Removing front bumper valance

Only if you like extra extra butter...

 

HELL Yeah, who doesnt

 

What are your plans ? I don't think theres anyone else on this site that hates the glob of ugly ass plastic on a 1st gen more than me (on the 2000's anyway)

 

what do you mean what are my plans. im removing the plastic valance and putting my turn signals in with my corner lights and moving my fog lights down on the crossmember.

 

Ok, you remove the plastic valance, are you gonna leave the bottom half of your radiator exposed to damage from rocks ,etc; ?

 

idk what exactly im going to do about that yet. any suggestions?

 

im thinkin maybe a steel mesh of sum sort cut to size would work...

 

Well , you'll find like I did that its a bit of a no man's land as for ideas, most will just remove the whole damned bumper,never to return & opt for a pre runner type tube & hoop bumper with a skid in front of the open space I mentioned, I still haven't gotten around to fabricating my bumper yet but I had to protect the exposed radiator, so I found an old server rack & took a piece of steel mesh, kinda formed it to shape & used tek-tipped screws to attach, one row on the bottom & another you can't see that screws into the bottom of whats left of front bumper, kinda crappy pic & it looks better than it appears here...

 

ahh that is a good idea. and yea how can people just leave it exposed? kinda stupid to do so, but i might for the first day or two if i cant find anything to put in the spot and have to buy something, that or ill just wait to take the valance off one or the other.

 

Just forget about the fucking dinged up remains of front bumper, I had a little collision few months back, but this gives you a little idea anyway, what started me cutting away was on steep approaches or inclines, it would scrape on ground & it really pissed me off & since they're ugly as shit anyway I started mutilating it...

 

well thank you for the input! ill let ya know how it goes for me and what exactly i end up doin

 

Yeah do that, I need to finish my shit up , but got sidetracked & did other things suspension wise.....C_YA

 

They are those push-in plastic clips. I swear getting those out was the hardest part of the entire job. Managed to screw them up so bad they wouldn't go back in the holes and hold. Good old zip-ties fixed that.

 

well i got it off before it started raining and thats about it.so here is some pics for now...

 

Nice IFS flex Doug no sway bar?



I'm not much of a fan of removing the whole thing i like what Doug did with his. It's not a shit load of plastic like it is stock but there is some there so it don't look like you hit something and broke it off.

 

Thanks jerry !! Yeah I ditched that sway bar almost 2 years ago, love it without it too.. Ya know I just noticed that from '01 -'04 your guy's front bumpers have way less plastic hanging off the front, the '00 (like mine) is nothing BUT plastic except the 2 chrome pieces on the corners,. I cut about 14'' off mine looking for something solid to work with & well, you see the result...

 

my custom trimmed bumper
and yea i have 3" body lift and suspension also

 

Yeah Mines coming off next weekend i don't hot rod my truck around corners anyway.

 

Bro' , I love this year & this style , this is exactly the type of stock bumper I wished I'd had to work with, you've got a thin profiled , straight forward with just enough curvature to keep it kinda eye catching in a subtle way, fuckin' damned near perfect IMO, but of course beauty is in the eye of the beholder,,, & I BE THE holder , & I say it looks great,
& your model year's grill is the base design of what would become that kinda sinister look the 2nd gens. have, maybe I'm the only one who sees it i dunno...

Dude, you'll love it offroad, you can really tell a difference, just smoother with a little more down travel I believe, but yeah its kinda spooky at first. when mine was first off, i came around a corner a little faster than i shoulda & felt like i was going over for sure , Matt (recklesstaco) said it looked like an LT truck all slingy over the place..,,

sorry about the threadjack Drew,

 

Looking good so far Drew, I'd forgotten that in '01 the Tacoma got a little face lift, you have way more steel in front, behind the bumper than I've got, you move the signals yet ?