2004 Tundra Limited Double Cab - New Owner/New Project

Greetings!
Wasn't sure where I should post this. Seemed too long for the introductions area. Since I'm only really cleaning it up and doing a few cosmetic tweaks .... not involved enough for the build thread. But I needed somewhere to chronicle my project so I didn't have to watch the eyes of friends and family glass over while they pretended to be interested in me talking, ad nauseum, about my truck. So here it is.

I've been keeping my eye out for a truck to use to use for the next couple of years while I'm in DIY home improvement mode. Initially was thinking just some old beater but figured as long as I could buy in at the right price and get most of my $$$ back whenever I decided to sell ... why not consider something that might be a little more fun to tinker with.

One owner since new, just about every option you could get and meticulous records of all minor and major service. Just rolled over 228,000 in the week since I bought it. Drives like a car/truck with 50k (hopefully not putting the jinx on it and have it burst into flames the next time I drive it).



The Good:

• As mentioned above ... drives great. Engine, transmission and suspension feel extremely solid. Seems more like a nice handling SUV than any of the other trucks I test drove.
• Leather interior is practically museum quality except for some very minor wear on the driver's seat and one wear spot on the factory mats from the driver's heel.
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• Also, as mentioned above, I have the build sheet and looks like the first owner checked pretty much every option available. Love the huge sun/moon roof.
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• Regular service done every ~4500 since new.
• Timing belt and engine seals/gaskets replaced right at 100,000 and then again at 200,000.
• Within the last 30,000 miles: New spark plugs, 02 sensor, water pump, Front and rear brakes, sway bar links and seems like anything on the small list of problem areas for these has been addressed at some point.
• Buddy that owns a body shop checked it top to bottom with one of his guys and found no real issues.
• Friend that manages the dealership where I've bought my last 5 cars looked it over and drove it and was fairly amazed at how good it is.

Everything that falls into "the bad" category is really just exterior cosmetics. And, for the purposes of getting the deal I wanted was kind of a good because I knew a number of the worst looking spots could be "fixed" (defined, for my purposes, as getting them to the point where they at least no longer drew your attention) with minimal $$$ and a little effort.

The goal I set for myself is that the only money I spend could be reasonably expected to return the investment when I go to sell the truck (although that's starting to feel like IF I go to sell the truck). So, for example, even with the friends and family discount I get the triple stage paint on the Tundra makes taking any of the problem panels to perfection a non-starter.

Bad #1:
Clear coat was completely gone on the tops of the passenger side flares. As a result, the paint underneath was horribly oxidized and a real eye catcher when approaching from that side.


Was pretty sure there might be some good paint under the ugly so the first thing I did the night I bought the thing was take the random orbital polisher, Meguiars Ultimate Compound ... and a flashlight (it was cold and dark .... sure I looked like more of an idiot than usual to the neighbors). Buffed it with some wax to protect and give it a little shine ... and good enough for now.


Bad #2:
The first 12-14 inches of the hood had a somewhat astonishing number of chips. Whatever happened had enough impact to fully chip the paint all the way to primer or metal but not enough to actually ding it.


I'm on the lookout for a used hood in the same color (much cheaper than a repaint) but needed to protect the current one from rusting (should have some value to a person already planning to strip and repaint). So figured I'd attempt my first Plasti Dip project since I'm a big fan of things you can easily undo if they end up looking stupid. (The "after" pic in the Bad #3 section since I was working on that while waiting for the coats of "dip" to dry).

Bad #3:
All of the black exterior pieces were badly faded/oxidized (plastic pieces) and the painted trim at the bottom of the windows was pretty gross.



Slathered the parts that looked salvageable with my go-to product for these things and put some vinyl wrap on the painted parts.

Happy with the way the trim turned out and the hood is good enough for now.


Bad #4:
The wheels. These were always the worst of the "bads" but now that the other stuff was looking better they really stood out.


If it were just the flaking paint and corroded alloy I could have almost lived with it for a while but the mucous yellow plastic center caps were going to keep me up at night so I had to do something.

So ..... more Plasti Dip! Watched a bunch of youtube videos and after enough searches that seem to indicate it holds up pretty well even on folk's daily drivers tried it first on a couple of the center caps. Didn't bother sanding them down to totally smooth since I knew I wouldn't have enough warm weather time to do that to the wheels. Just enough to get past where it was flaking and clean off any grime that might keep the dip from adhering.


Prepping the wheels, because of their sorry state, was a legitimate PITA. Had slightly less than a 2 day window to work with (to get all 4 done) because of weather/work/other projects/etc. So, about halfway into prepping the first one, had figured out how much time I could realistically spend on the prep on all 4 and finish on time. Even so, I still was putting the last coat on at the end of day 2 with the sun going down and temperatures creeping towards freezing.

I'm hoping they'll hold up for a while. Think I did a pretty good job on the prep given the time I had .... and won't be putting many miles on the truck. Even if they just get me through the cold months I'll be happy. Once the weather warms up I can work on them one at a time in a more leisurely fashion if need be.

Couple of, under construction, pictures. Finished (for now) product at the top of the post.



If the weather forecast holds for tomorrow I'll be installing a new head unit and backup camera.

 

Welcome to the party!!

 

Yeah buddy. Welcome. Nice truck! You’ll be doing more than this we have a feeling.

 

Welcome from Ohio!

 

Hell yeah looks better already! I wanted salsa red pearl for the longest time but all the ones I found were in bad shape paint wise. I'm excited to see what else you do with it.

 

Welcome from Ca.

 

WELCOME

 

Thanks. I'm usually pretty boring with cars and stick with black or some sort of dark gray but I really like the red on this truck a lot. It does need some polishing though. As good as the original owner was about taking care of the mechanicals and interior I think he was someone that didn't understand that wax is for more than making a car shiny.

 

So, the up side of of buying a truck when the weather is getting cold is that it's more of a buyer's market. Down side is .... less available days when you can work on the truck so you have to grab them when you can.

Installed a new head unit and backup cam the weekend prior to this past one. Still have a couple of other things I might be doing with the audio so I'm going to hold off posting about that but if anyone is doing a backup cam and trying to find the #@*#@! reverse wire (which seemed to move around from year to year and model to model) .... let me know. I have pictures. If you have my exact year and model and set of options it might help.

Having dealt with the most obvious issues the one big thing I had yet to do was giving the paint a good once over. One pass with Meguiar's Ultimate Compound to prep the surface then a coat of wax before Winter kicks in for real around here. Weather was nice on Friday with a good forecast for Sunday so freed up my Friday afternoon and started with the passenger side.

I've been debating whether or not I wanted to give the plastic chrome emblems the blackout treatment but I knew there were a few too many of them for my taste and added that to the weekend task list. My only real concern with removing and moving the emblems was the fading in the paint (passenger side being the worst) might make where the emblems had been mounted too stark a contrast to the surrounding paint so I was very careful with my heat gun and expired credit card not to damage them .... in case I decided to put them back.

Only had enough daylight left to:

• remove the "limited", excise the "Toyota" part of "Toyota_Tundra"
• Clean up the 15 year old adhesive left behind (by far, the worst part of this particular process)
• Buff the paint on that side
• Give the remaining "Tundra" the blackout treatment

It was too dark by the time I finished to have a good idea of whether I liked the look or not. Once it was light enough on the cold and wet morning that followed I checked it ... liked it ... and decided to proceed.



Forecast for Saturday was for a cold and constant drizzle and there wasn't going to be enough time to finish the whole project on Sunday so I lugged the tailgate down to my utility room in the basement.

Also, on the passenger side all I had to do was remove the pieces I didn't want and dip what remained while on the truck. Driver's side was going to require relocating the Tundra. I removed that during a break in the rain so I could have it prepped for Sunday. Pulled the front emblems as well.

Pretty much more of the same for the tailgate:

• Remove the stuff I didn't want there or needed to be relocated
• Adhesive removal, adhesive removal .... and then some more adhesive removal
• Thorough buffing then wax
• Blacking out the logos
• Adding "Tundra" back in its new spot

Didn't think to get a before picture when I had it in the basement but have the one from the dealer ad for comparison.




And the final result after Sunday's work. The day ended up being nowhere near as nice as the pre-weekend forecast but still managed to give the whole truck a buff, wax and all the bits and pieces back in place.

Pretty happy with the way things are going. Might add a little gloss to the Toyota logo and V8 badge on the front to make them stand out a bit more.

 

FWIW the backup camera I installed only needed reverse power at the camera itself. That's pretty easy to tap into at the trailer wiring harness.

 

I should have been more clear. I wanted to have power to the cam any time the car was on so I could use it when not in reverse if I wanted to so I just tapped one of the accessory feeds for that.

The reverse wire I meant was the one you tap into from the head unit so it knows to switch to the cam when you put it into reverse.

 

Nice Truck! I am really watching your mods since I just bought a 2003 in the same Salza Red not as many options though.

 

Welcome from NY.

 

Awesome job sprucing her up!

 

That's what I figured but thought I'd throw it out there. Drivers kick panel seems to be the place but the wire color seems to be a crap shoot, especially on the 04.

I'll pull the service manual up later and see if I can give you a few options.

 

I did finally find it the day I was doing the install ... it just took a while. I had done a lot of searches and seems like on some years it was on the driver's side and other years passenger. Also, I think there may have been an option for a backup cam after 2004 so some people had an unused connector they could tap into right behind the head unit.

Also confusing the issue was that even once I had found some pics of the connection (driver's kick panel, furthest one down) that ended up being the right one they had different options so the wires going into were different. And .... it's always described as the red wire with the black stripe ... which there are two of. I figured it was the smaller of the two but was a little worried about winging it and shorting out the new head unit.

Finally, somewhere, saw it described as the red wire with the black stripe with "silver dots" and, even though you can't see it in the attached pic, there were little dabs of what looked to be just silver paint on the skinny one and that gave me enough confidence to give it a shot ... and it worked.

The cluster of wires I'm holding up in the picture are on a single connector that pops out pretty easily. Once you do that the one you need isn't too hard to unplug.

 

Thanks! I'm not going to be doing anything crazy with mods. It was just so well maintained mechanically and the interior was so nice I wanted to try and get the outside as close to the rest of it as I could. Without throwing a bunch of $$$ at it since the whole reason I was looking for a truck was so I wouldn't be lugging around dirty project supplies in my car.

Problem now is that I like the truck enough after the work I've put into it I don't really want to dirty it up either.

 

I know this thread is over a year old but I love what you did with the truck!!
If your still around I would like to know what you did to the black trim under the windows to get them cleaned up?
Also did you remove, plasti dip then reinstall the lettering or plasti dip them while they were on the truck?
Thanks!!

 

Thanks!

For the trim I just used some matte black vinyl wrap. Just clean the trim then wipe it down with alcohol and put the vinyl over it. Then just take a blade and trim off the excess. It does really "like" gripping to the trim so you just need to press it in place fairly carefully because it isn't that easy to pull it back up and correct.

Definitely makes it look brand new but, with mine, the down side was that the trim was pretty stiff which the vinyl does nothing to help so I can definitely feel it when I have my arm out the window on a nice day.

For the logos you definitely don't need to take them off unless you're going to move them around (like I did). There are a ton of youtube vids showing how but you just spray a few coats liberally on on the logs and the surrounding surface then when it's dry you just peel it off from the painted surface. It naturally wants to separate at the boundary between the logo and the paint. Since I was minimizing some of the logos that were there so had to re-position them so I did have to remove and move a couple.

But if you just want to keep everything that's on there and make it black I'd leave them on. Cleaning off the 15 year old stuff they use to stick them on was by far the most difficult part.

 

Working on the same year with all the bells and whistles. The guy I bought it from spared nothing even dvd in rear. If still around, sure would love to hear more about your head unit and backup cam installation and thoughts on head unit you chose.

 

If you search this forum theres a few of us who put in back up cameras. I know there was a few posts in the "what have you done" section, and a whole thread on it too iirc.