Yesterday I was able to remove all four fender flares from the Tacoma. I had to be extra careful removing them because I didn’t want to damage them as I may need to reinstall them one day. They each mount with 5-6 screws which are easy to remove, but then also 8-9 clips into square holes in the sheet metal of the truck, these were much more tricky. After removal, I had to wash ten years worth of dust and dirt off that was stuck behind the flares.
Once clean, I had to deal with the 8-9 large square holes in the truck sheet metal. I had decided to use push in plastic clips, and had to special order some large clips from NAPA since the holes are so large. The clips fit well, but once they are in all the way they are loose because they are designed to hold two things together, and don’t get tight against one thin layer of sheet metal. I am thinking of sourcing some plastic washers that fit the ribs of the clips and putting them on the back side of the loose clips, as that would tighten them up. Anyway attached are some pictures of the process and results.
You can see from the pictures that the plastic front bumper had a different type of clip, which my plugs don’t fit. I have some high quality self-adhesive reflective tape, which I am thinking of strategically putting some tape pieces on the front bumper to hide the holes but also make the truck more visible. The black reflective tape I have would largely blend in well with the black plastic bumper. I am trying to think of a good way to do this without making it look obvious that I am just putting it here and there to hide something.
I spent quite a bit of time crawling around under my truck measuring for my belly pan, and made some reasonably accurate diagrams of the different sections. Since the belly pan is impending, I went ahead and removed my air dam. I can tell the truck doesn’t handle quite as well with the air dam missing, and I also noted my electric fans kicked on sooner than they previously did, meaning the air dam was helping to force air through the radiator. I need to get some black coroplast to make my front grill to radiator duct. Add that to the to do list.
