures I've seen done and reading - I have a million things I want to do to the truck. I already have a decent amount of parts I'm waiting to install from used to new. But what's the first thing each one of you did to your Taco? Mines a Prerunner, so I've thought about debadging it- just so I don't have to explain why I didn't get a 4x4- as if it's the end of the world that I didn't buy one. . Looking forward to getting some ideas that I haven't already thought about. I posted some pictures of what I have to look forward to.

 

Decent floor mats.

 

if you're going to de-badge to fool people that it's not a Prerunner you'll need to ditch those rear mudflaps as well. That's a dead giveaway

 

I picked up some weather techs from Oey12 off the forum! Wife should be installing them along with these sometime today. Hoping when I get back the Ray10s in Gunmetal will have arrived and I'll mount those.

 

I had researched prices for the OEM roof rack, hood deflector, wheel locks, and sidesteps and found them from another dealer with the cheapest price. So I ended up picking up my truck from one dealer and driving directly to another dealer across town to pick them up. Went home and installed all 4 that night.

 

Took off my mudflaps the second I got home from the dealer, sold them on ebay for $75.

 

Bedmat.

 

Beautiful truck man!

First real mod I did was lift, wheels and tires. After that I blacked out my emblems, painted my grille and put a new mesh insert in, blacked out my headlights and put some lights behind the grille.

As far as ideas for mods, what're you into? Exterior mods, interior, comfort, flashy stuff, small touches...?

 

Yea- I have had nothing but time to drool over everyone's mods and do some reasearch. I already have the hood deflectors, oem roof rack and oem tonneau cover are lined up to purchase from people off Craigslist. Had my buddies brother pick up a oem skid plate also.
Other stuff purchased:
Volant CAI + Ram Air
Pioneer deck
********* Sub box w/ Speakers & Amp
...so far. Also misc- stuff for doing a tune-up.

 

I did 2 things when my truck was just 1-2 days old.

1. I put heat shrink on the hood support rod end so it wouldn't scratch up the paint on the hood after years of use. (Still had my 82 toyota 4x4 at the time and it was all scratched up there.)

2. I added a double male connector and extended the AC drain hose down below the frame so it wouldn't run out on the frame and rust it over time.

 

Yeah I didn't add my Bakflip until a year later. Wish I had known about it right away. It's one of the best purchases I've ever made for my Tacoma.

 

Well thanks to you for giving me an awesome deal on the CAI. I actually have homertaco on my mind about the grill or just buying an aftermarket to do my own. I'm on the fence about lifting. I told my wife this was my work truck and it's starting to turn into a project work truck.

 

At the time of the deal, roof rack and bug deflector. My first real mod was 5% tint all around, and after that was debadging the truck.

Clean the truck btw!

 

Thanks. My wife wanted me to wait to get home to get a truck, but she deebo'd my daily driver because she started working. Thought I was crazy to buy it- without physically seeing the thing or test driving it. Couldn't pass up the color and how cleaned it looked. Got a warranty on it. Lil over 100K miles, but picked it up at 14K. Now that it's at the house- she's actually digging it.

 

Yeeaaaaah buddy!

You could get away with ~1.5" lift up front to level it out. No negative side effects there

As for a new grille, if you take your time over a weekend for example it's easy to do. Nothing difficult, just time consuming. If you wanted to go satoshi though, I've heard it's "easy" but I've never tried myself.

 

Is that what you went with as far as lift? I'm thinking about visiting some friend over in San Diego- I'll make sure if I do, I'll hit you up so we can have some beers.

 

When I first lifted my truck I went with Bilstein 5100s set at 2.5", then years later bought some Maxtrac spindles which give 4" of lift and dropped the 5100s down to 0" setting for a total of 4" of lift. Now I have Icon 2.5 coilovers with the maxtrac spindles at idk 5 or 6" of lift.
I've done a lot of reading on all the various options out there haha.
You can see the pictures of all the various stages in my build thread. I won't clutter your thread with more pictures lol.

Those 5100s have various "clip" settings.
0", .85", 1.75" and 2.5" (sorry I mentioned 1.5" earlier, it's actually 1.75")
0" is stock, no change. Bilstein valves them for a lifted truck so the yellow and blue 4600 line would actually work better for this setting.
.85" will still keep a factory rake to the truck, where the rear is slightly higher than the front.
1.75" levels out the truck nicely so it's pretty much even front to back.
2.5" will give you a little so cal bro lean.

Anytime you make it down here feel free to hit me up man! I'm down for some beers and shoot the shit about our trucks

 

There's nothing wrong with a 2WD..80% of us in CA don't need 4WD..A transfer case is just one more thing to break..
Throw a 'real" locker in there and go wherever you want

 

First thing I did was take the dealer stickers off.

 

Tinted the winders