What Have You Done To Your 2nd Gen Tacoma Today?

JohnDoeFasho · Sep 7, 2025 at 9:29 AM

PaintFadeParade said: ↑

Just the hood and roof! Highway Robbery, and that was the cheapest quote I got.
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That is criminal..!

tacokarl · Sep 7, 2025 at 10:53 AM

PaintFadeParade said: ↑

It was a process, but mine included additional steps that may be optional depending on how bad your paint is. Mine was completely gone in some spots and very flaky in others.

Steps I took -

1) Sand down paint on hood and roof (I went 400, to 800) to smooth it out a bit and remove flakiness. This was my first mistake, if I had taken it down to bare metal everywhere the rest of the steps would have been easier. I don't think there was any reason for me to save any paint since the rest was failing so badly. If I could go back I would sand the fuck out of everything.

2) After the sand I had multiple large places where bare metal was visible. I covered and taped off the truck to avoid overspray and hit the hood, roof, and door frames with about 3 primer coats followed by 4 coats of glossy black spray paint. The spray paint was my second mistake, I did it outside since I don't have a garage and it was too windy. The paint ended up being alright but it looked like a complete DIY spray paint job (this was more user error than environment, I believe).

3) A week or two later, I used a random orbital to wet sand the hood from 1000 to 3000. This actually did a great job removing the orange peel from the spray paint and I believe if I had taken the truck down to bare metal this would have really improved the look of the spray paint. Since I had not taken it all the way down, it look splotchy, spray paint mixed with some original paint. I also sanded a bit too aggressively and the primer was peaking through in a few spots. I did not sand the roof, which ended up not being an issue at all with the vinyl. If I had left the hood with the orange peel it would have been fine as well.

4) I borrowed a family member's garage and the help of my uncle who has wrapped some car panels before and he and I used 3M 2080 vinyl to do the hood, roof, and door frames. It turned out WAY better than I expected.
We only had one problem when some stray vinyl pulled the old and fragile paint off of the grill. I wrapped the grill after that happened, but it turned out so poorly (I'm definitely not a professional) that I'm considering removing the grill and sending it down then hitting it with plasti-dip or spray paint to cover the mess.

All in all it was a super fun experience and I love how the truck looks now!
If I could go back I think I would just sand it down to bare metal and then primer and paint then lay the vinyl, no sanding the paint.
I didn't want to just wrap over the metal in case of rust, and I learned that it's easier for the vinyl to pull off the primer unless you have a coat or two of paint on top.

Before

After Dry Sand

Before Paint/Primer

After Paint

After Wet Sand

After Vinyl

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Great job, looks amazing!

blnewt · Sep 7, 2025 at 11:03 AM

Coolant flush (almost to 200k miles on my 2015) 7gals distilled, 1 gal concentrate Asian Pink Peak Coolant, 1 gal 50/50 mixed coolant.
Iridium spark plugs

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What Have You Done To Your 2nd Gen Tacoma Today?

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What Have You Done To Your 2nd Gen Tacoma Today?

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