jberry's Retarded Desert Penguin

The subs ended up working out great. It gives a decent bass to complement the otherwise stock speakers in the truck. It's not going to be rattling anyone's fillings out, but that wasn't my goal. My goal was to keep the jump seats fully working, and put a bump in the truck. The cab is small and the subs are not fighting through a trunk so they perform pretty damn good. The subs themselfs are crap, probably close to 10 years old now, but it get's the job done.

Thanks!

 

I'm no stranger to cubby hole subwoofers
I did a similar setup in my Tundra but in that I went all out and fiberglassed the enclosure and it's air tight and hits HARD (since I replaced the subs with some JL audios).
I was going to do the same thing for the Tacoma, but fiberglass is so much work. It was like 3 days of work to do the fiberglass box in my Tundra and I really wasn't that motivated to do all that all over again. So for the Tacoma though, quite honestly, I didn't come up with the idea myself. I never bothered doing a writeup cause I found everything I needed from other people's posts.

Check out this thread on Custom Tacos:
http://www.customtacos.com/forum/showthread.php?t=95004

There's like 100 different kind of sub setups all for 1st gens. Some are kind of...extreme, but i just stole all my ideas from that thread.

Below are a few pictures stolen from CT that help illustrate what I did. Sorry, but pulling all my subs out now to take pix would be too much of a PITA.

There are 12 bolts that hold the metal bracing for the cubby holes to the interior body. Unbolt those 12 bolts and the whole thing comes out in 2 parts. I just layered the bottom side of the bracing, and the entire back side of the cab with dynamat material and then bolted it all back together again. I also cut out the bracing that held the jack and tire changing tools. Never gonna need them again anyway.



Then filled in all the cracks and crevices with foam similar to this (again stolen pic):



Wear gloves if you use this foam crap. I didn't and it took over a week to get this shit off my hands.

I then just cut a couple of pieces of 1/2 MDF out to replace the cubby hole covers. Used the old cubby hole covers as stencils. Carpet it up and screw it all together with some sheetmetal screws and call it done. Oh yeah, I had to pull a couple of the plastic covers off that hide the hinges of the seat so the seat wouldn't bind when they came down.

The amp hides nicely under the driver's seat and wires ran under the carpet.

All completely reversable too should I ever decide to get rid of them.

 

Well its supposed to be another sunny weekend in California. This is both good news and bad news. The bad news, the snow in Tahoe is still complete shit not worth the drive (should be remedied by the storms next week though). The good news, my deckplate came in today. I got a couple weekend projects in the making...deckplate airbox mod of course being the first, and the second is a MYSTERY project
More pix to come!!!

Thanks guys. I never thought my truck would get as much attention and props as it has.

 

Thanks. It was mandatory...what good is a truck if you can't fit the snowboards

Careful what you offer. I just might take you up on it.
After 5 years on a spacer lift and an AAL, the STOCK shocks on the Tundra are shot, and I got my eye on the Bilstein 5100 replacements....

Thanks! But sir? C'mon, i'm only 5 years older than you.

 

As I mentioned in my original post, I installed the Inchworm E-Locker Guard. This thing is pretty cool and very well built, but on an all black truck, it stands out like a sore thumb. At a quick glance it looks like I splattered a smurf on my way to work. My front and rear shocks both have some blue in it, but I've really been on the fence about rattle canning it black or not. In the meantime, I photoshopped up a sticker for shits and giggles. Nobody will probably ever notice unless I point it out, but it cost me 5 bux for two stickers so why not.



While crawling underneith the truck, I noticed the corner of the locker guard was actually scraping the gas tank skid plate.







I read this was a semi-common problem with pretty much every locker guard and having the LT rear suspension probably doesn't help. Not to worry! Nothing 2 minutes with a griding wheel didn't fix. I just notched off the corner and problem solved. To my suprise, krylon has smurf blue in their linup. It's not a perfect match, but it's close enough!

 

Deck Plate Mod

No reinventing the wheel here. I found out about this mod on both TW and CT forums and have yet to read anything bad about it. I purchased a Beckson 4" screw out deck plate from ebay for $15 shipped.



For those of you not familiar with the deck plate mod, I encourage you to read this how to: http://www.customtacos.com/tech/index.php?article=85

For the most part I followed these instructions. I found it easier to cut out the hole with my jigsaw as opposed to a dremmel. Doesn't really matter as long as the hole is big enough to fit

Now some before and after photos:








Homelink Install

I love modern conveniences. My Tundra and the wife's mall crawler 4Runner both have Homelink and I love it! No fumbling in the center console and no ridiculous remotes hanging from the visor. Alas the 1st gen tacos don't have a whole lot of options for retrofitting. My first thought was a gentex mirror with homelink built in, but our rearview mirrors are not attached to the windshield. Removing the existing mirror and putting it on the windshield would look rediculous to me too. After googleing the hell out of "tacoma homelink" I only really came up with 2nd gen options. However I found several insightful writeups on TW for retrofitting a sun visor homelink module.

http://www.tacomaworld.com/forum/2nd-gen-tacomas/6610-not-your-typical-homelink-install.html
http://www.tacomaworld.com/forum/2nd-gen-tacomas/54783-headliner-homelink-install.html
http://www.tacomaworld.com/forum/2n...nstall-homelink-garage-opener-w-pictures.html

The second and third articles were especially useful and gave me enough courage to attempt it on my 1st gen. I picked up a beige rolling code homelink module off fleabay for a whopping $25 shipped.



I wanted to install the module behind the map lights. To gain access to this area, just pop off the covers to the map lights. There are 4 screws that hold the mirror and lights to the ceiling of the cab. I also pulled the two sun visor clips off.



I just following the aforementioned articles and cut a hole in the headliner. Wiring was simple. Just tapped the power off the map lights and grounded using one of the screws that hold the mirror up. The results are fanfuckingtastic. It came out way better than I expected and, dare I say, it almost looks factory.





After putting it all back together I noticed there was still a little bit too much wiggle room between the back of the module and the roof of the cab. I folded up a piece of cardboard and wedged it in between the two and now it works flawlessly.

Hella Covers Get A Makeover

Yeah, you guessed it...black

 

All this time, I thought my wife just stayed with me cause it was convienent. As it turns out, she really does like me.

Happy Valentine's day to me!!!!!