Toyota Tundra Forum

Rear bumper holes are done. Those pictures sure do help a lot.

Had a new drill bit bend on me when the center punched through on the third hole and marked the chrome in a bad spot. Guess I was putting too much pressure at the wrong angle since I am trying to drill and lubricate the bit at the same time myself. Actually, I think it went through the chrome when it made the mark. Not sure how to cover it yet. Don't want it to rust in the future. Maybe I'll just use some silver paint in the hole and fill it with silicone... I dunno. I'm open to suggestions for an easy patch job. Doesn't have to be perfect.

So I am having to improvise for the drill bit. One of the old bits are bent just a little and another isn't bent, but it's not made for metal. So I am using the slightly bent bit alone to make the pilot hole and the other bit to guide the hole saw. It's working so far, just taking a little longer.

Still have to wire it all up too. The wires are too short to go most places on a 19 foot long truck. The sensor brain is going to have to go behind the tail light. The sensors barely make it that far. The front sensor wires are going to have to be extended. The sensors use a thin coax wire. I tested it out with a Cat5e wire as a patch wire. Impedence of a coax and cat5 don't match, but it works. Come to think of it, I think I have some thin RCA coax wire I uses for my old car stereo laying around here... somewhere. If I can find that, the impedence should match much better. I'll add more later.

Now I'm on to the front bumper.

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2007 SR5 Crewmax 5.7L 4x4
Mods: nerf bars, Truxedo tonneau, radar detector power, 3M clear bra, fog lights, black billet grille, rear differential breather, parking sensors, Line-X, power tailgate lock, hood safety latch mod, one off driving lights behind grille, Pioneer NAV w/ OEM camera, Flowmaster 50 SUV dual/dual, blue LED dash lights, Volant CAI, Llumar tint, CompuStar Pro alarm, ProComp 6066 20" wheels, Cooper Zeon LTZ 275/60/20 tires, OME HD coilover lift, Firestone helper air bags, stereo cable lock, Tekonsha P3 brake controller
All mod descriptions and pictures © 2007-2009 by Toxarch. They may be copied only for personal use and the mods may be done for non-profit only.

You are one brave dude Tox!! If I did what you did to my bumper, I'd have a tear in my eye...

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2007 Tundra Limited Double Cab 4x4 Super White
Volant CAI
Pioneer AVIC Z-2 (hard drive upgrade to AVIC Z-3)
Key FOB Tailgate Lock (courtesy of Toxarch)
OEM back-up camera w/flip down monitor microswitch mod
Sirius Satellite Radio
WeatherTech Floor Liners
20" OEM alloy wheels
Line-X Bed liner
UWS Black Powdercoat Low Profile Toolbox
DU-HA underseat storage unit
JC Whitney Black Nerf Bars
Lund Interceptor II Bug Shield
Tekonsha Voyager Brake Controller

Sounds like you moving along pretty good on the project. Glad my pics helped ya!

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It's just a small scratch. If you didn't know it was there, you wouldn't ever notice it. I'll post a picture of it shortly. Still need to figure out what I am going to do to fix it. If you think the scratch would be bad, you would hate drilling the holes in the bumper. I was a little nervous starting off. By the end I would just go at it.

As for right now, I have run out of supplies. I may do a late run to wally world to see if they have what I need to finish the job. I need some more split loom and a USB cable 6' extension. Then I can finish this up.

I am interested in seeing your final product Tox, as well as any pics you took along the way to get a feel for how much you went thru. Not sure if I'm up to the task of doing what you're doing, but I always like to keep my options open, especially sinceI have thought about adding the sensors.

I'll post all the pictures tomorrow after I am done. Right now I have all the sensors, except one, in place and siliconed. After the silicone dries, I'll cut the excess off and it should look nice and clean. The one not in place is next to the scratch I need to repair.

Trying to figure out exactly where to mount the display is the hardest part. It's small enough that I could mount it most anywhere. But the problem is that the High/Low/Off switch is on the back so I need access to that easily. And it has these green runway lights on either side of the car in the display and that would get annoying if it were in view all the time. I'm thinking I will mount it in the front sunglasses holder. That way it's out of the way and still accessible quickly if needed. Course I would just access it to shut the speaker off. I'm thinking that I might connect the rear sensors to the back up lights (of course) and the front sensors to the brake lights. Maybe, maybe not. I'd prefer a switch for the front cause I don't pull into parking spots with my foot on the brake and I don't really want it on all the time. Course then I run into the problem of there not being any inexpensive switches for the new Tundra yet.

I did wire it up temporarily to test out the wire extension. Played around with the sensors for a little while to see their range and the readout. I kinda like it. The display will show the distance in feet to an object and will read as low as 0.88 feet. The beeps get faster as you get closer and go solid when you get to 1 foot. It will read objects up to 6 feet away and not beep at that distance, just show the readout. I think beeps start at 3 feet or around there. I mostly bought it for the front right corner of the truck. I haven't driven it long enough to automatically know where the front corner is yet, though I haven't hit anything yet. I have a rear camera ready for the back when I put in a NAV system.

Alright, here's the mark I was talking about when the drill bit bent.



And you can see, the sensor does not cover it up:



And like I said, it's not too bad and nobody will notice it. I just need to figure out how to cover it up so it doesn't rust.

Here's a teaser to hold some of you over until I do a full write-up with all the pictures. This is what they should look like without the scratch in the bumper.

Like you say - the scratch is not that noticeable. You notice it b/c you made it and it is your truck. Others will have to look hard.

How to cover it up?? That is a hard one - maybe just leave a dab of silicone on there??

Looking forward to the full writeup.

re.ac.tor

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'10 CM SR5 4x2, S.A. Built & Purchased Sept '09, 5.7L, Sandy Beach Metallic, Drug Information in Lay Language

Hey, Tox, unless this old wore out mind of mine is mistaken, seems to me I saw a high-gloss chrome colored spray paint in the past (in fact I think I might have even bought a can). I'll check my spray paint inventory this weekend while in Livingston and if I have one, get the brand and see if I can figure out where I bought it. If they do make such an animal, you could mask off everything but the scratch and touch it up. May not be an exact match but better than the scratch?

Silicone in the scratch would just come off during the first wash. I don't think it would last long term. I have seen the chrome spray paint before as well. I MIGHT have some in the garage and that was what I was planning to use. If I don't have any, I know Lowes or Home Depot have it for sure.