What have you done to your Tacoma today? 1st Gen Edition

Adjusted my windshield washer squiters, does that count?

 

I used a Derale transmission cooler for a power steering cooler. Just plumbed it into the return line and called it done. Zero issues on my end.


PXL_20230618_222452345 by Cory Bechtold, on Flickr

 

Second time doing the timing belt and water pump. Good for another 90k

 

Installed my Seat Trim Side Cover Reinforcement

 

A/C quit on me the other day. Came to find that the idler pulley nut came loose and so did everything else with it. Thankful for an easy fix and that the components (other than the nut) stayed on the skid plate.

 

You should replace the bearing/pulley while you're at it.

Wonder if the bearing going bad caused the nut to loosen.

 

Grabbed a new parking brake cable (old one frayed behind the dash). Might make a post to document the job

 

Yeah you're probably right. Money is tight right now though so I'm gonna send it. The bearing felt smooth when I had it off.

 

Just so you're aware there's some really cheap options that are pretty decent quality to replace that idler:

These

$16 6301-2RS Bearing - Lubricated Chrome Steel Sealed Ball Bearing - 12x37x12mm Bearings with Rubber Seal & High RPM Support

6301-2RS bearings are like $4 each on Amazon and press right into the OEM pulley housing:


Or this Duralast assembly runs like ~$30 and uses the same 6301-2RS bearing as OEM (I've run this for a couple years with no problems):

 

Appreciate it.

 

where’d you get it? Would love to do this to mine as well

 

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/1st-gen-tacoma-seat-trim-side-cover-reinforcement.501569/

 

What is everyone’s thought on lower ball joints for my 98 that only goes on the beach maybe 5 or 6x a year? Other than the beach trips, it’s a mall crawler. Will Moog work well enough or do I pay double the price each for OEM?

 

OEM and you won't have to worry about them for another 100k miles in your use case.

If you go Moog and they fail (which is far more likely than the OEMs failing), you'll be wishing you'd spent a couple hundred more dollars instead of thousands to rebuild the front end.

 

Yeah he sells them on eBay, not sure if there’s a link in the thread but you can search for “Tacoma Seat Track Plastic Trim Cover Reinforcement”

 

Moog are fine. They hold up better than oem for me.

I get less than 10k out of them before they have enough play to fail fsm spec.

 

Installed some DDI seat jackers and dipped the grille and chrome bumper trim with anthracite gray hyperdip. Not sure how well the dip will hold up, but I'm liking the color change.

[EDIT] Forgot to mention I used these Dorman corner markers, which already have the dark gray accent strip

$22 Dorman 1631245 Passenger Side Side Marker Light Assembly Compatible with Select Toyota Models

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00JW24H2Y/

$21 Dorman 1631244 Driver Side Side Marker Light Assembly Compatible with Select Toyota Models

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00JW1YVPI/

 

That looks awesome. I'm preparing to do something to my ugly chrome grill and bumper trim. Can you share any info on how to go about this dipping process? And did you have to peel off the old chrome wrap or sand it down prior to dipping?

 

Curious how you go about actually measuring the FSM spec. I pulled mine out recently and felt a little vertical play, but didn't try to go about measuring it.

 

The grille was pretty easy, I bought a new one off Amazon so I could work on it off the vehicle. I went with a black plastic one instead of chrome to hopefully get better adhesion. I didn't want to remove the bumper which was part of the reason I used plastidip. I figured any plastidip overspray would be easier to remove compared to paint. For the bumper chrome I used an angle grinder with an 80 grit flap disc to create some scuffing in the chrome to improve adhesion. I'm not sure if that was really needed but it didn't take too much time. For the plastidip I applied 4 dust coats and then followed with 5 wet coats.