TheNatural's 2012 Totally Expo Trail Limo Build

Today I got my Prinsu roof rack and installed it. Love it.



Then I put my 50" light bar on it using my MCM Fab Mounts that usually utilize the roof rack holes. Sits too high. Hate it. Will take better pics of broken truck when it's not so dark.


On the up side, light bar doesn't make any of the terrible noises way up there.

 

Got the bill today when they dropped off the rack. $75 brokerage and the regular sales taxes.

 

I think I have found a solution! Too cold and dark to implement right now though.

Before:



After:

 

Rack and light bar look sick

 

Nice looking rig man. Keep the mods coming!

 

Not as bad as it could have been

 

BHLM on the light bar is awesome, haven't seen that before. Lookin sharp, wish I had all the spare cash to spend on my truck that you do

 

RE: US Offroad winch bumper

The Avid Light bar mounts to the factory bumper mounts and is compatible with the TRD skid plate.

Where did you buy the bumper ? (fabricator direct maybe, or other)

Thanks!

 

Thanks It should look a little better on the all black truck now!

Zach at Prinsu agreed to make some custom light bar mounts for me so I don't have to hack mine up like I intended. They should look better than what I was planning too.

As for the spare cash.. it's not so much that I have a lot of money to burn, but more so that I'm a single guy in a town without much to spend it on When I was living in civilization I spent a lot more on things like concerts and little weekend trips to go skiing or whatever - now I don't have the option to do those things. I also don't have anyone telling me I should buy new curtains instead of truck parts, soooo... truck parts it is.

The factory bumper bolts are still exposed and are used to mount this bumper too. I would think it would work, but I'm not sure which of the bots the avid light bar uses. This picture is looking in the gap to the right of the winch. The plastic thing with the writing on it is one of the horns. I moved them down there to make room for my light bars behind the grill, they wouldn't normally be there. The cable is for my block heater.. it wouldn't be in your way either. The two outer bumper mount bolts are on the other side of that vertical piece of steel. They're exposed too, but I'm not sure if your light bar would fit around the vertical plates?



I pre ordered the bumper fabricator direct, before the first production run. He sells them on his website here. There's some more pics on the website that might help you gauge light bar fitment too.

 

Your quote:
"The two outer bumper mount bolts are on the other side of that vertical piece of steel. They're exposed too, but I'm not sure if your light bar would fit around the vertical plates?"

I compared your pics of the bumper on the truck to the excellent mounting pics on the US Off Road sight. I also took a close look at my Avid bar.

http://usoffroad.us/store/tacoma-bumper-2012

http://www.avidoffroad.com/cart/ind...12-2014-toyota-tacoma-front-bumper-guard.html

Because of the location of the vertical crossbar on the Avid light bar:

1) It looks like that I would have to notch the outer bumper skid to slide the Avid mounting plate up to the outside bolts (and bolt both bumper and bar as one.)

2) The shackle brackets may have to be lowered to the bottom edge of vertical face of the bumper, or smaller brackets installed.

3) The fairlead or hawse slot location appears to be OK.

I would also trim the upper lip of the lower grill slot with some rubber 1/4 round or cove molding. Looks like a piece is missing with the exposed mounting slots.

Thanks, man!

BTW: Does US Off Road show any love to TW members?

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(Edit removed this: If you could get a measurement from the center of the one of the two vertical outside mounting bolts to the face of the vertical gusset plates on the bumper, that would be the answer right there.)

 

He is a member here and has run group buys before. If you dig through the group buy section you could track him down and get some more info (custom shackle mounts, next group buy, other stuff you might want to know?)

I'm glad you don't need that measurement anymore! I was looking at it last night wondering how the hell I was going to get in there to measure. I plan on taking the front end apart again to wire a winch switch in the cab and switch the fair lead to a black one, so I could get some more pics and measurements at that time if you decide you need them. Probably wont be for awhile though.

 

My MCM Fab light bar mounts are going up for sale. They look pretty much new, except for scratches in the powder coat from the heads of the light bar bolts. A little bit of surface rust is starting to form at these spots, as seen in the pic.

These sell for 150USD plus taxes, duties, and shipping. At current exchange rate that's about 200CAD plus the other costs. I'm asking $140 CAD plus shipping. Good deal if you're in western Canada, not sure if it'd be worth it to ship back to the US.

 

Great build

 

Last night I ordered a ton of LED strip lights to use as rock lights, under hood lights, and bed lights.

I should have all the lighting done just in time for midnight sun. It'll be a repeat of last June when I installed my behind the grill light bars and had to wait a few weeks for it to get dark so I could aim them

Thanks!

 

Aaaand I updated my wish list in the first post. That should keep me busy for a couple years

 

My Mob Armor mount came today! Can't wait to get it installed.



Edit: Got it installed. The place I had in mind didn't really fit, but I kinda like this spot. It's tough to find a flat-ish surface that doesn't block any controls/gauges!



Also snapped a pic of my future external speaker location for the two way radio. It fits in this spot really well.

 

Light bar brackets sold.

 

Sweet looking truck dude. DCLBFTW

 

Today I swapped out the plain aluminum fairlead that came with my winch for a black one. Now all it needs is one of those ?prolink flatlink? things for maximum inconspicuous-ness.



Also started wiring the switches that are going to go in front of the cup holders/under A/C. Probably won't get them in for a while though.. spare time isn't something I have a lot of right now

Thanks!

 

Windshield wiper grenaded on the highway in the middle of a freezing rain storm. It was bad enough that max defrost wasn't keeping up with the ice forming on the windshield... but no wipers made it a really crappy drive back to civilization. Sooo... new ones!