Gordi's 2011 Silver Tacoma Build Thread

see u guys tomorrow at noon @m3bassman @Speedytech7

 

ordered a few tslot track nuts. Thanks @Crom for the reference.

http://www.grizzly.com/products/T-Slot-Nuts-pk-of-4-9-16-Slot-3-8-16/G9513

 

Nice to see you moving your build thread forward. Ironically, I just repositioned one of my eye-bolts / t-slot nuts in the track this weekend. Haven't moved them in years.

 

i want them for my bike mounts on the front rail, since i sold the soft topper i had i can now use them again. Im always in your build lurking bc you get that truck and your family out all the time and i think its wicked awesome.

 

Haha its easy to envy someone when they're out there doing what you want to be doing! I feel the same way

 

Few weeks ago my brother started getting a grinding sound from his drivers side wheel and came by the house and checked his rotor/caliper and all was good, put the tire back on and shook the wheel and it moved like it was about to fall off haha. So we ordered up a new wheel bearing and hub assembly from a vendor on tacoma world. We left the truck on jack stands, the part arrived.


Then we set to work on taking the old one off, he has a 2007 access cab v6 4x4 with 70k miles, 3 inch lift and 33s. Needless to say the rear seal is what also failed and allowed dirt into the bearing and with the lift and miles, toyota just has this problem. That mother fucker was on there.....4lbs deadblow mallet and a air hammer/chisel was the best route. Finally got it off and the huge 35mm nut for the axle hub.



https://www.tacomaworld.com/media/img_0153.511017/






Mmmmmm toasty. So 175 bucks later( which is a great price) plus some bearing grease, hes riding right again and all is well.

 

Next up was my try at a retro fit projector for my headlights, I ordered the d2s and apollo 3.0 shrouds 5500k 35 watt HIDs from TRS. Great deal, I did not go with halos as the cost for what they are also the amount of work i didnt really want to do them that much. Plus my OCD, if one LED went out i would have to open these and replace. Not worth it to me, the goal was to paint most of it black, do color match shroud thanks to my buddy ty for the suggestion ( @xtyfighterx ). I chose to leave the blinker and DTRL bowl chrome as i prefer the function of it and saw many blacked out ones that you could not see very well.


before


the split.....this took the biggest balls, never felt right either haha. I did 270 for 8 minutes pulled apart with no screw driver or anything. Note to self make sure tape and stuff is off cardboard when baking or it will smoke and you will think something is wrong, run into the kitchen and set the smoke alarm off for nothing.



Once apart I scuffed the chrome with a 600 grit sandpaper and a scotch brite pad. Then my plan was hit it with an adhesion promoter let it dry for a day then paint with gloss black. Results were bad.






Basically what we guessed was i waited too long between coats, since it bubbled and ran, I did light coats but what happened is the lower coat was curing while i sprayed another over it and the gasses under built up. Either way......WTF happened im not sure. I did the same exact procedure for the shrouds and they came out great.


So now im thinking how do i get all this off. Went to the web. Auto parts store had stuff called aircraft pain stripper in a spray can, spray it on let it cook and then i used the sink spray and a piece of steel wool, literally paint and chrome all came off. WIN! minus that shit got on my arm and burned like a hot iron for 2 hours. Prolly should have a respirator on also or do it outside but I survived so far.

Then I sanded the hell out of them to basically semi rough plastic and get the corners and edges well. 400 grit and lots of time.


Much better adhesion surface, this time im going to use a plastic paint/primer and then clear coat that, it was a more viscous paint. I used my garage and work lamp to heat the bowls and stuff for an hour and it worked well.

haha

Also the back part that you have to sand off, I thought i cleared enough off with a belt sander and was supposed to use this washer that had 3 legs off it. After test fitting that was a NO, I needed to take alot more off.


dont use this washer at all.




Better.

Now on to the second painting, this is a compilation of the panting and mocking it up and clear coating it too.













Ha ha next was getting them assembled and on the truck to make sure my cut off line was right and then JB weld the back nut. Mind you it needs to be night to do this.






Needed a little height adjustment but it was midnight and i wanted to get the weld on since it was straight.

Next was the assembly and re baking, forgot to take pictures, but i used TRS butyl which was great, I packed an ass load around it because i wanted this as a one time deal. I place clamps all around it and baked it again at 270 for 8 minutes. 7 minutes on one was not long enough, I then pressed it together and sank the three screw in her. Then let it cool, after that i wanted to be damn sure so i filled the tub with water and plunged all the edges in for 30 seconds....she held tight, the titanic aint got nothing on these babys. Then I placed them back on the truck in a damn rainstorm as I need the truck for work today. Got them adjusted well enough but will fix them tonight more.


life saving mod for this.


drivers side ballast.

passenger side behind wash reservoir. Then cleaned up the wiring nice so that it does not look like a rats nest.

Lastly I snagged some this morning just before heading to work, no water in them at all after the storm we had all is well.



Ill get some better ones later.

My impressions are, these are great and the light output destroys the stock tacoma headlights which was always a complaint to me. Glad I did it, but god it was a lot of work. took me about 3 weeks. I Ran some stock headlights i borrowed from @SjTacoSharks while i built these. Thanks dude! Be prepared to scratch them and have little things happen that will bother you and make u redo it, Also take the chrome off to paint. TRS kit is a great one and all the parts are really quality. Also if you have wife or spouse and you dont explain to them your gonna put your headlight in the oven and then the alarm goes off and she wakes up and asks you what the hell ur doing. Maybe tell them before hand haha. Her face was priceless, she said i also looked like I had just lost a loved one.

Any questions feel free to ask @xtyfighterx or @deeezy or @gym_jamz - they were a ton of help and really good information.

 

looks shitty if you ask me

 

would u trade me for yours.

 

You know what I would of done different?......jk ha simple and clean. Can't wait to check then out when I get home.

 

Awesome! Looks great and I mounted my ballast in the same location and no problems at all. Glad you like it!

 

ha fuck your halos! idk where to even fit more of the wiring and shit. Plus i sealed these bastards and im never gonna open them again haha.

 

copied it from you.

 

Let me tell you, great place to place them hahah

 

Nah I like mine

 

they do have the nice downunder the sea feature

 

just what I like

 

Don't jynx yourself.

 

literally the butyl was seeping out the edges and screw holes. I soaked them in the tub and nothing came in.

 

Knocked out a few things this weekend and got some pictures of completed mods that I had done,

My old fender liners were falling apart and after the removal of them for the LR UCA install they were pretty sad. So i ordered some rubber off Amazon for 25 bucks and recut them all and made them cover more areas so hopefully it stays a touch cleaner.

previous ones


new ones




Next was the install of wheelers front super bumps.....these help a ton on dirt roads, the stock one is a hockey puck that has no give.
https://www.tacomaworld.com/media/img_0140.511004/

Make sure u have a pipe wrench to take the stock one off it made the job 15 mins.

Also finished here are some pictures of the LR uca install and bilstein 5100 on 0 with 886 coils so you can see i went with setting D on them. Im at 3 degrees caster and 0 toe and 0 camber.




Tech said these were super nice to work with and was glad to set my numbers with what I asked.

Lastly I finished up the CB radio install with a ON/Off button so that I could leave the volume set and didnt have to open the center console to turn it on and off all the time.


on off switch


Also threw on a Grid it for the lid.

Only down side is if anything is to heavy it closes the lid on u. I put stuff up there i need for emergency or not very often moments.