Been awhile since I've posted in here on updates to Sandra. Awhile back I got a faux-Pro grille off of a fellow Tacoma owner. It's actually the exact grille off of the white Tacoma with the steel bumper (Caylen) in the previous post, albeit purchased from the white Tacoma with the empty bed rack and yellow chase lights (Alan). Basically, Caylen was driving down the road, minding his own business, when a truck in front of him dropped paint(?) or something similar, and it basically splattered all over the grille. He was consigned to never getting it off until Alan offered him his old grille (since he had upgraded to a genuine Pro grille). Alan then skillyfully cleaned it to Caylen's chagrin and sold it to me for a steal.
It wasn't something I had originally been in a rush to get, but the price was too good to pass up and I really like the way it changes the look of the truck.
As you can see, I've also added A-Pillar lights and upgraded the fog lights to matching LED's. All are from Diode Dynamics, which is currently one of the best 4-led pods on the market in terms of price and performance. The A-Pillar lights were purchased to put more light to each side of the truck since I noticed I was doing a lot of driving around the wilderness at night. The Fogs were done 'cause there was a sale and I wanted to get the cosmetic enhancement. They're Sports instead of Pros like the A-pillars are, and they're an SAE/DOT legal beam pattern so they can be used on the road, although there isn't often good reason to turn them on in Arizona.
Aside from those bigger items, there hasn't been too much done. A TRD Pro shift knob replaced the TRD Sport knob I had. I'm going to be adding the third tie-down rail to the bed and will eventually be upgrading the horns to Hella SuperTones, since that's a fun and easy upgrade.
Oh, and I did add an accessory tray, auxiliary fuse panel and wireless control module underhood to control the lights and other future add-ons.
In the future, I'm gonna be removing the back jump seats and replacing them with an Aluminum molle panel that's pretty neat. Got on the very last group buy the guy was ever gonna do! That'll likely mean I'm gonna sound proof the doors finally, as well. Been meaning to do that to further increase the audio quality.
A month or so ago, my uncle was sponsoring a benefit to raise money for a young guy who was battling cancer. The car show was a normally scheduled event, but they were adding in voting, competitions and other things to help get money together for this fella's fight.
I put out the call to the Tacoma community and two other members showed up to represent the Toyota's in a
sea of Jeeps.
The whole night was spent eyeballing the massive rubber most of the Jeeps were sporting, feeling like even our modified Taco's looked like they had just rolled off the showroom floor. As the night rolled on, I said goodbye to the fellow Quicksand owner (
mandog) but noticed he was still hanging around for the award ceremony.
Turns out, he had been stopped before he could leave because the kid who we were all there to raise money for had picked his truck as the favorite of the show! He was a huge Tacoma fan and was super glad the three of us showed up! I felt totally vindicated that I had gotten the guys together to come out there since it was on a side of town most of us didn't live immediately near. Completely made it worth the trip!
EDIT: Way belated update to
@Joey D the truck did align just fine. Only really lifted it an 1.5" so the stock UCA's work fine. I got really, really lucky that there were no vibrations, whines, etc with the lift. Couldn't have asked for a more perfect solution. Now that the truck has a few thousand miles on it with the lift, I've been super impressed.
