What have you done to your 1st gen Tundra today?

Rob would like these

 

Dr Robert?

 

If you're down he'll pick you up

 

you are devil poo.

 

My original mudflaps appear stained and discolored. Does anyone have experience with some sort of magic "restore" potion? Or maybe paint?

 

You could lightly sand it with real fine sandpaper and then spray paint them. I did that to all my black trim years ago and they still look good.

 

My attempts at restoring with some silicone based or magic elixir product always failed. Finally just prepped and painted them about 4 years ago. First go round was with satin black rustoleum. They’ve looked great since. Bedliner works good too.
Before:



after:



How they still look:

 

Anybody replace the emissions/evap hosing? I remember Noah doing it with some silicone stuff on a 6 banger, I think anyways. Mine is cracking and its time. Is there a kit anybody sells?

 

I just used 8 mm silicone hose that stretches to 10 mm. Bought it off Amazon. You can reuse the same clips to hold it.



Bought it here -> https://www.amazon.com/Ucreative-Te...locphy=9001898&hvtargid=pla-987871725071&th=1

 

There’s a detailing product company called AMMO NYC that I use on my nicer vehicles, and they offer a product called ‘Frame Pro’. It’s a little towelette that’s soaked with a product that restores plastic trim, and it works wonders. I used it to restore a ton of stuff on my truck, like the grille, mirror housings, rear bumper, and it was worth every penny. Here’s an after photo:

It didn’t have the same dramatic effect on the mudflaps, but it still brought them back pretty nice. There’s also plenty of other plastic trim on these trucks that it could be used on.

Whatever you do, don’t hit them with a heat gun or blowtorch! Many people will tell you that it will make them look nice, and it will, but the heat makes them very brittle and they lose the flex they need.

 

This stuff genuinely works to get it 90% of the way back to stock. They aren't black-black from the factory FWIW. After trying t a couple of different products, I went out band bought new flaps. Before re-selling mine to other members on the cheap, I used the Griot's on them, and on a side-by-side with the new part, they were really damn close. I ended up using the Griot's product on my bedrail caps, and on the rear bumper trim, and it shaved at least 10-12 years off their appearance. 1st application did the most, I did a second application a week or two later, and haven't touched since. Still looks good.

 

https://www.siliconeintakes.com/liq...-p-590.html?osCsid=rg0u55u4augs3dbomvennu4eb1

This is the kit me and Noah used. It'll get you most of the way there.

 

So since my wrist surgery i havent done much to the truck, havent even driven it! But out of boredom and browsing online i managed to build a base plate for my bottle jack, all with my left hand, haha. You can buy these online but figured id save the money and build my own with metal scrap I had lying around. Came out pretty good for a one handed job I think and should help with stability if I need to jack the truck up offroad.

 

Toyota sure is proud of their emission hoses as some of them cost more than $50 each. Also you can’t even buy the little U shaped one on the charcoal canister

 

True. I was missing that little piece so I just made one with the hose.

 

On my SR5 the large piece on the front bumper that's in your pic is just bare plastic. At some point in my trucks life it had the bumper replaced as well as that plastic. It's basically grey now. I have done the torch method on it 3 times now as well as the lower bumper plastic. It absolutely works... for about a month then right back to looking bad. Haven't had any issues with cracking or anything yet but it just doesn't last. I'll order replacements or just paint them one day. Might just try paint once it warms up, I'm just not a great painter.

I'll take slightly faded over dog ex chew toy.

 

And you did! How are the replacements holding up?

Torch works, but you may also find that simply running a soft rounded object like the rounded edge of a 2x4 across it will too. It’s only the top layer that’s oxidized, rubbing it away (or into the piece) should bring the underlying color up. I’ve used this tactic on Delrin products before, a thick thumbnail like mine will brick it back to black in no time, but I did that on non-textured pieces, might be more difficult with the textured pieces on our trucks.

Plastics are petroleum/oil based (always? a lot of the time?), so applying a petrol-based product to restore properties kinda makes sense.

 

Well they're still attached anyway. I know I didn't have enough screws when I put them on but they've held up fine.

Truck is due a maintenance day here soon. Needs oil changed, maybe another transmission drain and fill and think I'm gonna go ahead and clean MAF and throttle body, just have to locate the proper cleaners (may have some at my parents from a few years ago). Might take a look and see if I can find a couple more screws to put in those flaps now that I have an "organized" screw, bolt, and washer bin.

 

This is something I need to do, badly. But I've been having a hard time trying to figure out the right way to go with this, because I have about 10 coffee cans worth of fasteners dumpted into a 20-25qt tupperware style bin. Some fasteners are up to 10" long too (lags). I'd loooooove to get it organized. And if the organizer is something I can hang on my stainless 1/4" pegboard, that would be totally f'n bonus!

 

Try going over it lightly with a heat gun.

I think I did that once, but then I wound up trimming them down to about half and bedliner/2K clearcoat.

 

Nice. Though, my ocd tells me you could have had a slot/welded tab on one side and got away with one or two bolts.

 

That was absolutely a possibility, i did see a video on youtube that made theirs that way.

 

Tried to clean the driver’s mat (I flip drivers and passengers since I want to cover the dead pedal) from when the shop got it dirty fixing my fuel line. Only used dawn and a scrubbing brush. Still not ideal but for it’s age, it’ll always show wear.

 

You'll probably think I'm nuts for saying this, but what works really well for this task is the green colored Simple Green. The purple doesn't foam enough.

Get the carpet damn. Spray the hell out of it w/SG. get a stiff bristle hand or floor brush and work circles all over the rug. Rinse thoroughly with a spray attachment.

I wish I had some before/after pics of my door cards on the last truck. Had all kinds of dead skin on the plastics, Georgia clay in the lower carpet strips. Simple green all over the panel and a stiff brush had them looking brand spanking new after.

 

What 100% simple green? Isn't that too powerful? I have the stuff at home. I thought that was cleaning the engine bay.

 

What's 100% Simple Green? I've never heard of it. I buy concentrate and mix it out.

You never want to use the green colored Simple Green on alloy, and some other metals, avoid using it in the engine bay. With alloy, it'll ruin the finish and kill any anodizing of the metal if you leave it on for any period, to the point federal agencies and military have banned it from aircraft use due to the damage it can do and has done.

If you're doing metals and in the engine, use the purpose Simple Green HD.

For (removed from vehicle, with no electronics inside) interior panels, carpets, etc. the green colored Simple Green works great. Wet the panel. Apply Simple Green. Wait 2-3 minutes to soak in. Scrub entire panel with stiff bristled brush. Rinse thoroughly with a water hose. If carpet is on the panel in question, be sure to run back and forth across it with a water hose several times until you see no more bubbles coming up. Leave the panel in the sun to dry for a couple hours.

I've used this method a crapload of times, and with plastic-backed panels it works awesome. Will get the panel looking like new, and won't leave it sticky or weird residues if rinsed thoroughly. If your door panel is backed with masonite or similar fiberboard, you probably DO NOT want to do this. Fortunately, at least on my '06, the door cards are entirely plastic-backed, the only thing you need to do ahead of time is uninstall the tweeter on the door, if yours is so equipped. Remove the 2 screws holding it on.

 

100% as in undiluted. It even says how to mix it for heavy duty, general purpose or light cleaning on the bottle. Mine is concentrated, BTW.

Multiple people on TS stated they went with either a full strength or diluted version and quickly washed it off after a few minutes. I never bothered since I didn’t want to risk getting some on the electronics or in the crevice of the intake manifold. It may not be made for aluminum, but apparently it doesn’t stop some people.

 

I typically mix mine a little stronger than what it says for 'normal' on the concentrate bottle for green and purple flavors.

But yeah, I won't use green flavored on any non-magnetic metal unless it's obviously clearcoated. Hell, it warns you of that much on the damn label.

And it really sucks, because the green flavored works sooooo good at cutting crud. I usually hafta go over stuff twice with purple flavored, or pre-cut any old grease and such with PB Blaster, which is abnormally awesome at dissolving hardened grease, any types of petrol-based scum.

But yeah, if a panel or carpet is outside the truck, and I can take a garden hose to it, green flavored is A++ at getting panels spotless when combined with stiff brushes.

 

I’ll have to try it. I was a little afraid it would strip the color off the mats unless it’s really diluted.

 

I haven't had that problem yet.

To be fair, I normally have vehicles with tan interiors because I live in the south, and dark interiors get hot af.

So full disclaimer, be sure to test in an inconspicuous corner, and don't yell at me if you opt not to.

I've never had it discolor dyes in my clothing before and I've used it for years; but I don't know if Toyota used weird organic dyes or anything.