PennSilverTaco's "Perfect 5-Lug Regular Cab" Build, Aspergers, and General BS MegaThread!

Well, that went off without a hitch.

 

Looks like someone didn't install a tailgate reinforcement bracket. @kbvoodoo - possible sale here.

 

2nd gen tailgate didn't have a snowball's chance in hell.

 

I thought the same thing lol. I was looking for a meme to. no. no. I clean. bwhaahaa

 

what what in the butt

 

someone got his calculations all wrong!

 

@LocoLocal
@Plain Jane Taco

All of these were taken in June 2010, when we'd only owned the truck for about 9 months and it probably had about 5,000 miles on it.

 

I've done CPR on someone I knew was dead and wasn't coming back (obvious to me internal decapitation, but no outward OSD so I had to keep trying). I've held open tibia fractures together while medics pushed pain management. I've responded to a plane crash where the seatbelt kept the majority of the torso inside the cockpit.

At least to me, a deceased person no longer looks like a person. You can tell they aren't there anymore and what is left is only the empty shell, like looking at a costume that isn't being worn. The injured and still living are a little tougher because you have to make sure they don't degrade until transport arrives, but you're so focused on that job that the emotional aspect deflects off of you. The hardest thing I've had to witness is the notification to the family that their loved one is never coming home. The feral scream of the brother of the above mentioned CPR victim is something I'll never be able to forget.

 

What radio is that, and what's the cost? Looking to upgrade the one in my 2006.

 

In my experience being a LEO is probably more a mental than physical profession (at least in Corrections). I have about a 45 minute drive on the way home after my shift ends that I use to either relax and unwind by listening to the radio or talk with family on the phone. Although the drive makes for a longer day, but it gives me time to unwind and leave work at work.

I can tell you it is tough to mentally deal with the constant daily abuse we receive. Also how quick we have to esclate our emotions, but desclate even faster during critical incidents. I guess that's why statics are showing that about 38 - 40% of Correctional Officers will develop PTSD over their career.

 

Sony XAVW650BT-I paid $280 for it but it's on sale for $230.

https://www.crutchfield.com/p_158XAV650B/Sony-XAV-W650BT.html?tp=20217

 

What is OSD?

 

Obvious Sign of Death, such as rigor mortis or full decapitation.

 

https://www.verywell.com/signs-of-death-1298439

 

My Grandma used to have a 1987 Mercedes 300E that she special ordered and bought brand new. This car had a driver's side airbag only (I think passenger side airbags became optional in the W124 Benzes in 1988 and standard in all models in 1989). The reason I believe this is because back in 1998-2000 when I was in 4th and 5th grade, one of my teachers had a 1988 300E. Being the gearhead I was, even back then, I was always asking her questions about her car and that's how I knew it had airbags.

My uncle had a 1989 Mercedes 560SEC that he bought used in the mid-1990s, and that car had dual airbags.

Anyway, my grandma's 1987 300E had a sticker in the glovebox saying either to check or replace the airbag in March 1997. I'm assuming the car was manufactured in March 1987, so that was exactly 10 years. That Mercedes was Grandma's daily driver from 1987 until 2002. My Grandma never had an accident. The air-conditioner started leaking in about 1998-1999, and my grandpa got incredibly sick. My Grandma decided an SUV would be easier for my Grandpa to get in and out of, and bought a brand new 2002 Lexus RX300. 15 years and about 80,000 miles later, she still has that Lexus, and it's never given her any problems. What I'm wondering is if the airbags in the Benz or the Lexus would still function properly.

In the summer of 2003, my best friend rear-ended somebody in his 2003 Toyota Highlander Limited, at about 40 miles per hour. The airbags deployed, which is probably why my friend didn't get hurt at all. The Highlander was 10 years old and had about 185,000 miles on it at the time, so the insurance company totaled it. The airbags definitely did their job.

Now, the very first vehicles to have at least one airbag standard are about 30 years old, and I'm betting that many of them have never been wrecked or had the airbags serviced. What I'm wondering is if a 1987 Mercedes was involved in a major accident, would the airbag still work?

 

I will post pics if I can find them...

As I stated in my airbag post, my Grandma bought a Mercedes-Benz 300E brand new back in 1987. She special ordered it, tuxedo gray with a tan leather interior and pretty much every option except heated seats. She lived in Arizona at the time so she did not see a need for heated seats. My Grandma is a prolific air-conditioning user who hates the heat, so I don't think she would use them anyway...

Anyway, my Grandma bought this Benz brand new and paid cash. It was her daily driver from 1987 until 2002. When she moved from Arizona to Pennsylvania, the hood ornament mysteriously went missing while the car was being shipped. She believes it was stolen, and the shipping company's insurance paid for a new hood ornament.

My Grandma claims to have had the car at 120 mph on a deserted stretch of a highway during a trip from Tempe, Arizona to Las Vegas.

By the time I was born, the Benz was 2 years old, and I have vague memories of riding in it on one of only two visits I made to see my Grandma when she lived in Arizona. Once my Grandma moved to Pennsylvania in 1994, that car played a pivotal role in my childhood. My Grandma took me and my cousins everywhere in that car.

My Grandma was never involved in any accidents with the Mercedes, and it never had any major problems. My grandma and cousins got stranded by a dead battery at least once, and one of the rear power windows quit working, and the factory Becker AM/FM cassette started having problems in 1997 or so. My Grandpa took it to a car stereo place and had a Kenwood tape deck put in.

The A/C just suddenly stopped blowing cold in the summer of 1999. My dad was still in the Navy, and he and my mom had left me with my Grandparents at their lakehouse in Maine while they went house hunting in Washington state (where my dad's next tour of duty would be).

If I remember correctly, the A/C just quit working abruptly after 12 years of problem-free service. This was the 1990s, so most mechanics still had a stash of R-12 in their possession. My Grandma was friends with this woman who owned a convenience store just over the line in New Hampshire, and she happened to rent a garage on the property to a mechanic named Jeff. My Grandpa and I took the Benz to Jeff's shop and he filled it up with R-12 while we waited. My Grandpa new just about everybody in this tiny New Hampshire town so he chatted with friends, while I wandered around the vast lot next to the garage and looked at all the cars he had back there. It cost about $130 just to recharge the Benz with R-12, and I remember thinking even after a fresh shot of Freon, it still wasn't blowing that cold. Needless to say, the Benz was otherwise just fine, so my Grandma paid to have the system juiced up with R-12 every summer. The charge would last the summer, and then she'd repeat the following spring. My Grandpa had heart problems and wasn't doing very well, and getting in and out of that low Mercedes was not easy for him. My Grandma bought a brand new 2002 Lexus RX300 Coach Edition in the summer of 2002, and the Mercedes was left to languish in the driveway of one of my Grandma's houses in Florida for over a year.

My dad decided he wanted the car and in 2003 flew down to Florida where his brother who lived there helped him get it up and running again. The mistake they made was starting the car with all that old gas in it as soon as they got the battery jump-started, and then drove it to a garage where the gas tank was removed and drained. They should have called AAA and had it towed. Anyway, after a tuneup the Benz was seemingly read to go. My dad bought some new CDs and a car kit adapter to play them through the tape deck, and drove it from Florida all the way back to Northern Virginia (where we were living at the time) in August with NO AIR-CONDITIONING!

My dad took the Benz to a local Mercedes dealership where the A/C and the parking brake were fixed, and then it was off to Best Buy where the Kenwood cassette deck was removed and replaced with a Kenwood CD player. The car was more or less reliable for about a year and a half. The A/C leaked and had to be recharged every summer at a cost of $300, but it blew freezing when charged. It was in 2004-2005 when the car starting having problems.

It was a classic "Dr. Jekyl/Mr. Hyde" situation. A lot of the time, the car would run fine. However, every once in a while, the car would start bucking then sputter and die, typically at stop lights about 10-15 minutes into the drive. The car would then refuse to start again until several hours later. I was taking auto shop in high school at the time, and my instructor agreed to have some of the more advanced students look at and possibly fix the car for a discounted price.

The Benz of course conked out on the way to the high school. A busy road in Fairfax County is NOT A fun place to break down at a 8pm on a weeknight. We did not have AAA at the time either, so my dad had to call a tow truck and pay $70 to get the car towed a few miles. We dropped it right outside the garage at auto shop and I handed the keys to my teacher the next morning.

I do believe they fixed it, but my dad just didn't want the headache of anymore potential problems. The car had less than 100K on it at the time, but keep in mind the A/C leaked, one of the windows didn't go down, and the car had numerous other electrical problems. Basically, the car remained in my Grandma's name while my dad drove it and decided whether he wanted to buy it and keep it or not. My dad paid the insurance and all routine maintenance. The Benz remained registered in Maine the whole time.

My dad and Grandma decided to sell it for $2,500, and wound up selling it to one of the maintenance guys at my high school. I got 10% of the profits for helping sell it. The last time I saw that Benz, the new owner had already put Virginia plates on it and was driving away. I remember being a little upset because the CD player had a detachable faceplate and I'd removed that prior to the car being dropped off so nobody would steal it. My mom was a little late in bringing the faceplate and the buyer drove off with the car before I could give him the faceplate. My shop teacher wound up giving the faceplate to him later, but I remember feeling bad that buyer took that first drive in his new-to-him Benz without any tunes.

 

My dad had two of these trucks when I was a kid, both bought secondhand and used as second vehicles for him to commute to work while my mom drove whatever newer vehicle we had at the time.

My dad's first Mazda was a 1986 B2000 that he bought used in 1990. His brother bought it from an insurance auction with minor front end damage, fixed it, and sold it to my dad for $2,000. My dad is pretty sure my uncle took a loss on that truck. It was a no-frills truck. It had a carbureted 4-cylinder engine, 5-speed stick, no A/C, no power steering, and no power brakes. It didn't even have a back bumper. It was black with white wheels. But it was only 4 years old at the time and it was cheap reliable transportation. The truck only had an AM/FM radio in it when my dad bought it and he seems to remember getting a cassette player installed at Circuit City. My dad absolutely loved that truck, and it never gave him any trouble in the 2 years he owned it. However, like I said, it was black and it did not have air-conditioning! Our primary vehicle at the time was a fully loaded 1990 Toyota Camry LE that did have A/C, but for some reason in 1991 or 1992 my dad decided to drive the Mazda up to Connecticut to see my Grandma in the middle of a heat wave. My dad drove, my mom rode shotgun, and I was in the middle in my carseat. My mom said "Never again!" My dad looked it getting A/C installed in the Mazda, and while it was very doable, it would have cost a thousand bucks (half of what he paid for the truck). He ultimately sold it to a family friend for what he originally paid for it, and in June 1992 bought a brand new Dodge Dakota LE that did have air. He had the Dakota for barely a year before deciding he wanted a 4x4 and trading the Dakota for a new S-10 Blazer in June 1993.

The Blazer was eventually traded for a brand new Nissan Pathfinder SE 4x4 in May 1996. We would have the Pathfinder for 13 years and end up trading it for the 2010 Tacoma I have now. My dad sold the 1990 Camry in 1998 before we moved from California to Virginia Beach. My mom started driving the Pathfinder, and my dad bought a 1990 Mazda B2600i LE-5 4x4 from the original owner. Compared to the 1986 Mazda, the 1990 was downright luxurious. The A/C in that truck was absolutely freezing, by the way. The Mazda had over 90K miles on it at the time my dad bought it, and it was a little beat up and rusty, but the guy selling it was the original owner and had all the service records. My dad bought the truck the same day he test drove it.

The 1990 Mazda had an oil leak, and the rear leaf springs had to be replaced, but the damn thing just would not die. It never failed to start, never left us stranded, and was the absolute epitome of father/son weekend fun. My dad replaced the factory tape deck with a cheap aftermarket CD player in January 2000 after months of nagging from me. In spring 2000, my mom rear-ended some idiot in a 1988-1990 Chevy 1500 who freaked out after seeing a cop in a nearby parking lot and stopped at a green light. The Mazda needed a new bumper at a cost of about $500 and the Chevy had no damage at all. Nothing under the hood was damaged, but the day after the accident in a completely unrelated incident, the thermostat went and the Mazda overheated.

The Pathfinder was only 4 years old, so my dad decided to keep it, and traded the Mazda for a brand new GMC conversion van in May 2000.

What do you guys think of the 1986-1993 Mazda B-series trucks? I absolutely love them and think they are very reliable and well put together. I rarely see them driving around anymore, but I see at least 2 whenever I go to the Carlisle Truck Nationals. Owners I speak to absolutely love them.

 

My dad's first brand new car was a Toyota, a 1983 Celica GT he bought in California right after he finished boot camp. He had it for 6 years with no trouble.

The first new car my parents bought after getting married was a 1990 Toyota Camry LE V6, fully loaded with everything except leather seats. It was super white with a blue cloth interior. Believing his 1986 Mazda pickup was too underpowered, my dad had a trailer hitch installed on the Camry and used it pull his 16-foot boat. The Camry did this without trouble until my dad bought a brand new Dodge Dakota in 1992 and used that to pull the boat.

My dad wanted so badly to get a new 4Runner in 1996, but no dealer in the area would go below sticker because they were in such high demand. My dad settled for a 1996 Nissan Pathfinder that ended up being the best vehicle we ever owned.

In 2009, I finally got my learner's permit, and my dad traded the 1996 Pathfinder for my 2010 Tacoma. Between 2013 and and 2015, that truck has been backed into a concrete wall (no damage), gotten caught in two hailstorms, clobbered by a drunk driver in a Mercedes ($2,600 damage to Taco; Mercedes totaled), been driven off the road in a snowstorm (no damage), and been driven over curbs and sidewalks, among other things. But you know what? It's never needed anything more than tires, brakes, and fluids.

 

I was hit just the other day. My truck and the car that hit me.