SpeediTurtle's College Budget 96 Taco Build

Sorry for the long delay. I've really been focussing on school. I'm finally doing well in my classes so that's good. Just looking for some summer internships now. Anyways, on to truck stuff.

About a month ago I drove back to my parents house in Sacramento to visit and hang out for the weekend. Due to the snow and low visibility, the pass was closed for about 16hrs that sunday. I had midterms the next day, and decided to leave my truck at my parents house until the weather improved and I could drive it back up. Later in the week I got a call from my Dad saying that he knew I needed work on my truck so he had taken it to a shop for me. I was semi-pissed but also kinda stoked. I wanted to do the work on my truck but with my limited time,space, and tools, it probably wasn't going to get done anytime soon. I knew the clutch needed to be looked at, the steering rack was leaking, and my rotors were warped or something. I also wanted a quote on my ubj's and lbj's.

annnnddddd here begins the fiasco

about a day after being in the shop I get a call from the shop telling me what needs to be done to the truck and the prices. they told me that my brakes looked fine however I did need;
steering rack/pump replacement
new Throwout bearing+possible other clutch work
and they quoted me and outrageous price for the ball joints so I decided against that.
I talked to my dad and he agreed to split it with me and pay for a bit of the work so I gave the shop the go ahead.

A week later I get a call from the shop
" uh so we went to pull your truck into the shop and the front passenger caliper was completely seized, Also your water pump randomly started leaking everywhere." I sensed some major bullshit so I reminded him that in the beginning of the week I was told that my brakes looked fine. so that meant, some dingus took apart my brakes in order to check them and proceeded to put them back together wrong. After some arguing and talking to the owner, I convinced him to give me a new caliper for free plus free labor. I wan't to angry about the water pump because i knew it was getting close to the end of it's life.

Finally about a week after that call, they "finished the truck." I asked my mom to pick the truck up from the shop and meet me halfway between Reno and Sac. That night we met up in a truck stop and I gave the truck a quick test drive just to make sure everything felt bueno. The truck felt fine however the steering was REALLY heavy. I figured that the bushings inside the new steering rack just hadn't settled yet, but i decided to check under the hood just do be safe. I popped the hood only to find a solid stream of power steering fluid gushing out of the output fitting on the ps pump. No bueno.

I won't go into it too much but basically I undid the banjo bolt and found a bur on the fitting had caused a failure in the crush washers(which hadn't been replaced). I had to file down the burr and then go to each trucker and see if they possibly had any of the same crush washers. Thankfully one trucker had just what I needed, and I was on my way back to Reno.

As I got onto 80 I noticed a pretty gnarly vibration throughout the entire truck. Once at 65 though, the vibration went away. So i got it home and forgot about it. The next day I called the shop and demanded a refund for the work done on the ps pump. I talked to the owner again who sincerely apologized and gladly refunded me the labor cost.

As the week progressed, the vibration became worse and worse. So that weekend I brought the truck BACK DOWN to the shop. I walked in and stated the problems and had them drive it just so they could see what they had let out of their shop a week prior. I could tell at this point that the owner was tired of hearing from me. I told them that if they had done the work correctly the first time, that none of this would be happening.

Long story short, they took my truck in, free of charge, and fixed all of their fuck ups. They replaced a rear U-joint, balanced my drive shaft and replaced the carrier bearing. As far as I can tell, while doing the work on my clutch, one of their technicians had unbolted my driveshaft and just let it hang, causing the failure in the u-joint and carrier bearing.

The truck feels like new again but I definitely learned my lesson about having shops work on my truck.

If you are in the sacramento area DO NOT GO TO THE TOYSHOP IN SHINGLE SPRINGS. They used to do fantastic work however they are under new management and clearly aren't doing good work anymore.

Sorry for the rant. I promise more camping and trips to come as the weather gets nicer.

 

Damn that hella sucks Lucas, Not sure if you regocnize my tw name. If you ever need some help wth fixing the truck and are back in town I'm willing to give a hand

 

Of course I recognize you man! Yeah I'll let you know next time. lets get a trip together soon!

 

I smell a trip up to Oregon

 

Honestly I'm half ass planning one after I get my new dirtbike

 

Well I learned a lesson on Monday. I was driving home from camping, towing a tent trailer, when suddenly my front passenger side dropped and i came to an abrupt halt. Upon further inspection, I found that my lower balljoint had failed which also caused my CV axle to shear. I was able to get AAA to tow it home for me and had a super cool CHP help me tow my tent trailer off the road. Luckily I was only going 5 mph as I had just turned from a stop sign.

On Tuesday I went to Orielly's and picked up a new lower ball joint and CV. The job went a lot smoother than expected, only took me a few hours. I didn't take any pictures of the install because I was just trying to fix it as fast as possible. Before I hop in the truck again I'm going to replace the rest of my balljoints on the truck. All in all, DONT NEGLECT YOUR BALLJOINTS

 

Dang I think I'll go check mine now. Good thing you weren't going fast.

 

Yeah I know, another 100 yards and I would've been at freeway speeds

 

Have you done any new mods to your truck?

 

Sorry for the late reply, school and work . And nothing so far. The truck sat all summer because I was working full time at Caltrans in Truckee and borrowed my parents Civic to commute to and from work. At the end of summer I took the truck to Burning Man so it really needs a deep clean right now. Other than that, I found a RTT for pretty cheap on craigslist today so I might swoop that up.

 

Yeah it's tough to get anything done while going to school and work.

 

How's your truck doing? Anything new?

 

Working on building a truck box for the bed right now, gonna put the shell on soon for winter. Not much lately besides what's on my build thread. Saving up for an atlas for next summer.

 

Oooh I like the sound of that atlas

 

I did a thing today
Untitled by Lucas Dodson, on Flickr

 

Nice! How are you gonna mount it?

 

i think I'm just gonna do some raised bed bars

 

I like it! I'm a bit biased on the color - I'm your stubbier twin.

 

Haha thanks man, I dig your rig too

 

Subbed. Cool truck man! Built most of mine when I was in college, so I get the struggle!