1996 "what was I thinking" tacoma project

Bought the truck 6 years ago from a guy who's son crashed it and got a dui. Had fabtech coils, uca, and spindles. Was a perfectly fine daily driver on 31's. Drove it from alpine, to Temecula every day for 3 years. About 200 miles round trip a day. Oof.




After trying a few different suspension combinations, I came up on an old Downey set up. coilover, lca and uca. Was fine for a year or so till I started going through ball joints and bushings. I then went over to a JD fab long travel system. Still had a lower ball joint, but was a huge step up from the old Downey stuff.



After another 2 years or so I cut the truck in half. From stock to 4 link. Ditching the stock rear end for a 9", running a sportsman 9+case with 488s and a spool, it was a shit ton of fun.




Another year later, I cut the other half off so to speak. Stripped everything off the front, and am now tucking some beams and a new rear end under there. That is where I am today. I'm in the process of building new lower links for myself and another tw member.


that's where I am now. Waiting on parts lol. Not much of a thread yet, but I'm working on it.

 

Alpine to Temecula everyday!!!! F' that!

 

LOL what a transformation.

 

Bungs shipped today from sdhq, should be tacking together some links by wednesday.

 

Subbed for more!

 

Started mocking up the new links. These are for a customer, mine will be 3" shorter. Uniball front, heim rear. 2 ribs, 10 gussets. 3/16 pno, with 1/8 overlays. They will be stout for sure.

 

Sweet.

 

Cool, making 2 sets? 1 for me?

 

Absolutely. Can't wait to cut out the all the tubing I just put in your truck...

 

Finishing up the design for the links. Mine will be a few inches shorter.

 

Cruising along, and then out of wire. Should have these links all finished by friday, and then on to mine. Also I have another wrench to throw into the gears to really slow this build down lol.

Lazy mans jig. rotates for easy welding. Other side will be tabbed for shorter links.

 

Sub'd! Glad I got to see this thing mash for a little bit out in superstition.

 

Like a solid 20 minutes lol

 

Thats about average before some of these LT guys break something or crash.

 

I think 15 of those minutes were spent driving around looking for my spare tire lol

 

I feel like its mostly this then boom crash bang.. oops.

Gotta love the crazies that like to show boat.