SGTCap
Adventurer
First, forgive me. I tend to be a bit long winded. But this is for me as much as anyone else, so please excuse my ramblings. I might want to look back on this one day.
I picked this truck up in 2006, a year old with 60k miles already on the odometer. I'd been playing around in the import/sport compact world for a few years and after a modded Integra GSR and RX8 I thought it was time to return to my Texas upbringing and buy my first 4WD pickup. The Tacoma was an easy choice and I found this one on the lot of a local dealer for about $25k. It had every option I wanted including the locking rear Diff. I would have prefered an automatic, but at that point point I'd been driving manuals for at least 5 years, so I figured I could stick with. I swore at the time that I wasn't going to mod this truck. I'd dumped tons of money and time into previous vehicles and this time I was just going to leave it alone and drive it.
Between then and now I pretty much kept that promise to myself. I'm about to turn 200k miles and the truck is pretty much stock. It's been a wonderful vehicle and if I had to buy another truck tomorrow it would be a Tacoma just like it (except an automatic). It's been paid off for over a year now. I had it in the shop once while under warrenty for a faulty evap purge valve. Other than that it's required nothing but oil changes and a set of front brake pads at about 150k. I just replaced the spartk plugs for the first time about a month ago. The gap had erroded from the factory .044" to .085" and was still running great.
I'm on my third set of 255/85r16s which I have been running with very little rubbing issues.
Now it's time to begin a new chapter in my Tacoma's life. My girlfriend and I wasnt to get more active in outdoor activities and as luck would have it, it is a wonderful platform to facilitate that.
STARTING POINT:
First step was a test run to see how it performed in stock form. I met up with several guys from the Southern section of this board about a month ago to test the truck out. I learned a lot about what it was capable of and what needed to be changed. Those issues and obsevations I will include here, as a guide to myself and other new guys just getting into this sort of thing.
Pics from that outting:
Mines the little Gold Tacoma. This picture is giving me an inferiority complex, I gotta get a lift
Leasons learned:
My headights suck and need replacement and upgrading. The drive up was a little nerve racking due to crappy visability caused by the worn headlight lenses. See:
Also:
-I need a cb or other comms. I had no way to comunicate on the trail other than my horn. I didn't try morse code via the horn, I doubt it woulda gone over well.
-My suspenion doesn't flex. Partially due to the original design and parts, partially because those parts have 200k miles on them
-I need to have a sepeate key ring for my truck key. Listening to the key chain smake into the stearing column for hours while beating down a trail can annoy the hell out of a person.
-my 5 gallon water can leaks, I need an onboard water storage solution
-I need some form of nvaigation for when my phone has no signal
-I need an air supply to air up and down my tires to smooth out the ride.
-I need additional storage space and orginization. The tool box is full and everything else can quickly become a mess without a well planned storage solution
-The exhaust crossover under my T-case is the lowest part of the truck and needs rerouting. This was a stupid design by Toyota, but they did a lot of other things right on these trucks, so I forgive them
There's more, but this is a good start. Overall I was impresed by what a stock Tacoma with 200k miles could accomplish.
So onto the begining of the build:
I picked this truck up in 2006, a year old with 60k miles already on the odometer. I'd been playing around in the import/sport compact world for a few years and after a modded Integra GSR and RX8 I thought it was time to return to my Texas upbringing and buy my first 4WD pickup. The Tacoma was an easy choice and I found this one on the lot of a local dealer for about $25k. It had every option I wanted including the locking rear Diff. I would have prefered an automatic, but at that point point I'd been driving manuals for at least 5 years, so I figured I could stick with. I swore at the time that I wasn't going to mod this truck. I'd dumped tons of money and time into previous vehicles and this time I was just going to leave it alone and drive it.
Between then and now I pretty much kept that promise to myself. I'm about to turn 200k miles and the truck is pretty much stock. It's been a wonderful vehicle and if I had to buy another truck tomorrow it would be a Tacoma just like it (except an automatic). It's been paid off for over a year now. I had it in the shop once while under warrenty for a faulty evap purge valve. Other than that it's required nothing but oil changes and a set of front brake pads at about 150k. I just replaced the spartk plugs for the first time about a month ago. The gap had erroded from the factory .044" to .085" and was still running great.
I'm on my third set of 255/85r16s which I have been running with very little rubbing issues.
Now it's time to begin a new chapter in my Tacoma's life. My girlfriend and I wasnt to get more active in outdoor activities and as luck would have it, it is a wonderful platform to facilitate that.
STARTING POINT:
First step was a test run to see how it performed in stock form. I met up with several guys from the Southern section of this board about a month ago to test the truck out. I learned a lot about what it was capable of and what needed to be changed. Those issues and obsevations I will include here, as a guide to myself and other new guys just getting into this sort of thing.
Pics from that outting:
Mines the little Gold Tacoma. This picture is giving me an inferiority complex, I gotta get a lift
Leasons learned:
My headights suck and need replacement and upgrading. The drive up was a little nerve racking due to crappy visability caused by the worn headlight lenses. See:
Also:
-I need a cb or other comms. I had no way to comunicate on the trail other than my horn. I didn't try morse code via the horn, I doubt it woulda gone over well.
-My suspenion doesn't flex. Partially due to the original design and parts, partially because those parts have 200k miles on them
-I need to have a sepeate key ring for my truck key. Listening to the key chain smake into the stearing column for hours while beating down a trail can annoy the hell out of a person.
-my 5 gallon water can leaks, I need an onboard water storage solution
-I need some form of nvaigation for when my phone has no signal
-I need an air supply to air up and down my tires to smooth out the ride.
-I need additional storage space and orginization. The tool box is full and everything else can quickly become a mess without a well planned storage solution
-The exhaust crossover under my T-case is the lowest part of the truck and needs rerouting. This was a stupid design by Toyota, but they did a lot of other things right on these trucks, so I forgive them
There's more, but this is a good start. Overall I was impresed by what a stock Tacoma with 200k miles could accomplish.
So onto the begining of the build:
ill shut up and watch the build.
