What have you done to your Tacoma today? 1st Gen Edition

I finally found a topper for mine today. Good fit other than the height is a little shorter than my cab. The seller said it came off of a Chevy S-10. It's in great shape and for $100, I couldn't pass it up.

 

It was a Duralast and the Duralast gasket that I put in today. The one I took out was from Oreilly’s, the Duralast from Autozone, but both had MotoRad stamped into them. So same brand, different temps. I did notice the new gasket and the one I took out where different. The one that came out was basically flat on front and back, but the new one was rounded. However, the new one did appear to be slightly thicker.

 

Well with my cruiser exhaust seemingly giving up on life and my taco's cat being pretty well toasted (almost knocked me out on a cold windy morning while I was putting my tent away) I figure I'll buy a whole pile of exhaust parts and get them both in order. The cruiser exhaust is confusingly routed from stock so I think it'll be a complete do over to have everything inside the frame rails and no weird mounting blocks that cannot be reached. Ordering three high flow bullet cats because the cruiser is OBDI and doesn't give a flying shit and the taco doesn't even seem to care that my current cat is toast. Gonna get some pipe and mufflers and have a go at making everything. Really wish I had a vehicle lift, we'll see how tough it is once I simplify the routing a bit.

 

Put some bigger stoppers on.

 

I’ll have to check the coolant level, but it did not appear to be completely unusual when I glanced at it. I pulled the oil cap off and I didn’t see any frothyness or any discoloration.

 

Oh man tell me about it...I had a local TW member working on my truck Friday at his exhaust shop (welding my O2 bung and chopping the exhaust)... I was standing under my truck while it was on the shop's lift and the entire time was thinking how awesome it would be to have something like that at home.

Laying on an old, uneven, broken concrete driveway with a gravel rock strip up the middle of it sucks..

 

Yeah the only experience I have with a bad HG was when I bought a total POS '86 Toyota 4x4 off a tweaker for a few hundred bucks when I was young and dumb and didn't know better. Among a million other things wrong with it, the coolant was the color and consistency of a chocolate milkshake. But that's a pretty extreme example lol.

 

Damn, well at least I can work in my garage on some flat concrete haha. I usually just put everything on the jackstands as far up as they go, with the taco that's not much taller but with the cruiser it is a huge improvement.

 

Yeah I would kill for a garage...but honestly having a driveway is a huge step up from where I was before. My last place I lived on a really steep hill and had to park on the street (rented a room). At least now we have a small house with an old driveway but no garage...having just that though has made me way more of a DIY'er than I was previously. I just have to put thick blankets and towels down on the ground before I do anything under the truck, lol.

 

Harbor Freight moving blankets man... even in the garage I lay some of those down and they make it all better and you don't have to worry about destroying them. Just be aware they are in no way fire retardant haha

 

Did you get a new rug outta that?

 

Let her go

 

My neighborhood was built in around 2004/2005, they’re standard two car garages with about 8 foot ceilings.

Somehow, I have a neighbor who has a full size commercial two post car lift in his garage. How the hell it fits in there I have no idea.



I can’t sacrifice that much room out of the garage so I was looking at these QuickJack systems that you can store easily and fold flat. They run about $1.5k, which is comparable to a used 2 post lift. Won’t lift it up crazy high like a 2 post lift does, but you can sit under there comfortably.

 

Eventually I'll be able to buy a 2post lift, but I'm not gonna put a two post in a home garage where I cannot make full use of it, 9 foot ceiling isn't enough when you're lifting trucks and SUVs. When I move back to WA I'll be looking to buy land and build a shop building, probably live in that while I gather resources to build a house too. But I cannot imagine just having a garage to work in haha, it is already to cramped and I barely have three tool boxes in mine haha.

 

Nice! Made it look easy. Do you have a front locker? Looks like you had it engaged when you did three wheel motion.

 

The guy I bought my shop compressor for built a whole workshop with vaulted ceilings just to work on his Corvette. He also owned a 1st gen, but that obviously wasn’t the car he paid the most attention too haha.

He had a whole soundproof room dedicated to his air compressor. I felt kind of bad, he was moving out so he was selling all his tools - which is why I’m now the proud owner of a 60 gallon air compressor... that I can’t run after 7 PM because it’s louder than two atomic bombs going off perpetually when the motor kicks on.

A workshop would be nice. This garage is just too damn small. I would’ve liked to get a full size table sandblaster and parts washer but size constraints made me buy the bench top versions. I just barely shoved that giant air compressor into the corner.

 

Working with jack stands isn’t so bad.

There’s not a crazy amount of room, but I’m a pretty tall person and with the transmission out I can fit my head in the transmission tunnel with room to spare when I’m sitting with my legs crossed on the floor.



I would kill for a two post lift though. I had the honor of having access to one (and a whole Hunter Automotive training facility) for about two months last Summer. Standing under your car and looking up is a surreal experience.

 

Marimba

 

Man, I am spoiled working under my Taco, whenever I work on the 4Runner or CRV I always hit my head on something and swear like a sailor. My jack stands barely lift the taco higher than it is, but I'm going to lower the Tacoma an inch or two, so then it will be more noticeable again.

 

It's not that easy.

You will need a new radiator core support, hood, headlights, side marker lights.

The core support is spot welded by dozens of spot welds.