Colorado Blue build - 2019 TRD Pro headlight swap

Installed the Victory 4x4 Rear Diff Skid. First one they sent was from the first batch and the bolt holes didn't line up correctly. Luckily had seen that someone here had the same problem and noticed before I was under the truck. They sent out a new part and everything went on fine. Took a bit of pushing to get things close enough for the bolts to start, but once they did it all sunk in tight. Haven't had the chance to hit any trails to try it out yet, but looking forward to it.

 

Wanted to have my Hi-Lift jack and X-Bull Recovery tracks mounted in the bed of my truck, so fab'ed up a couple of mounts. Used 1 1/4 x 3/16" steel. Did a bit of cutting and bending to get them to drop down the back bed, then shift back to lay against the back of the bed for support. Drilled holes, sanded, primed and painted black. Then dipped the bottoms in multiple coats of Plasti Dip. Used 1/2" bolts for mounting the jack and tracks, using threaded four-prong knobs to tighten everything down. Top bolt for jack is 4 1/2" and the bottom for the tracks is 5". Think they came together pretty well.



The spacing for the jack and tracks was about 1/8" off, so i drilled the holds for the bolts 1/16" off center top to bottom, reversing on each. Worked out well. I mounted these directly to the bed track system.



I built a few spacers by cutting a piece of conduit I had laying around into short sections (2" for jack, 1 1/2" for tracks) and dipping in the Plasti Dip. Put them behind the jack to keep it away from the bed, and on the outside of the tracks, so the knob had something to push against. So far everything seems nice and stable. Real test will be offroad...

 

Wanted to get rid of some more chrome by color matching the door handles and mirror caps. Could have easily ordered them, but both wanted to save a bit of money for other projects and also just kind of wanted to see if I could do it myself. After a bunch of research, I found a thread here about chemical removal of chrome (https://www.tundras.com/threads/mad-scientist-aka-cheap-bastard-diy-chrome-removal.32144/). Sounded like a fun science experiment, so off I went. Started by buying a second set of chrome door handles and mirror caps from fellow tundras.com members. Figured that way I didn't need to rush through this (and if I really messed up, my truck was still whole). I then mixed up a batch of muriatic acid and hydrogen peroxide in a 5 gallon bucket. This stuff is a bit nasty, so stay safe (rubber gloves, safety goggles, etc. - be smart). Before putting the door handles in, I had to do a bit of work as the chemicals will eat away metal. For the screws in the door handle, I just filled the space with latex caulk. For the bolt part of the smaller sections, I used some Flex Tape. The stickiness/goop of that tape was perfect and sealed it off great. Now, just put into the bucket and leave overnight.



You can see the chrome flaking away. I checked in the morning, scrubbed a few stubborn parts with a brush and left till that evening. After a quick wash with soap and water, I had pure plastic door handles. Repeated the same for the mirror caps (no picks of that process).



Next was painting. I taped off the black areas of the door handles along with anything I didn't want painted (like the tabs on the back of the mirror caps). I purchased color-matched paint from automotivetouchup.com along with sandable primer. I first sprayed with an adhesive promoter, then a couple coats of primer. Wet sanded with 600 sandpaper. Then three coats of Blazing Blue Pearl. I'm not the greatest spray painter. It mostly came out well, but I did end up with a few spots where the can dripped/spit. I could have ordered another can of paint to try to do better, but decided it was good enough for me. Once fully dry, I sprayed three coats of SprayMax 2K Urethane Clearcoat. Again, working with nasty stuff. Wear a mask and protective gear. But this is supposed to be hard, so let's go for it. Spraying was actually pretty easy and it went on well.

After another waiting period, it was time to clean them up. I was doing all of this in my garage, which isn't the cleanest environment. While the clear coat was drying, lots of little things seemed to land on it. Ended up with dimples and hairs stuck to the top. So, started by wet sanding everything with 3000 sandpaper till nice and (mostly) smooth. Then, my buddy Clark brought over his polisher and gear and we did a two stage polish.



Color came out great and clear coat shined up nicely. As I said before, my paint job wasn't the best but it's good enough for me and I had fun learning a bunch of new skills. We swapped out the door handles and mirror caps. That's all pretty straightforward, though I did have one where the inner black sleeve where the screw is displaced a bit. Took some work to get it back where it needed to be. All others went right on.

I'm happy with the results. Not quite the same as ordering it all painted professionally, but got to play with chemical baths, learn to paint and it still looks nice.

 

Last Black Friday I ordered an Expedition One Storm Trooper winch bumper. Was willing to wait a while, which was good as it didn't show up till April. While the quality is great, I must mention that there were two problems with what was shipped to me: First, they sent the wrong internal bull bar mount (for the 2007 vs 3rd gen). Luckily, I saw that another forum member had the same issue and was able to get a replacement sent out before taking the truck apart. Secondly, they forgot to weld on one of the lights mounts for the PIAA light port. They had to send a new one, which wasn't powder coated so I painted myself (their powder coating was backed up and I didn't want to wait). Was able to get it all sorted out, but it took quite a bit of back and forth.

I ordered the bumper raw steel as I wanted to color match paint. Instead of taking it out somewhere, I thought I'd try painting myself (save some money and get to learn a bit). Went to https://www.automotivetouchup.com/ and ordered four cans of color matched spray paint, sandable primer, 600 grit wet sand paper and clear coat.

The first thing I did was set-up on some saw horses that it lived on for a good long while. Then cleaned, sanded and cleaned again. Went with a couple light coats of self-etching primer before three good coats of sandable primer. Then wet sanded with 600 grit. Messed up a few places, resprayed with more sandable primer and wet sanded again. Thought I had done a good job, but if doing again would have spent even more time on the wet sanding making sure it's really good. I'm still happy with how it came out for being done in my garage, but lesson learned...



Next came painting. Three coats with the color matched spray paint. Again, not the greatest job ever but learned a lot. The first few coats I went light and they went on well. My last can started sputtering a bit and I ended up with some spots. Maybe should have ordered another can and waited to get it right, but went ahead with it the way it is. It's just a bumper and the spots were mostly on the lower side. After letting it dry the prescribed time, I clear coated. I used SprayMax 2K Urethane Clearcoat and put on three thick coats. Stuff is nasty, so wear a respirator mask. I did and still didn't feel exactly safe. Guess those warnings got to me. Mostly went on well, though there were a few runs. There's also enough stuff floating through the air of my garage that I ended up with some fluff/hairs stuck in the clearcoat. After drying well, I wet sanded the clearcoat as well, which helped a lot. I then had a buddy bring over his polishing tools and he polished the entire bumper, which made a huge difference.


Next up was mounting the Warn VR-12S winch. Went with the Warn for quality and warranty, but just couldn't pull the trigger on the full Zeon even though it looks great. The way the winch mounts in the Expedition One bumper, I needed to remove the control unit/solenoid. Decided I wanted to remote mount it in the engine bay, so I purchased two 6' battery cables from Battery Cables USA. I replaced two of the short cables with the 6' and swapped the existing short cable going to the + battery with the long that came with the winch. The end result was three long cables connecting the winch to the control, and a short from control that would go to the batter. The long for - to the battery I left alone. I then completely unconnected the control unit (marking each cable by color so I knew where to hook up later) so I could later route the wires as needed.

Finishing out the winch install, I used a Factor 55 1" fairlead and a Factor 55 Flatlink.



Finally, time to install (now that it's June). First, before taking anything apart we used a pair of jumper cables to hook up the winch and test. Didn't want to finish install to find out it didn't work... But all was good. Now, take apart the entire front end of your truck. At least that's what it feels like. Remove grille and bumper.



The inner bull-bar went on easy enough. Just a decent amount of wrenching to get everything on properly. Adding the frame reinforcement brackets took a bit more time. First, you need to drill a couple of extra holes in your frame. Not too bad. The other issue is that the remote reservoir brackets for my King coilovers were in the way. We ended up dropping the sway bar to get the brackets off, then using an angle grinder to cut a bit out of the brackets before it could all piece back together. A bit of a detour, but it all came together and we're finally in a place to put the new bumper on.



The hardest part of the actual bumper install was just lining things up, then tightening the 8 bolts with just enough room to get ratchets in. Time and a few hit knuckles. After it was in place, we ran the winch cables to along the bottom of where the grille lines up, securing with zip ties. Then mounted the control box on top of the fuse box. Since the bottom of the control box for a VR-12S is curved, I cut a piece of black polycarb to size and countersunk some holes. I screwed this into the bottom of the control box, giving it a flat surface and then used four strips of industrial strength velcro to attach to the fuse box. Seems secure and since I placed it as far inside as I could, there's plenty of room to attach the control cord.



I only hooked up the fog lights so far, as I'm waiting on the harness to finish the spots. Fog lights are PIAA RF6 in yellow. I wanted to drive these from my stock fog light control, so I cut off connectors from the wiring harness supplied, soldered onto the fog light wires from the truck and used a couple layers of shrink to secure and protect. They hooked up and worked just fine. I installed the Baja Design Squadron Pro LED lights into the ports, but didn't hook up yet. That's coming next. Then put the grille back in place.

Finally, finished putting the Flipster V2 license plate mount on. I had put the backing on while installing the winch. I had to install upside down, as the Exp One has the winch cut-out recessed. Seems to hold fine and is staying in place even thought it's upside down.

Step back and finally enjoy the fruits of a lot of time and labor. I think it came out well. The color isn't 100% match, but pretty close. Winch is working great (we stretched and rewound the synthetic cable the next morning). The front of my truck now sits 1/4" lower than it did with the original bumper, so I'll be getting an alignment (you can see it's off, though it's driving fine). Now, just to get to the mountains and play.

 

Truck overall looks great and well thought out. The bumper just turned out fantastic and I think it's the best looking of the style I've seen yet. Great job.

BTW: Nice Z in the background there. Here's a pic of one of my favorite teenage cars circa ~87 (I grew up mostly street rodding but this was a brief but enjoyable vacation from big V8's).

 

Thanks @diableri, I appreciate it. I didn't grow up working on cars and have really enjoyed doing as much work on the truck myself as possible. Really makes you think through the plan and try to do things the right way.

Nice Z as well there. This one is going to be my 15 year olds first car. It's been a great project for the two of us, learning how to rebuild it and get it running again. Worth the money spent just for the time spent with him working together. Not looking as nice as yours yet, but we're working on it. Amazing what you can learn to do on youtube now.

 

One of the things that's always bothered me about my Tundra is that I still can't tell how close to something I really am. When parking in small spaces, when there are poles or fences in front of me, etc. So, knowing that I was going to have the entire front end of my truck taken apart to put on the new bumper, I went ahead and ordered a FRAC harness from @TundraTex. While wiring up my Baja Designs Squadron Pros, I mounted an Natika camera and installed the FRAC harness. I wanted the camera switch to be a bit closer at hand, so I used a front/rear camera switch from Air On Board. I had to extend the wires from the harness a bit, but was able to mount it along with the spot light switch below my shifter in the change area.



For the 4th, we drove back to visit family in Kansas. Liked having the front camera and it was handy. Used it multiple times and it helped judge distances well. I did accidentally turn on the spots at one point so will have to watch that. I mounted the second switch from the FRAC using the supplied switch in the spot recommended (above the lighter) as I don't plan on using it nearly as often. Leaves me one open spot if I add any other switches.

 

Brother... you are my hero! Great projects and results!

 

Totally awesome build.

 

That's a lucky young man! Such a great little car and an incredible way to build some father/son experience. Not stupid fast but certainly fast enough to put a smile on most faces. Hope it's a stick! Love the truck, following your build.

 

Thank you both. I appreciate the feedback and positivity. I get so many good ideas on this site, it's nice to know others like what I'm adding back.

 

I like the fact that it's a manual that doesn't have power steering. There's no way he can text and drive with that. Also doesn't have a back seat (can't take groups of friends around). It is sporty and fun, but a 40 year old inline six isn't going to get him in too much trouble I hope. But a blast to drive.

The biggest thing is the father/son experience. We hadn't done much together the last few years. His interests have diverged from mine and he'd rather be off playing a video game than hanging out with me. But now I get home from work and he asks if we can go work on the car together for a few hours. That's worth a lot.

 

Have been adding more armor piece by piece. Just had an alignment done after the new bumper, so thought I'd add some protection for the lower control arms. Ordered the Victory 4x4 LCA skids. Install was fairly painless, other than just not having much room (I was lazy and didn't jack the front of the truck, resulting in a lot of crawling around). Skids lined up, fit well and I tightened everything nicely. I've seen that a few others have had fit issues, especially at full wheel lock. No issues with mine. Plenty of room all around.

Now, just need to replace the plastic gas tank skid and I'm in good shape.

 

great looking truck. Im a huge fan of that color blue. the cavalry and voodoo just don't do it for me. This one on the other hand!

 

Thanks @TundraLaw. I actually went thinking I'd get a completely different color. Saw the blue in the parking lot and loved it. Didn't think too much more than that. Just ran with it.

 

Now that the front bumper is all installed, I didn't like the fact that there are three big holes in the top. I know they're needed for access to the winch, but also know that UV light is damaging to synthetic rope.



I needed something easy to put on and take off, so decided to make a cover out of ABS plastic. It's easy to work with and used all over the place, so thought it would hold up. I ordered a sheet of 3/16" ABS sheet and went to work. I cut it basically to a shape that would cover all three holes. I angled the front to match the same angles as the bumper, just for looks. Then used a heat gun to warm up till it would bend and used the bumper as a guide I bent to match. To do so, I clamped the front onto the bumper with a piece of wood and then weighted the back. Didn't come out as I'd hoped... As it cooled, the parts of the bend on iron cooled at different temps than those over air. It really warped. So, I ended up reheating with the heat gun multiple times and kept bending and straightening (using a work bench to clamp to for straight). Took a bunch of just trying and failing to get it right. But finally it worked.

Since the back is under the grille, I decided I wanted to just push it into place to secure. I laminated two pieces of the ABS cut into 1" strips, letting one overlap the other 1/4". Then glued a section to each end of the back. These fit into the two larger holes as the steel of the bumper is 3/16" as well. For the front, I drilled holes matching the holes in the bumper for mounting lights.



To secure, I cut a pieces of ABS that fit into the slots below the holes in the bumper. With a bit of sanding of the edges to get a 45 degree angle, they slide right into place and fit snugly. I then glued a second layer to these. I used stainless steel T nuts, so cut some gaps from the hole in four directions and hammered into place from the bottom. The nuts extend 1/8" over the top, but that's fine. These slid into place securely.



I could then slide the cover on and use 5/16" by 3/4" cap screws to secure in place. Fits pretty well and covers everything nicely. Easy to remove for those times I do need to use the winch (or want to clean it out), but protects the winch and inner bumper from rain and sun. Will see how it holds up over time, but fun project to do.

 

After fording a river while offroading last weekend (https://www.tundras.com/threads/coney-flats-lyons-colorado.49883/#post-1301635), I changed the rear diff fluid in my truck. Didn't look too cloudy, but didn't want to take any chances.

While I was crawling under the truck, I went ahead and installed the ARB Diff Breather kit. Just to the rear and routed into the drivers side tail light cavity. Easy to do and good piece of mind for those crossings. I know I could have done a cheaper breather mod DIY vs the ARB, but what the heck. It's a small cost vs everything else I've done.

 

Thanks @ColoradoTJ, I appreciate that. So many ideas from these forums, along with detailed instructions and help. Makes it fun (if I bit expensive).

 

Installed 2019 TRD Pro headlights using the iHacker harness for dimming. Was a cold day and ended up getting some snow before it was all done, but everything came together thought with a few audibles along the way. Started as always by removing the grill and then the panels below the lights and then the lights.



Harness routed just fine and putting new headlights in was pretty painless. That part went nice a quick. I then routed the harness through the firewall and started hooking up the amber delete and daylight running lights. That's where things took some time. I didn't follow iHackers advice to purchase a terminal extraction tool (need to listen to advice...). I tried to extract with a pin, needle, paper clip and super small screwdriver. Never did get it out. Not sure what I was doing wrong, but just wouldn't budge. Finally ended up pulling the wire out of the terminal while trying, so changed plans. I ended up soldering this grey wire to the black in the harness, then heat shrink wrapping it good. Everything worked, just not easy to undo if I ever wanted to... Lesson learned.

I checked to make sure things worked, then put everything back together.



Went to level the new lights and realized I had forgotten to zero out the old ones before marking and putting in the new. I was able to adjust to the right position, but they're a couple of clicks off where they 'should' be if I had zeroed out. Not sure if I'll try to fix that or just leave it be as it works. Another lesson learned... Don't just read the instructions, reread them as you're going through. Was so familiar with taking off the grill and removing stuff that I kind of skimmed that part...

Anyway, I'm happy that it's all working and it came together. It would have taken way less time with the right tools and the wiring was a bit of a pain, but think it looks good and really looking forward to better lights while driving.

 

Awesome truck!!!

 

Now you need a roof rack!

*cough* I’m selling one and am local *cough* lol

 

Thanks man. It's been fun building and then actually getting it offroad to see how it does.

 

Tempting and would be useful, but just spent all my cash on the headlights. Timing's not good as I have to space out my truck purchases to stay married...

 

I hear ya, I’m in the dog house too at the moment lol

 

Stopped for a quick pick after a storm passed by the other day.