Crawlarado Hood Blackout for the 01--04 Tacoma

TangoBlue

American Adventurist
Box Rocket - finally got some pics...

CIMG1411.jpg


CIMG1413.jpg
 

haddix

Adventurer
Glad to see you finally broke down and posted pics lol. It looks good! I may just have to invest in one of these.
 

jim65wagon

TundraBird1
That looks good T. I do like the looks of the hood blackout.....if I didn't already have a black truck I'd add blackout. Reminds of the early 70's musclecars.....oh the memories! If that's a shot at IPOR, you should have posed on the rocks! No, that's not a rock crawler reference! It would strictly make a cooler looking photo....really.
 

4xdog

Explorer
A number of commercial vehicles have black hood treatments that don't have roof-mounted lights. Kansas Turnpike and Chicago-area highway department vehicles, for example.

The objective of low-glare treatments is preventing oncoming light from being reflected up into the driver's eyes, as I understand it. An optically-smooth surface will reflect a high portion of the incoming light specularly -- glancing off the surface at the same angle as it was incoming. The combination of black color (for high absorption) and low gloss (to give diffuse reflectance) will reduce glare from incoming light.

With respect to roof lights specifically, one could almost imagine that a black, low-gloss hood would be WORSE for roof-mounted lights. The last thing one wants is to have light reflected back toward the driver. A shiny smooth hood will send the roof light off down the road. Now, where roof lights lead to reflectance back toward the driver from objects down the road, a black hood may help -- the high light position is exactly the wrong angle for the specular reflection mentioned above, and could be right into the driver's eyes.

Don
 

Sempertoy

Explorer
That looks awesome! I really want to black mine out, but think I'll pull out the 'ol rattle can ;) BTW whats with the grill mod? I wonder if it is available for the 80's?
EDIT: quick search on mud yielded some results. looks good.
 
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TangoBlue

American Adventurist
Looks good but I thought the reason to blackout a hood was to reduce glare from roof mounted lights.

What the following 2 posts said in response to yours, and further validation of what jim65wagon and 4xdog noted...

The silver hood reflected a lot of sunlight and glare, especially when travelling west from the east coast, which I seem to do a lot the last couple years. Since I've applied it I've really noticed how much more "visually comfortable" it is when driving. Less squinting, glare, and headaches.

Also, since application of the vinyl, I've noted an undocumented, intangible benefit. Randomly, at stop lights or in parking lots, women have commented that my truck looks really hot. So I got that going for me too...
 
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TangoBlue

American Adventurist
That looks awesome! I really want to black mine out, but think I'll pull out the 'ol rattle can ;) BTW whats with the grill mod? I wonder if it is available for the 80's?
EDIT: quick search on mud yielded some results. looks good.

That's what I'd do as I recall your hood. Repair the rust, give it a good scuff, and shoot it with the original paint color, mask off your design, shoot it with matte black, or just do the hood all black and you're GTG.

Thanks! The 2001-04 grille was reminiscent to me of the old Buick grilles from the 50's and I never have been a fan of the sombrero emblem; give me old school TEQ any day - just like the 2F 710 cap on my engine.

First observing the 4Runner crowd performing the "Satoshi grille mod," it inspired me to do this to the Tacoma and pay homage to its distinguished heritage. The black mesh insert is from Grillcraft and of course the Toyota emblem is from an early FJ-40. I ordered a new, unpainted in the raw black plastic for way cheap, cut out the grill and screwed in the mesh insert. I looked at using a FJ-60 and FJC emblem but they were just too large in comparison to the size of the grill opening. Someone on here did it to a hundy but he did it with some simple mesh painted black -- it looks pretty good. You should give it some serious consideration.
 

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