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

nope, hackfab.(mine)

 

do it! when it gets around 115 it get's crazy hot though.

 

Use vinyl dye.

It's much easier to use and more permanent.

before and after:

 

What did you use on your grille?
Does the vinyl dye spray on and wipe off?

&

How in the hell are you getting an avg. of 21mpg with 76% city driving!?
must just have a light foot?

 

1. I used sand paper (320 grit) primer and spray paint. That's semi-gloss in the first picture and flat in the second.

2. It sprays on and absorbs into the material. The lower valence is a perfect medium to use this vinyl dye on. For the chrome inserts use the method in step 1.

3. I drive like a great grandmother. And my commute is city/rural. For a 6 of the 12 miles (one-way) I'm going 45-50 mph. And my average also factors in crappy winter gas. Without winter gas I usually average 22.5-24.0 mpg

 

Have you had any problems with flaking? I put 3 heavy coats on mine and it looked great. I went mudding and left the mud on there for a few days and it seemed to have pulled places off when I washed it. I thought it was supposed to dye the plastic but I can see the original bumper clear as day in the flakes.

 

sounds like bad prep before painting..

 

I haven't.

I wheeled after doing and dug branches into the lower valence and literally got tears in it.... the dye absorbed so well into it, the material exposed in the tears was flat black as well.

If I wash it, it looks like the day I sprayed it.

Like Monte said... prep? I washed it, dried it, then used the Duplicolor prep wipe on it before dyeing it. And the whole time from wash to dye I was wearing latex gloves to keep the oils from my skin off it.

 

I'm going to keep it for now... I plan to color-match my grille I have now and plan to use the stock one while I work on it.

 

Found a craigslist add for some gently used 5100's set to 2.5 with factor springs. Should I bounce on these or let them go?

 

Price?

 

He says he wants 150 for the pair. I don't plan on doing a whole lot of offroading with it, just occasional trips (2/3 times a year)

 

Seems pretty fair. Not a super great deal but being put together already is a big plus.

 

Just depend on how easy it would be for you to put it together yourself. The shocks are $180 new.

 

^ That and if you want to keep the old struts as is. Could always make $40 back by selling them.

 

From the pictures they come pre assembled, looks like a bolt and play combination to me. It's been awhile since I read anything about the bilstein shocks but I seem to remember hearing that stock coils with them adjusted for lift was a bad combination.

 

Nah, it's when you adjust the shocks over 0 with Toytec coils that it's bad. The whole point of being adjustable is to give you lift with stock coils.

 

Sanded and painted the rear bumper....

Bottom edge was peeling badly and after some cursing it was brought back to bare metal...Primed and painted BUT NEW rear bumper just jumped up on the "LIST"....

Not sure which way to go on this; TrailGear bumper could be had for good $$ BUT I really want a CBI Trail Rider 1.0...decisions decisions decisions

 

I washed it multiple times and quit putting armorall on it long before I redid it. I didn't use acetone or anything though.. Still I was under the impression that it was supposed to dye the material rather than just cover it. I'm not too worried about it though. I have plenty to redo it with I just don't want to have to keep redoing it. Hence why I went with the dye instead of paint.