mods you wouldnt do again ...

[Happy Joe]

"Cutting the rear fenders and installing Bushwacker fender flares on my '77 FJ40 to fit "big 32's" back in 1990 when I was in high school. Truck has been in my family all these years and now rolls on "little 31's" and has a perfect patina. Ohhh, to have an "uncut" original Landcruiser.........."

So just replace the quarter panels...
http://www.coolcruisers.com/bopainor.html

...with steel there is very little that cannot be "undone"... sometimes it just takes more skill/money/parts etc.

 

[xlcaferacer]

Then I would lose my patina,

 

[cheepsk8]

Don’t modify anything when you have a baby on the way.

 

[teotwaki]

It's a waste of time to try to outfit a typical factory two crossbar roof rack to carry very much weight. The factory rack has such a low limit that your heavy basket and mounting hardware can suck up most of the total pounds allowed.

 

[Wilbah]

This is a great thread and I'm glad it has been "revived".

I am with those who have gone back to stock/OEM air filters from the K&N Oiled. It took me a while to "get it" but now I do. Yes, if I had a 1000 HP engine that needed HUGE amounts of air flow to power it then a less restrictive air filter like K&N would make sense. But with an all stock V-8 I a) don't need the airflow (the OEM does just fine) and b) I found the studies that prove how much dirt actually gets through the K&N filters to be amazing. It all makes sense to me now- its a trade off- if you need massive air flow the OEM wont provide it, but for stock, OEM provides enough air flow without difficulty AND does a much better job capturing dirt.

This write up (or a similar one of the same testing done in RI I forget now) was the one that provided me with the "aha" moment.

http://nicoclub.com/archives/kn-vs-oem-filter.html

I keep my vehicles mostly stock as far as mechanical items now anyway. Would I love to build an old 80's GM pick-up or Suburban with a big block or diesel or something? Absolutely. But time and $ being what it is, I enjoy what I have, try to spend more on the stuff that makes sure I enjoy my time out in the boonies. I do need to do a better job storing stuff. I am still using action packers for most which I like. But I would like a dedicated storage system. What I wrestle with is finding/building something that works but isn't a pita to remove when I need the vehicle back in its original configuration too.

 

[NatersXJ6]

Don’t modify anything when you have a baby on the way.

Muwahahahahah! I love this one. And it is absolutely right. You should definitely wait until RIGHT AFTER the baby arrives. Then when it is taking a while to finish the project and she is upset, you can point out how long it took to "make the baby"... In my experience, this leads inadvertently to lots of camping time!

I think I would have to vote for anything chromed, anodized, or any manufacturer stickers or bumper stickers. life should be spray-paintable.

The only mod I have and don't really use however, is the 4 LED lights above my windshield on the JK. turning them on creates so much hood glare and windshield dust diffusion that they are flat out dangerous, even on the trail. Somehow, they complete the look though... And cost less than $100 wiring included.

 

[DorB]

Don’t modify anything when you have a baby on the way.

Modify as much as you can before the baby..

 

[s.e.charles]

I would not say "never", but paneling a van to conform to the van's body is a huge energy & financial suck. a van, at least my savana, is shaped like a barrel. this means to maximize inches inside, the inner walls & ceiling also become barrel shaped. it can be, and was, done, but my f'in word I could have saved days of my life and only lost a few inches if I had paneled the inside "straight".

but I really am satisfied how it came out!

 

[kmcintyre]

Like a lot of others, I did all the mods when I was younger. I put a V8 in a Vega once.... now? Pretty much stock or easier things that make drive-ability a bit better. As OEM gear wears out (shocks, etc.) I'll upgrade those. Tires? Sure. Not much else.

 

[mezmochill]

I would not say "never", but paneling a van to conform to the van's body is a huge energy & financial suck. a van, at least my savana, is shaped like a barrel. this means to maximize inches inside, the inner walls & ceiling also become barrel shaped. it can be, and was, done, but my f'in word I could have saved days of my life and only lost a few inches if I had paneled the inside "straight".

but I really am satisfied how it came out!

Screw 1/4 ply to walls..cheap and easy.

 

[s.e.charles]

Screw 1/4 ply to walls..cheap and easy.

yup. and you can do it after a joint and a six pack. circa 1977 I helped a constituent panel his van in a Saturday. never realized all those "bumps" from the drill peppering the outside tin looking like zits would actually rust in six months. oh; and the round porthole windows in the sides? you know the ones we cut with one guy holding the droplight and the other the saber saw since by that time it was pitch black out? well, if he didn't notice that the template instructions indicated, and I quote, "cut opening 3/8" smaller than the diagram", let's just say I would not have had enough caulking to hold them in place!

 

[mezmochill]

Ha!

 

[Deleted member 144299]

I quickly added too much weight to my Taco. If could do it over again I would save up more money for an aluminum front bumper vs the steel one I have now, synthetic line and gone with the lighter duty coil overs from OME. I find myself daydreaming about replacing the parts I added in order to start shedding pounds wherever possible.

 

[Art4med]

Not a mod-regret but a mode: Convincing myself that ONE vehicle could do it ALL, then spending [black hole of interwebs time] “self-educating,” speculating, redesigning— in iterations that precluded my original goal: GetOutThere. #betteristheenemyofgood #dontoverthinkthis

GREAT AND HELPFUL THREAD! While ppl like to post abt the fabulou$ mod they added, or repurposing they dreamt-up— what [the rest of us] *need to learn is what to avoid.

 

[DaveInDenver]

I'm more or less living this thread. I sorta built up and then built down my 1991 Toyota pickup and when I replaced it with my 2008 Tacoma I'm doing the ones that I felt fit what I do with the truck.

• Suspension - yes/no. Unless you're buying a full size pickup specifically ordered for a task such as a slide-in camper or towing the suspension they put on new is too soft and under rated to do much of anything resembling carrying cargo over poor roads. Very happy with how my truck rides now and I didn't have to go through half a dozen iterations to know what to expect and how to get there. OTOH I'm not in the SAS and 3-link the rear camp anymore. Optimizing the stock IFS/leaf sprung rear is fine.
• Bumpers and sliders - yes. Does depend on purpose but I would have significant body damage now without armor and being that Toyota doesn't see fit to put recovery points on a simple rear bumper with clevises for shackles has function.
• Second battery - maybe. I ran a large single in the old truck and decided on dual smaller in the new truck for redundancy. To me a jump pack is one solution but that adds the problem of where to store it and the need to keep it charged. Having a starting/house battery combo is easier for me.
• Crawler specific stuff - Dual cases, mini bumpers, rock lights - nope.
• Aux forward lights - yes. I use fog lights a lot personally.
• Winch - no. If I didn't already have one I probably wouldn't buy one.
• Lockers - yes. Use them enough that I'd miss them. But if I didn't have factory lockers the choice might be Air Lockers *or* winch.
• Larger tires - maybe. I went up about one inch in height and narrower by 2.25". They are too narrow but the factory size Toyota used I feel are too wide, they float too much on packed snow. So my $0.02 is tire size mods aren't completely good or bad, there's nothing magical about the factory selected size since it's compromise for the average driver who won't share the same proportion of snow or sand or rocks or pavement as I do.
• Regearing axles - maybe. I haven't and may not. I think you match tire, gearing, engine RPM to get you where you want while manufacturers have one goal, high MPG. My OEM gearing is a little tall but not enough that my engine is unhappy with the tires I have, so I'll probably leave it. In the old truck getting the engine in the power band was critical to getting anywhere so when I went up from 28" to 30" and eventually 33" the stock ratios were useless, so this is a mod that I can understand.
• Regearing t-case - probably. It goes with crawler stuff. I don't need 100:1 crawl ratio but my stock low range is too tall for anything at all technical, so I'm probably doing lower t-case gears. This wouldn't be a problem if I wasn't a stick in the mud manual transmission driver, though.