My New Toy!
- Thread starter fightman80
- Start date
BrianSD_42
New member
hey man I haven't been around in awhile but I'm glad I popped my head in T4R in time to see this update.
I'm in Boston for next 4 weeks and my truck is in storage.
That is one fine Tacoma!
I'm in Boston for next 4 weeks and my truck is in storage.
That is one fine Tacoma!
fightman80
New member
Update!! 
I noticed that my overhead display didn't work in my Taco. After searching threw the "Second Gen Tips, mods and more" thread on Tacoma World, I found the link to the overhead console repair thread. I followed the write up step by step.... and got her working!
Here's some pics for those of you who haven't seen how to do this.
As you can see.... the overhead console is not working:
First thing to do, was open the Sunglasses holder, and take out the screw that holds that end to the roof.
Next, I squeezed my fingers to the front of the console (near windshield), and gave it a good tug to release it from the clips. Once I got it down, I unplugged these 2 connectors:
Next, I removed the 3 Torx screws that held the module in place:
I then found the 2 "510" resistors that were disconnected and then soldered them back to the board:
I then put it all back together.... and now it works!
Overall, really easy fix... and I didn't even know how to use a soldering gun! If I can do it... anybody can! lol!
Alright... so I had one small beef with the fog lights setup on this truck. As like many other Manufacturers, Toyota opted to make it so when the High beams were activated, the fog lights would go off. After doing some research here, I found this thread:
DIY: Fog Lights on with High Beams (Brights) FREE! - Tacoma World Forums
I then decided that this was my fix, and got going on it!
First I located the relay, and used some small gauge wire to connect these two contacts in order to perform the mod:
Then I plugged it back in... and enjoyed my handywork! lol!
And a parting shot!
I noticed that my overhead display didn't work in my Taco. After searching threw the "Second Gen Tips, mods and more" thread on Tacoma World, I found the link to the overhead console repair thread. I followed the write up step by step.... and got her working!
Here's some pics for those of you who haven't seen how to do this.
As you can see.... the overhead console is not working:
First thing to do, was open the Sunglasses holder, and take out the screw that holds that end to the roof.
Next, I squeezed my fingers to the front of the console (near windshield), and gave it a good tug to release it from the clips. Once I got it down, I unplugged these 2 connectors:
Next, I removed the 3 Torx screws that held the module in place:
I then found the 2 "510" resistors that were disconnected and then soldered them back to the board:
I then put it all back together.... and now it works!
Overall, really easy fix... and I didn't even know how to use a soldering gun! If I can do it... anybody can! lol!
Alright... so I had one small beef with the fog lights setup on this truck. As like many other Manufacturers, Toyota opted to make it so when the High beams were activated, the fog lights would go off. After doing some research here, I found this thread:
DIY: Fog Lights on with High Beams (Brights) FREE! - Tacoma World Forums
I then decided that this was my fix, and got going on it!
First I located the relay, and used some small gauge wire to connect these two contacts in order to perform the mod:
Then I plugged it back in... and enjoyed my handywork! lol!
And a parting shot!
LittleCaesar
New member
Very nice; the Taco definitely fits your persona, just don't drive like Statham. Nice job with the lenses.
Where is Mean Green by the way? Was BFAD correct? Or is the wife making good use of it?
Where is Mean Green by the way? Was BFAD correct? Or is the wife making good use of it?
fightman80
New member
Mean Green get's driven by both of us! I'm alternating between both trucks, one week, the Taco, the other week... Mean Green! Funny story... the other day, I showed up to work at the mine, and had the 4Runner parked behind the gatehouse, and within the first 2 hours of my shift, I had 3 people stop and compliment me on my truck! lol!
Anyway... time for some mods! I didn't have the truck for more than a day or two, and I already started making plans for this thing! lol! One night, while sleep prepping for my upcoming night shifts, I did some shopping on E-bay. As a result, I ordered up some new LED's for the map lights, and the dome lights, a new shift knob for the automatic shift lever, and some other goodies that I'll share with you as they come in, and I have time to install them! lol!
First thing I did was get the LED lights in the map light unit. To do this, I used this thread:
Map Light LED installation - Tacoma World Forums
Seemed pretty straight forward, but the OP found it to be pretty difficult, as the map light bulbs are a little tricky to pull out. Someone later posted on the same thread, a map light "How To" video from Youtube, which illustrates the use of a "pick" to pry out the bulbs. This method seems to work the best, and eventhough I didn't have the same kind of pick, I did have a pick used for cleaning nuts (from the cutlery drawer in my kitchen). I was able to pry open the lens itself, and the bulb with ease, it literally took me less than 5 minutes to do both lights.
Here's some pics of the process:
The pick I used to pry open the lens cover, and the bulbs out:
Used the pic to pop oven the lens cover in the top and bottom left hand corners of the lens in this pic:
Once the lens was off, I was able to use the pic to reach behind the shroud, and pry out the stock bulb:
Here's a comparison pic of the LED vs the stock bulb:
I then did the dome light, using the same pick to pry open the lens cover, the bulb was easily removed, and the LED was inserted in it's place.
I don't have any night pics yet, as it's currently daytime, but I'll add some in the coming days, to show you the brightness of these bulbs.
Next thing I did, was replace the stock shifter knob. I did this with my 98 4Runner as well, as I find Toyota makes some lame shift knobs for our trucks. I did find some nice TRD knobs from the FJ Cruiser and such on E-bay, but I wasn't paying $80.00 or more for a shift knob!
I did find this carbon fiber/chrome knob that I liked, and ordered it the same day I ordered the LED's. I went with Carbon fibre, as I liked the look with our Grey Interiors, and plan on either painting out some of the trim panels black, or covering them with more Carbon Fibre in the coming weeks. More on that in upcoming posts!
Here's a pic of the stock knob:
Unscrewed it from the shift lever:
screwed on the rubber sleeve:
The knob has 3 tiny screws that secure it to the rubber sleeve, this allows for a multitude of applications for various vehicles. Once the screws were locked down, I screwed on the chrome sleeve over the bottom of the shift knob, and called it a day.
Overall, I'm pretty happy with the look! For the price, it's a nice little addition to the truck, which makes it different... which is what I like!
Anyway... time for some mods! I didn't have the truck for more than a day or two, and I already started making plans for this thing! lol! One night, while sleep prepping for my upcoming night shifts, I did some shopping on E-bay. As a result, I ordered up some new LED's for the map lights, and the dome lights, a new shift knob for the automatic shift lever, and some other goodies that I'll share with you as they come in, and I have time to install them! lol!
First thing I did was get the LED lights in the map light unit. To do this, I used this thread:
Map Light LED installation - Tacoma World Forums
Seemed pretty straight forward, but the OP found it to be pretty difficult, as the map light bulbs are a little tricky to pull out. Someone later posted on the same thread, a map light "How To" video from Youtube, which illustrates the use of a "pick" to pry out the bulbs. This method seems to work the best, and eventhough I didn't have the same kind of pick, I did have a pick used for cleaning nuts (from the cutlery drawer in my kitchen). I was able to pry open the lens itself, and the bulb with ease, it literally took me less than 5 minutes to do both lights.
Here's some pics of the process:
The pick I used to pry open the lens cover, and the bulbs out:
Used the pic to pop oven the lens cover in the top and bottom left hand corners of the lens in this pic:
Once the lens was off, I was able to use the pic to reach behind the shroud, and pry out the stock bulb:
Here's a comparison pic of the LED vs the stock bulb:
I then did the dome light, using the same pick to pry open the lens cover, the bulb was easily removed, and the LED was inserted in it's place.
I don't have any night pics yet, as it's currently daytime, but I'll add some in the coming days, to show you the brightness of these bulbs.
Next thing I did, was replace the stock shifter knob. I did this with my 98 4Runner as well, as I find Toyota makes some lame shift knobs for our trucks. I did find some nice TRD knobs from the FJ Cruiser and such on E-bay, but I wasn't paying $80.00 or more for a shift knob!
I did find this carbon fiber/chrome knob that I liked, and ordered it the same day I ordered the LED's. I went with Carbon fibre, as I liked the look with our Grey Interiors, and plan on either painting out some of the trim panels black, or covering them with more Carbon Fibre in the coming weeks. More on that in upcoming posts!
Here's a pic of the stock knob:
Unscrewed it from the shift lever:
screwed on the rubber sleeve:
The knob has 3 tiny screws that secure it to the rubber sleeve, this allows for a multitude of applications for various vehicles. Once the screws were locked down, I screwed on the chrome sleeve over the bottom of the shift knob, and called it a day.
Overall, I'm pretty happy with the look! For the price, it's a nice little addition to the truck, which makes it different... which is what I like!
fightman80
New member
Alright, so I got around to getting some night time pics of the lights.
Pic of the dome lights with the Map lights as well:
A shot of just the map lights:
Overall, pretty happy with them, however... I did have some issues with them. Seems as though, 1 if the wedge style lights I got from the one seller, doesn't work. This is problematic for me, as returning them would not be worth the trouble or money to do so, in order to get a new one. I wouldn't recommend this seller, but do have some recommendations to pass on.
First of all, don't buy from the people I dealt with. The product seems a little inferior, as I have bought LED's from E-bay before, and have had good success with them. Only 1 out of 2 of the lights actually worked, and the solder job was not very good. I would recommend buying some that are of this style for the map lights:
LED WHITE 2X DOME MAP INTERIOR LIGHT BULB 9 SMD CIRCLE PANEL XENON HID LAMP c/W9 | eBay
Next, the dome light LED I bought, is not very bright. In the pic below, you can see that the interior of the truck is rather low lit.
This bulb, is tubular in shape, with 1 conical end on each end of the bulb, which is supposed to fit in the stock light housing. However, this bulb is too short for our setup in the Tacoma, and I had to modify it to fit, by using the stock ends, and affixing them on top of the conical ends so that the bulb would actually make contact with the socket in the housing.
I recommend buying a 48 LED panel like the one posted here:
2 Set Light Lamp Panel 48 SMD LED+T10+Dome Bulb+BA9S Adapter | eBay
I've bought a set like this before for my 4RUnner... and it is like turning on the sun when those are on! I've got a set on order, and will be replacing the cheesy bulb type I have, for one of these.
Again, what I have installed, is much better than the stock setup, however, if you purchase the items in the 2 links above, you will be much happier!
Pic of the dome lights with the Map lights as well:
A shot of just the map lights:
Overall, pretty happy with them, however... I did have some issues with them. Seems as though, 1 if the wedge style lights I got from the one seller, doesn't work. This is problematic for me, as returning them would not be worth the trouble or money to do so, in order to get a new one. I wouldn't recommend this seller, but do have some recommendations to pass on.
First of all, don't buy from the people I dealt with. The product seems a little inferior, as I have bought LED's from E-bay before, and have had good success with them. Only 1 out of 2 of the lights actually worked, and the solder job was not very good. I would recommend buying some that are of this style for the map lights:
LED WHITE 2X DOME MAP INTERIOR LIGHT BULB 9 SMD CIRCLE PANEL XENON HID LAMP c/W9 | eBay
Next, the dome light LED I bought, is not very bright. In the pic below, you can see that the interior of the truck is rather low lit.
This bulb, is tubular in shape, with 1 conical end on each end of the bulb, which is supposed to fit in the stock light housing. However, this bulb is too short for our setup in the Tacoma, and I had to modify it to fit, by using the stock ends, and affixing them on top of the conical ends so that the bulb would actually make contact with the socket in the housing.
I recommend buying a 48 LED panel like the one posted here:
2 Set Light Lamp Panel 48 SMD LED+T10+Dome Bulb+BA9S Adapter | eBay
I've bought a set like this before for my 4RUnner... and it is like turning on the sun when those are on! I've got a set on order, and will be replacing the cheesy bulb type I have, for one of these.
Again, what I have installed, is much better than the stock setup, however, if you purchase the items in the 2 links above, you will be much happier!
olice: just kidding 
fightman80
New member
Thanks guys! The LED's are definately hit or miss.... but still worth the money, as here locally... you're paying a lot more just for ONE bulb...
The larger panel I ordered, should be a lot better....
The larger panel I ordered, should be a lot better....
fightman80
New member
Got the 2 front windows tinted! Was going to get it tinted to match the back, but that would have put me past the legal limit, so I opted to go a little lighter. With the lift and tires I want to put on this thing, I don't want to press my luck with the police, and get tint tickets!
Overall, pretty happy with it! Kinda weird thing I noticed though.... on the outside, the tint looks lighter then the back. However, while inside the truck, it's darker than the back??? I guess that's the difference between factory tint and after market tint?
That being said, I'm kinda happy it's not as dark in the back, makes visibility at night a little better!
Stay tuned for another update in the next day or so... got another little project started!
Overall, pretty happy with it! Kinda weird thing I noticed though.... on the outside, the tint looks lighter then the back. However, while inside the truck, it's darker than the back??? I guess that's the difference between factory tint and after market tint?
That being said, I'm kinda happy it's not as dark in the back, makes visibility at night a little better!
Stay tuned for another update in the next day or so... got another little project started!
fightman80
New member
Thanks man! That was my guess as well...... Only way to fix this, would be to tint the back too.... but I think that would be too dark!
fightman80
New member
Ok, so I saw a thread on Tacoma World, where some of the guys had painted the engine cover on their Tacomas! I loved the look of this mod, and decided to do mine as well!
Now usually, I like to be the odd man out, and do something completely different. However, one or two of them came up with a Red/black paint scheme, and I fell in love with it!
Here's my stock engine cover:
Here's a pic of it masked off and in the painting stage:
Here's a shot of it complete:
Bonus Pics:
Now usually, I like to be the odd man out, and do something completely different. However, one or two of them came up with a Red/black paint scheme, and I fell in love with it!
Here's my stock engine cover:
Here's a pic of it masked off and in the painting stage:
Here's a shot of it complete:
Bonus Pics:
rajuncajun
New member
That does look really cool. What kind of paint did you use? Would you not need some high temp stuff? Especially when adhering to a smooth plastic.
I love those trucks.
I love those trucks.
fightman80
New member
Thanks for the Compliment man! I'm a huge fan of these trucks, been looking from afar for a few years now!
I used Krylon Plastic Fusion paint, I didn't think High Temp would be needed, since It's a plastic piece, and if it really got that hot... it would have melted by now..... I dunno...
If the paint doesn't work out, I'll just redo it with High Temp... but so far it's working out ok!
Thanks for looking!
I used Krylon Plastic Fusion paint, I didn't think High Temp would be needed, since It's a plastic piece, and if it really got that hot... it would have melted by now..... I dunno...
If the paint doesn't work out, I'll just redo it with High Temp... but so far it's working out ok!
Thanks for looking!
fightman80
New member
Alright, so I'm a big fan of the Tacoma interior. However, after seeing someone's build thread, and finding out that you can wrap some of the trim panels in Vinyl Carbon Fiber ...... i decided to give it a go!
First thing I did, was remove the center console shift bezel. To do this, I pulled on the back of the cup holders (located under the Heater controls), they simply popped right out. Then, I reached under the shift bezel, located the two clips, and pushed up towards the roof of the truck.
Once out, I found this:
Looks like this truck has been submerged in water at some point!!
It's been running flawlessly since I bought it though, so I'm assuming this was all addressed prior to the sale..... :0
Anyway, after freaking out a little.... I moved on to the doors. Now, I sourced out a few threads here, on how to do take apart my interior. One I found particularly helpful, was this one:
DIY leather arm rests - Tacoma World Forums
I didn't go with Leather for my arm rests, but this gave me all the information I needed to complete this mod.
This thread goes through the entire procedure on how to remove the door panel and arm rest, and also includes directions on how to wrap it with Leather. ( I may end up wrapping mine in leather soon...)
I followed those directions to the letter, but used Carbon Fiber Vinyl wrap to do everything. After many long hours, measuring, cutting, wrapping and heat shrinking, I finally finished my front doors and center shift console bezel.
Here's a few pics of the process:
DOOR PANEL REMOVED:
DRILLING OUT THE PLASTIC WELDS FOR THE ARM REST:
AND A SHOT OF THE CARBON FIBER WRAP:
Now on to comparison pics!
BEFORE:
AFTER:
Overall, I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. However, I'm a bit of a perfectionist, and am not that happy with the arm rests. I may strip them in the coming week, and wrap them in black leather.....
Let me know what you guys think!
First thing I did, was remove the center console shift bezel. To do this, I pulled on the back of the cup holders (located under the Heater controls), they simply popped right out. Then, I reached under the shift bezel, located the two clips, and pushed up towards the roof of the truck.
Once out, I found this:
Looks like this truck has been submerged in water at some point!!
It's been running flawlessly since I bought it though, so I'm assuming this was all addressed prior to the sale..... :0Anyway, after freaking out a little.... I moved on to the doors. Now, I sourced out a few threads here, on how to do take apart my interior. One I found particularly helpful, was this one:
DIY leather arm rests - Tacoma World Forums
I didn't go with Leather for my arm rests, but this gave me all the information I needed to complete this mod.
This thread goes through the entire procedure on how to remove the door panel and arm rest, and also includes directions on how to wrap it with Leather. ( I may end up wrapping mine in leather soon...)
I followed those directions to the letter, but used Carbon Fiber Vinyl wrap to do everything. After many long hours, measuring, cutting, wrapping and heat shrinking, I finally finished my front doors and center shift console bezel.
Here's a few pics of the process:
DOOR PANEL REMOVED:
DRILLING OUT THE PLASTIC WELDS FOR THE ARM REST:
AND A SHOT OF THE CARBON FIBER WRAP:
Now on to comparison pics!
BEFORE:
AFTER:
Overall, I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. However, I'm a bit of a perfectionist, and am not that happy with the arm rests. I may strip them in the coming week, and wrap them in black leather.....
Let me know what you guys think!
LittleCaesar
New member
Fightman,
It looks great. The one drawback I hate with the newer Yotas is their love of plastic as well as the poor choice for dashboard lighting. The carbon fiber makes a big difference. I have a pro detailing friend in FL who wraps Ferraris in carbon fiber.
Concerning the so called water staining, and considering the location of the cup holder, I'd imagine that someone's drink took a spill all over the console. No biggie, at least in my book.
I call dibbs on that Canadian quarter in the pic.
It looks great. The one drawback I hate with the newer Yotas is their love of plastic as well as the poor choice for dashboard lighting. The carbon fiber makes a big difference. I have a pro detailing friend in FL who wraps Ferraris in carbon fiber.
Concerning the so called water staining, and considering the location of the cup holder, I'd imagine that someone's drink took a spill all over the console. No biggie, at least in my book.
I call dibbs on that Canadian quarter in the pic.
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