RainMan's 2021 Lunar Rock TRD Pro Build

install

I’ve had this sitting in my basement for a few months and finally got some time to get it installed. I didn’t want to tear apart the dash JUST for this, since I don’t really have any plans for what I’m going to mount to it, so I was waiting for when I would be working on other things at the same time (like routing wiring to the passenger side for the upcoming “manual reverse light” setup).

While I was waiting, I did take advantage of the leftover mounting plate that came with my switch pros, and cut and drilled it to make a nice backing plate under the dash.


This week during a sun break, it was time to open up the dash (like I said - I had multiple projects to knock out, so I stripped it down for all of them).


Back in December 2020, I did the “Relocate Media Port” mod that involved putting a dual USB port where the factory power port is inside the console, and then setting up a 12V to 5V USB power adapter up inside the dash to power one of those ports and to make the original factory media port location another charging port. That mod details how I routed the leads for the power adapter down and plugged them into the factory connector for the original power port in the console.

For THIS addition, since the Rago now ships with a dual USB power port in for the center of it, I decided to route leads for it down along that same path and solder-splice them in to the leads feeding that 12V-5V adapter. This way all of the various power ports are still running off of the appropriate factory power circuits.

Making the solder splice using my handy extra hands setup.


Next, I turned my attention to lining up and marking the holes for the mounting base. The base comes with two “tabs” that engage in slots in the dash after you take out the little rubber mat, so the side to side was easy. I determined using some test fitting that having the tabs all the way to the rear of the slots gave the best “evenness” to the upper plate, so that is where we marked and drilled, and then installed with the lower plate underneath the dash.

Next, I drilled a 1/4” hole just behind the plate to route the wires up through, and worked on securing the wires underneath to leave some slack up through the hole. I then terminated the top of the wiring with a

JST Connector Kit, JST SH/GH/ZH/PH/XH/PA/XA/SM/SYP/EL Connector.

JST 2.5mm 2-pin connector (I’ve been using a bunch of them lately). These connectors aren’t quite as “positive” feeling as the factory connectors, but are a shit-ton less expensive versus the least expensive 2-pin factory connectors I’ve been able to track down (even through third part sites), so for now that’s what I’m using and they seem to be holding well. If I ever decide I’m not happy with them, it will be easy enough to de-term the JST connectors and replace with factory terminals and connectors.

Anyway, male terminals went on the pigtail up through the dash


And female terminals went on the pigtail from the USB charger. I also wrapped the pigtail with black tape just to reduce the visibility a bit.


Next, I bolted down the plate…and determined that the front (toward the hood) passenger side was higher than the driver side by a noticeable different. The rear (closes to the radio) seemed about even. So, I decided to try shimming it a little on the driver side. First, I tried a standard 1/4” flat washer, but that was way too much. So then I dug out a roll of 0.010” brass shim stock that I have and experimented with a couple different combinations - it turned out that two layers (0.020” total) was just right to my eyes. So I drilled a hole in it and set it between the plate and bolted things down.




You will also note that when the power port has power, it has two ~1/3 circle lights that illuminate around the edges.

 

Added on/off to the mirror power “auto-fold”

The idea of this one is to simply add a switch that will interrupt the battery power going to the DPDT relay that is used in the auto-fold feature (see link for details on this). This one is relatively simple, but took some planning to find the exact solution I was looking for - something unobtrusive, easy to use, and that still “fit” with the truck. Ultimately, I settled on these 12mm round black metal push-button switches, which have a blue illumination ring on them and come pre-wired with pigtails (12mm is the diameter of the hole they fit in). When the switch is OUT, it is OFF (normally open), but it latches in for ON.

I picked the angled spot directly above the mirror switch. To do it over, I should have shifted the hold just about 1mm closer to the switch (making the flange on the switch just fit into the angle).



(Oh look - more JST connectors!).

The red and black leads are for illumination - I chose to power them dedicated off the illumination circuit in the truck so that they are on when the headlights are on. There are options in the wiring diagram that comes with it that show you how to hook it up if you want the LED to light whenever the switch is ON. The blue leads are the switched circuit, which will be connected to the dedicated BATTERY power lead and then feed out to the BATTERY connection on my auto-fold relay.

Here is a mock-up with it plugged into the break-out harness for the mirror switch that has the auto-fold relay connected into it.


now - when I went to install it, I found that the angle and the length of the switch stuck out just enough to interfere with part of the dash sub-frame plastic where the trim panel clips into. So I used a hole saw to cut out a generous arch for it. The horizontal trim piece below the vent covers most of this arch, and I think I’m going to need to make a little but of a relief cut in that trim piece as well, but this takes care of most of the clearance needs (the upper wire terminal on the switch gets pushed a little when it is being snapped into place).

(All those JST connectors! - that is operation “no t-taps”)

The finished switch installed, with the switch in the OFF (out) position:


When the switch is pressed in, the blue light actually recesses with it and becomes pretty faint. This picture also makes all of them look brighter than they are - it is impossible to capture the true brightness and hue of these lights accurately, but the ring is a bit more vivid blue than the light blue of the factory switches. It’s all good though.

Now that it is complete, this is the function:
Auto-off Switch OFF (out) and truck ON

Press mirror fold switch in, mirrors retract in.
Press mirror fold switch out, mirrors fold out.
Turn truck off, mirrors remain in the position they were already in.​

Auto-off Switch ON (in) and truck ON

Press mirror fold switch in, mirrors retract in.
Press mirror fold switch out, mirrors fold out.
Turn truck off, mirrors retract in automatically, regardless of mirror fold switch position.
Turn truck back on, mirrors return wherever the mirror fold switch position is set.​

Bonus function

If the auto-fold switch is OFF when the truck is turned off, you can simply press the auto-fold switch ON to retract the mirrors without turning the truck back on. You can then turn the switch back OFF once they are retracted if you don’t want to leave the auto-fold turned on. When you start the truck back up, the mirrors will then fold back out.​

 

Appreciate you posting the picture of your dash torn apart. After this weekend my wife was on my case. Showed her the picture and said “You think I tinker with my truck; look at what this guy did… Could be a lot worse”.

Got an eye roll. Counting it as a win.

 

Does this have the added benefit of illuminating the mirror switch? Hard to tell how much light comes off that new button.

Always fun to see what you do! May have to start reading up on the auto fold.... folding the mirrors a lot more often then I expected.

 

Operation “No T-Taps”

This one has been cooking in my brain for a long time, and I will need a little bit of time to organize my thoughts and get some diagrams drawn up of exactly what is going on. BUT the primary thing here is that this mod has removed every single t-tap or wire splice tap from the truck and replaced it with break-out harnesses that can be removed to return the truck to stock (or near stock) configuration. It all started by running across a thread on TW for a guy that makes some “vampire” or “break-out” harnesses to pull illumination (+) and (-) from the cargo light circuit, and then he started making “daisy-chain” harnesses for the CH4X4 switches (which should also work for AOB brand ones as well). I took lots of notes, figured out the connector information, and decided to delve into it myself.

So, the first harness to make was the one for the cargo light switch, which also happens to contain one of the wires for the bed light kit that I have (so that they run off the cargo light control). The blue and black leads going to the JST connector are the illumination circuit, and the single black lead is spliced off the cargo light control and connects to the negative lead of the bed lights. Since this picture, I have removed the electrical tape “loom” to make the harness more flexible.


Next up was the mess that was going on for the mirror control switch and auto-fold relay. First, I eliminated the massive terminal block for the DPDT relay and instead used some double-crimp 0.187” female spade connectors (covered in heat shrink) to connect directly to the relay terminals with leads. The red wire off to the left is the one that connects to the above Auto-fold on/off switch, and then continues down to a dedicated battery power source. From the break-out harness, the red and white leads are ACC power (red) and ground (white). The ground is the spliced to two connections on the relay so that both ACC and BAT power sources are grounded as needed for the auto-fold function. The orange and brown leads are set up so that if I want to remove the auto-fold function I can either 1) remove the whole break-out harness, or 2) simply clip the two leads directly to each other. Otherwise, they break out to the relay per the wiring diagram in that original post.


With my two factory break-out connectors take care of, I needed to now work on power sources for my various switches and loads:

• Auto-fold needed a BATTERY power source
• My mirror “reverse” lights needed a BATTERY power source. This same source will be used for the manual reverse light override that will use the same switch (turning on the “reverse lights” switch will turn on the mirror lights and the truck and bumper reverse lights).
• My bed lights needed a BATTERY power source (originally, the factory instructions t-tapped off the cargo light positive wire for this).
• My winch solenoid cut-off switch needed IGNITION power source (I only want to be able to turn the winch on if the truck is running).
• My air compressor switch needed IGNITION power source (again, only want the compressor running if the truck is running).
• My VSC Auto-disable switch will need IGNITION power source so that it only operates (if pressed in) when the truck is started.
• I wanted room for some spares as well.

Since I had purchased extra male/female connector pairs for making the break-out harnesses, I decided to use a pair of the mirror ones to build a “power distribution” harness. I have to ATM-LP fuse taps that then splice out to 5 individual wires each. The red wires all connect to a BATTERY fuse terminal in the internal fuse block and the orange wires all connect to an IGNITION fuse terminal. I put 15A fuses in each of the fuse taps, and then used the new MESO extended fuse box cover. The factory cover snaps over this cover (I just didn’t have it on yet in the picture) and it comes with the spare fuses!




With the power distribution connector figured out, next was doing the same for illumination circuit. I like the daisy-chain connector idea, but not everything I am illuminating is a CH4X4 or AOB switch, so I decided instead to do the same concept as the power distribution. So I’ve got five ILL+ leads (blue) and five ILL(-) leads (black) all running to another connector from a single JST connector lead.


Everything was built with JST or factory connector pairs to facilitate future addition/removal/maintenance.

Putting things back together, here’s the cargo light break-out harness (illumination leads not yet connected)


And then here’s the mirror switch breakout harness along with the relay and auto-fold on/off power connected (illumination not yet connected)


The illumination connector plugged in with the current leads tapped off. There’s room for one more full circuit (the illumination on the air compressor switch uses the internal air compressor ground and thus does not dim like the other illumination circuits do). If I need more, I’ll build another daisy-chain off of this one.




And now it’s all tucked tidily up inside the dash along side the ECU/fuse block. The added bonus is this provides a bit more “slack” when pulling this big panel to be able to get in there and work without removing all the connections.

 

Not really. But I don’t really use the mirror switch all that much since I have the Auto-fold feature. And it does illuminate where the Auto-fold on/off is.
Here it is in the dark. The switch is in the off position. That’s a 3 second exposure - so really it doesn’t light anything else up. When the switch is ON, the light is pretty much not visible inside the body.


(Note - because I’m using the factory illumination circuit, the light dims with the dash, and I keep mine pretty low)

 

Just incredible!

 

Build a Custom Raspberry Pi Car Computer (Updated 2023) (autopi.io)

 

Great build, subd!

 

Thanks for being the Guinea pig on this one. I especially appreciate your grade 8 flange bolts for the BSMs. Those suckers aren’t going anywhere!

 

Now this is awesome! Everything having its own harness seems so much cleaner to me instead of having tapped wires all over, great job!

 

Finally got around to putting some heritage colors on my grill again.

I went with the Tacos4Cheap TRD badge. This thing is well made, and a really nice finish on the letters.
https://tacos4cheap.com/products/trd-toyota-tacoma-grille-badge

the only modification I did was using some #10-32 nylock nuts on the back side instead of the provided loctite.

 

Swapped out the stock hook from my winch with an Agency6 Winch Shackle in Earth Grey. It’s not a perfect match for Lunar Rock, but it’s close.


Unfortunately, my license plate doesn’t sit perfectly vertical with the SSO swing up front plate mount, but it’s close enough…

 

Was thinking about sliders before T2S, but also knew lead times and freight prices were going to be a killer. On a whim, I checked Craigslist, and a set of White Knuckle Off Road sliders were on there about 2-1/2 hours south of me. I know a few others that have them and love them - @jewsNbrews and @TRDFerguson specifically.

After a little haggling with the seller, I made a trip south with cash in hand.

Specifics are:
0.188 DOM tube
Black powder coat
No top plates
These bastards are heavy (and heavy duty)!


Installation is a real treat when you are 1. Working alone and 2. Working in a gravel drive way. Drilling the holes up through the bottom of the frame was a real bitch - had the drill motor get away on my once and twist my wrist up pretty bad, and then a second time and swung the 6AH battery pack around and smashed my upper lip/cheek and made me see stars for a few minutes. In the end, I ended up using a spiral fluted reamer to do the final “step” in hole size to 1/2” for the bolts.





I shot all the finished holes with cold galvanizing spray before stuffing bolts in them.


And I also had to modify the rear cat shield mounting brackets to work with the sliders since they previously mounted though the side hole in the frame where the slider mounts.
To do so, I cut off the vertical part of the bracket, and am instead bolting it up through the bottom hole in the slider using a slightly longer bolt. I also touched the brackets up with new paint.




Update:
Used a 1/2” square strut washer (painted black over the electrogalv plating) and a 2-1/2” long bolt through the bottom for two cat shield mounts.


everything is fully bolted up now.

 

Also ordered a VooDoo VRS Rack setup today. Going with 22” powder coated steel…

 

Great upgrades Casey! Put leafs on the short list

 

Is this going to work with your TCUSA roll cover?

 

I’m going to be a Guinea pig on this. All indications point to yes…

this is their new rack setup that will have a full length rail along the bed sides. Should work really well with the TCUSA.

 

RainMan..Thanks for the BSM write-up. As for the wiring part of the BSM, are these the only wiring harnesses I need to make it plug and play? Or do I still need to repin connectors?

• Wire Harness - Engine Room No 3 P/N 82113-0C040 (front corner)
• Wire Harness - Engine Room No 4 P/N 82114-0C040 (front corner)
• Wire Harness - Frame No 2 P/N 82165-0C100

 

For BSM, you do not need the two “engine room” front corner harnesses (they are for parking sonar), but you will still need to run wires along the frame from the rear bumper up into the engine bay and pin those wires to existing and new connectors at either end.

the only harness that would make it “plug and play” would be to replace the entire main frame harness with one from a truck with BSM, which would be a lot more work.

 

Quick little mod today (well, this one was quick at least).
Way back, @reywcms had sent me his used J&L OSC catch can. The bracket had been modified for him trying to make it work with his SC, and it was missing the bracket mounting bolt and spacer. I reached out to J&L and they hooked me up with the needed parts for a few bucks, and I finally got around to getting it installed.

Getting to the PCV valve is a little bit of a pain, but not terrible. The foam tore a little, but mostly stayed intact.


Because of my winch solenoid being mounted up over my battery in the same general area, I did need to modify the mounting slightly. I drilled a new hole in the bracket to shift the whole thing toward the passenger side, then mounted it up.



I need to set myself a reminder to check it in 1000 miles to get an idea what sort of amount of gunk to expect.

 

When I was in the middle of the Operation: No T-Taps, I decided that I wanted to revert back to having the CarPlay USB port at the factory location, and put a USB-C PD port inside the console similar to the one I had at the rear of the console. I already had purchased a 90-degree USB cable to stash the wireless single down inside the shifter area, so it would still be unobtrusive.

Additionally, after getting everything back together after the T-Tap removal, I discovered my front camera was no longer working. I had noticed a few suspect insulation spots on a couple wires in the original harness when wiring in things, so I decided rather than try to troubleshoot the thing I would just order the FRAC harness from @TundraTex and replace it.

So, today, I pulled the radio and deconstructed all of the USB port rerouting/reconfiguring I had done. I returned the factory USB port back into the back of the radio. I removed the two-USB port extension from the console and replaced it with

$24 Ouffun USB C Car Charger Socket 12V USB Outlet 2 Pack, Newest 78W RV USB Outlet Dual 30W PD USB-C and 18W QC3.0 Car USB Port with Button Switch Waterproof for Car RV Boat Marine Truck Motorcycle ect

this power port instead (I also replaced one at the back of the console with the same one).


I also routed the USB cable for making adjustments to the amp into the console at the same time.

I removed the 12v-5v “buck” Power converter, and I rerouted the power for the Rago dash plate charger to come off the back of the 12V socket below the radio since it’s on a separate circuit from the center console.

I built a new custom harness for the front/rear camera switch similar to what I had done for the previous camera setup.



I also routed all the FRAC wiring to the mating connector.


Then got it all installed and hooked up and tested. I’ll need to test the VIM override switch tomorrow, and for some reason the indicator lights aren’t coming on in the switch, but otherwise things are working great. I’m not heart broken over the lights not lighting up, so not sure I’ll bother hunting down what’s up there.

 

Speaking of FRAC... Thanks again for the 3D printed front camera shim. The nipple you left on that piece really locks the shim into place on the bracket

Just got to hit it w/some paint to prevent corrosion where the bare metal is now, but other than that it's time to start tearing apart the center console to get the FRAC and Rago installed!!!!






Thanks again!!!

 

A while back, I ran across a thread about the

$35 Scosche TAQ03 MagicMount Charge Compatible with 2014 to 2017 Toyota Tundra 10W Qi-Certified Magnetic Surface Mount with Bezel for use with Smartphones

Scosche TAQ03 charger tray being on sale. I liked the location of it, since that area is pretty useless anyway, so I went ahead and ordered one.

I discovered when I got it that it was not “MagSafe compatible” - the placement of the magnets inside the charger did not line up with the MagSafe magnets in my iPhone and I didn’t want to use the magnet stickers that came with it. Additionally, the charger maxes out at 10W (Qi standard)…

The charger was a separate unit that dropped into a recess in the tray, so I set out to 3D print a replacement that would host a genuine Apple MagSafe 15W charger…

after some careful measurements and a few test prints to dial in the shrinkage, and adding a textured bed to my Ultimaker S3, I finally came up with the following results for the insert:


It turns out, that was the easy part…

next was powering the apple charger. I tried a USB A to USB C adapter, but it wouldn’t work in any of the factory USB ports in the truck, or the ports from my 12v-5v converter. Using a bench power supply, I bought a 15W rated “buck” converter with USB C connection - still nothing. Then I found a spec page that indicated that the charger used USB C PD (Power Delivery) standard, and was set up for 9V power…the USB A standard is max 5V, so I was back to the drawing board.

I ended up finding these

$9 ACEIRMC 60W 6-35V DC to USB Type C PD 3.0 QC4 Type A QC3.0 DC Fast Charge 12V 24V Step-Down Power Module USB Type-C Mobile Phone Quick Charge Adapter (1pcs)

USB PD devices (a friend has dubbed them “mini nuclear reactors”) on bezosmart and gave one a try with the bench power supply. Success!


But I don’t like having the thing just sitting exposed or rattling around, so I needed to come up with a housing for it. More measurements, some sketching, some trial prints, and we had a functional 2-piece enclosure for the reactor.





so next up was to solder some leads to the reactor and superglue the housing. The Scosche kit came with a breakout harness for the factory cigarette socket, so I spliced the leads into that (NO T-TAPS!).




Installing the charger into the insert, and the insert into the tray, I used some red 3M foam tape to secure things.


Then cut a hole in the corner at the front of the factory “tray” and route the cable through. I also used some 3M tape to help hold the tray in place until I decide if I want to try a more permanent mount.



Ultimately, I decided to use more of the JNC connectors I’ve been using to connect the power to the reactor and to the Rago mount from the breakout harness on the 12V socket. Everything in the shifter area that routes up into the stereo/AC cavity does so by going out to the left into the area by the steering wheel and then back in. I opted to use the 12V port here instead of the one at the center console (much easier to reach) simply because I have the extra wattage USB-C ports in the console already, and wanted to keep things on separate circuits.


Then just needed to button everything up and put it all away.



One more shot with my wireless carplay dongle also stashed inside the shifter area

 

That plate is aluminum, so don’t worry too much about corrosion…

 

Relocating the wireless carplay dongle down into the shifter area requires using the “down” 90-degree USB cable

$6 Male to Female Extension Cable - 2Pack USB 3.0 Male to Female Adapter 7.9"es (20cm)

from this kit, and cutting a small notch in the lower shifter trim “tray”


And VIOLA!

 

You think there’s enough surface area on the bottom of the frame rails to get a mag drill on there? 1/2” hole in steel is a lot of meat for a cordless.

 

It would be tough - the rivets in the frame would limit placement options, and the rear most hole is on a curved part of the frame.
It really wasn’t too much for the 1/2” cordless drill - step through a series of holes - 1/8, 1/4, 3/8, then 1/2.
Poor body positioning and awkward leverage were the challenges. If I had jacked the truck up at all it would have been a lot easier to work under there

 

Please come rewire my anytime camera lol