Tundra2's lifetime project

Thank you for the kind words @Fish River Tundra. In my opinion, there are better first gen build threads, but this is mine.

Still waiting on the Mevotech upper control arms (Rebranded SPC) to ship to complete the lift "kit."

 

On my first go around that I forgot to post here... I wiped down the whole cluster with 303. CLEAN!

Pulled the cluster one final time to re-do my mismatched color temperature bulbs. Everything is now "Cool white" T5 led bulbs.

Here is the "old" picture. See how the 80-90 is a warmer white color? See how bright everything is?


Also, ordered a warm white bulb for the foglight backlight by mistake. Remedied this today also.

Here are the new pictures. Enjoy.


See how good everything looks now, and how much less the LEDs in the turn signal/high beam light are reflecting on the top?

Here's how I did that per reccomendation of @Festerw.

Small amount of quick setting JB weld that I pre-gamed a few days ago.

Smooged JB weld on the top diode. Leaving only the two side diodes to reflect in the socket, and provide much better indicator illumination.


Once it was partially set, I "formed" it with gloved fingers to ensure a good "seal."

Every indicatior light except the battery light, SRS airbag light, low fuel light, and the Check engine light are now LED. I used up the remaining "Natural white" (warm white) led bulbs for the indicators because the color of them is determined by the cluster "filter."

I originally replaced the battery light, and SRS airbag light with led, but went back to incandescent bulbs because with the truck off, or driving at night time they were still dimly lit. Annoying.

Should have listened to @TX-TRD1stGEN's recco.

 

First off, I'd like to express a huge amount of thanks for all the help in this project.

@SouthPaw, for his services, and expertise!
@FirstGenVol, for explaining how to adjust these spiffy new lights!
@FrenchToasty, for sharing a general warning, and helping me adjust these lights!

Now, onto the job itself.
Began the replacement of my headlights with @SouthPaw's projectors!

It took a lot of tweaking to get the beam pattern right. Heres a shot of what I started with. Drivers side was way down, and pass side was way up.

After I had the headlights leveled, this is what it looked like.

I spoke with @FirstGenVol, and he helped me "clock" the bulb to level off the cutoff.

Here is a high beam shot.

Made some more minor adjustments, here is a lowbeam shot after the HIDS warmed up.

Lowbeam with fogs.

High beams.

High beam with light bar.

Here is a link to @FrenchToasty's warning, and a link to my response.

This gif is without the light bar. Projectors only.

Here is the first post I made on the lunchtable thread, and the fellas really helped me out on the rest of the page, and a little on the next page.

I'm really liking these.
I'm eternally grateful for all the work put in by @SouthPaw, and help adjusting them by him, @FirstGenVol, @FrenchToasty, and @Casper421 for his suggestion.

Editing in a link to a video I made last night.
Hyperlapse of about 30 minutes worth of driving.
https://youtu.be/Wfm68aziiBA

 

Noah,

you probably have a better view in person but it almost looks like they can be adjusted up a bit more without blinding anyone. Or is it just look this way in the video?

 

They can probably be adjusted up more. Per @Casper421's recommendation I think I'll bring them up until people start flashing me.

I wanted to play it safe on the first go around.

 

That sharp cut-off of a projector just allows you to have so much light where its needed. Its awesome. I found a couple of old pics of retrofits I did on my 03 Tahoe and 06 Frontier back in the day. Both retrofits I initially used the stock lights with budget projectors from Amazon and budget HID kits and they gave me plenty of light right below others side mirrors. Never got flashed. Noice!

 

Looks wonderful!

 

all yall with these projectors making me want projectors but i didnt buy brand new OEM lights just to break em open! (i do have one i gotta open to clean out since the bulb exploded though..)

 

Been a while since I updated this, and been a while since I've had enough free time to do much of anything.
Here is a hyperlapse of my "final" adjustments to the headlights.
https://youtu.be/VjSqKWFy_LE
Near the 7:00 mark is where the audible commentary starts explaining what's what.
Editing in a picture I forgot showing you where the tripod is for the "commentary" section of the video.

The hyperlapse represents about an hours worth of work compressed down into about 7 minutes of footage. Its right at 8X normal speed.

 

Looking good!

 

NOICE!

 

NOICE?

 

I was just NOICING his NOICE!

 

So much noiceness around here!

 

Now there’s some noice hands in here

 

Thanks for all the Noice-ness fellas!

A return to regular, Toy-Oem housings happened mainly because I'm forgetful.

I installed fanless Katanas. They feel like quality! Katana even included a little notch for the lower part of the tensioner to slide by/into. (Blue arrow.) These leds are not clockable like most other Leds I've used which is great because I hate doing that.


1: Lows, no fogs.
2: Lows with fogs.
3: Highs
4: Highs with light bar
Heres a video of the adjustments made to the headlights, and fogs.

https://youtu.be/bxLo-G1ODF0​

That covers the headlight section, let's move on to the ditch light brackets. I ordered my brackets from I had to trim the cowl a little bit to make them fit which is fine.


You can see the brackets in the full picture up above.


Edit: spelling.

 

Well, before I check out for the day... let's see how much of a mess I can make of this update in two whole parts.

1. Bed paint (This post.)

2. Headliner pull, wire pull, and lit sunvisor install. (Next post.)

I pulled the bed hooks off with a T40 Torx, and brushed them...

Primed them...

And painted them.

Here's a video of most of what went on. I had recorded the section where I ground on the surface rust with an angle grinder, but must have deleted that section in the editing stage.

https://youtu.be/bRpBnZtg3i8​

I let this dry for quite some time while my plastic bedliner was drying after a good washing. Once both were dry I plopped the bed liner back into place.


After driving about 175 miles, and hauling a load of wheels that I got for a steal of a price...


I peeked under the drop in liner. Its clear to me that the bed liner is the superior product. I wish I hadn't run out. Which is why I just painted over everything with regular paint. The regular paint is already starting to rub off on the ribs in the bed. The bed liner is holding fast. I will need to redo the whole bed with bed liner eventually.

Made a local round for bedliner product. All normal carrying stores were out. A bummer.

 

I bought 6-7 cans and used 5 total iirc. Rustoleum Bedliner.

 

I was going to buy that many, and had been looking around whenever I wasn't roasted from work... the last week or so leading up to this all the local stores were out.

I'll order some, and swing back in and retouch.

 

Once I have my front end re-done...

 

Section 1: Switch box

Anyways, onto the headliner pull...

Pulling the headliner started in the engine bay this time. I had to figure out where I was mounting my tacoma pros relayed box.

I cut some more of the 3×3 square tube into angle iron. The same tube I used for my bed supports way back in post #24

Cut, primed, and painted! Only color I had in decent quantity.
I asked on the lunch table thread for a a good mounting location. It was reccomended to use the wheel well area, so that's where I went.


Drilled four 3/16 holes into the wheel well. I may cut the end off these bolts in the wheel well, and then coat them with some sort of rubber, or paint. I'm pretty sure if my suspension flexes enough for the wheel to make contact with these then I'll have much biggger problems than a cut tire.

Anyways, I taped up the end of the wiring harness, and lubed it up. I poked a small hole in the passengers side firewall grommet. (Light blue arrow above) Pushed the wiring into the hole, and it popped out the other side into the cab.

I ran my wiring up the pass side A pillar like this.
You can also see the passengers side sun visor wiring harness I tapped into the over head dome light circuit. More on that soon.

I ran the wires up, and then left them loose around the front overhead dome light so I can pull that out, and then fish out my wire when I'm ready for the switches without pulling the whole liner. My extra switch wire was rolled up, and ziptied in the passengers side footwell thing.


Section 2: @lsaami's sun visors.
I tapped into the contant hot wires for the front overhead dome light, and then ran two cords to both driver/passenger sun visors. Dry fit the visors, and made sure they both worked. Removed them, and then reinstalled when the whole liner was ready to go back in. I didn't take a whole lot of pictures here either. My fingers were hurting from twisting lots of 22 AWG wires together, and was ready for this job to be over.
Drivers side harness.

Section: 3 High mount stop light.

While the headliner was out, I started working on the High mount stop light.

I used a screw driver to "cut" the old seal, and then a map gas torch to heat up the old seal. I used a rag to wipe it all away while it was still hot'n'gooey. The seal on the light is like a foam rubber substance thats super sticky.

You can see a little yellowing of the paint where it got too hot.
Heres a picture with the old high mount on the left with a hole burnt into it from years of incandescent bulbs. New on right.

The new one is much brighter.

Full reflector powers activated!

While I was there I T-tapped a harness onto the new cargo light incase I ever want to install bed lights. Ran the wires down the rear drivers side pillar. Cut the Pos/Neg wires at different lengths, heat shrinked, and taped to prevent unwanted sparking. No pics, sorry.

 

https://youtu.be/6PxsVUZaY_M

 

@Tundra2 so I just ordered a roll of the VHB and the LED strip lights. Did you remove the adhesive backing on them or did you push that adhesive into the VHB adhesive?

 

I used both stickies. I laid the VHB down, and then smooshed the sticky from the light strip onto the VHB sticky. If you want I'll take pictures when I get home.

I did NOT use VHB on the door light though. Only on the hood-light.

 

Update on the High mount replacement.

Its rained about 10 inches since I've done that. I've checked for leaks with a fine tooth comb. No leaks as of yet.

 

Good to know, I was wondering. Hood mod will be an exclusive, "If I have time".

 

Gotcha.

The reason I went with the extra sticky was to help prevent that from falling off, and say... getting wrapped around my fan...

 

"View" curiosity bump.

Edit: WOAH!

I wonder if it's possible to change the above image in the screenshot?


11:42 P.m. C.S.T, 2/16/2021.

 

i believe its a setting somewhere. but i dont know for sure