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

My aunt and uncle have always been obnoxiously frugal with their money in certain respects (a perfect example would be in about 2004 when my aunt took me and my cousin to the movies and made the two of us share a soda!). In early 1997, despite living in a house that had to be worth almost $500K at the time, my uncle drove a 1985 Mazda GLC and my aunt drove a 1986 Plymouth Voyager. By 1993-1994, that old Plymouth van was falling apart (most notably they kept a wooden fence post in the van at all times to keep the liftgate up after the shocks failed in the early nineties); They finally replaced the 1986 Voyager with a brand new 1997 Plymouth Voyager, but for some reason held onto the old van for at least a month after buying the new van and sold it privately instead of trading it in. The 1997 Voyager was the first vehicle anybody in my family bought that had both a CD player and a cassette player in the dash! I absolutely loved this particular feature!

 

In 1997, my aunt and uncle still had in their family room a faux wood 27-inch-or-so console TV, on which almost none of the buttons worked and the remote seemed to be chronically missing; That TV had to be at least fifteen years old by then, and it worked (I can remember watching Lost in Space reruns with my cousins every morning during that vacation), but it was a shitbox compared to the 32-inch Sony Trinitron my parents had that wasn’t even two years old at the time! That console TV finally bit the dust in about 2001 or so, and my aunt and uncle bought a 36-inch TV with surround sound to replace it.

The aforementioned ‘97 Voyager was traded for a new 2009 RAV4 Limited under the “Cash for Clunkers” program; The van ran and drove good, the A/C was ice cold, and the factory Infinity stereo still sounded great, but it had like 180K miles on it if I remember correctly and was falling apart. The 1985 Mazda was donated to Purple Heart in 2001 or so when it failed inspection and my uncle found it cheaper to buy a new vehicle instead of repairing the Mazda.

 

Like I said, we must have gone to see three or four movies at the same theater (this was in Reston, Virginia if I remember correctly), though the only two I remember are Hercules and Air Bud...

Everyone who’s seen Air Bud (especially Toyota fans) likely remembers that Josh’s mom drove a 1996 Toyota 4Runner; In the beginning of the movie, someone seated behind me commented “She has a Toyota Sonoma”...



The Tacoma had been out for just two years at this point (it was July 1997 or so), and I knew this guy got the Tacoma and GMC’s Sonoma mixed up; I didn’t call him out on that, but I turned around and was like “No, it’s a 4Runner...”

My mom later told me when we left that the guy whispered to the person he was with “that kid really knows his cars” (I was 8)!

 

My parents left me with Grammy and Mr. P in April 1998 while they went house hunting in Virginia Beach, and back then most of my family lived in Southeast PA and North-central NJ, so everyone was pretty close; My grandparents were busy one day, so my Uncle Jeff (same one who lives in Myrtle Beach, who painted my wheel skins) volunteered to take me for the day. He had to go to a junkyard to pick up some wheels that he was refinishing, and the owner let us wander around the yard for quite a bit. In the main office, they had boxes of assorted parts that you could buy for like ten bucks each; At the time, my uncle was driving a 1994 Ford Ranger XLT regular cab short bed 2WD (he special ordered that truck with the 3.0L V6, 5-speed manual, 3.42 limited-slip rear, and every option you could get; He paid cash and drove that truck for eight years before getting his first Taco in 2002). I was fishing through the "assorted" box while my uncle talked to the clerk, found a taillight cover for a 1993-1997 Ford Ranger, and promptly pointed out to my uncle that the part would fit his truck. My uncle was utterly amazed that a 9-year old kid was that detail-oriented, as he wouldn't have even noticed the part!

 

@Taco critter

Another time when I was maybe three years old (so in 1992 or so), my aunt and uncle lost a hubcap on the red 1986 Plymouth Voyager; Instead of paying the jacked up stealership price, they talked to my dad who in turn got in contact with Uncle Jeff; Uncle Jeff had this huge phonebook-like catalogue full of OEM wheel covers (with black and white images of each one), and my dad took me to Uncle Jeff's old hubcap store on McArthur Road in Allentown (technically Whitehall). My dad and my uncle couldn't agree on which hubcap was the right one, so one of them put me on the counter with the book directly in front of me and asked me which hubcap my aunt's Voyager had; I thought for like a second, then pointed directly at what I knew was the right one (keep in mind I was like 3 years old). Uncle Jeff ordered the hubcap and likely had it directly shipped to Maryland, where my aunt and uncle were living at the time, and it was the right one!

 

I don’t know if this had anything to do with the fact that I didn’t drive the truck at all on Sunday or Monday, but even though we had a freak downpour/hailstorm yesterday, my headlights do not seem to have leaked!

 

About six months ago, I thought I’d be at 120K before the beginning of November; With the ongoing pandemic, I don’t think that’s gonna happen now...

Who thinks I’ll hit 120K by the end of this year?

 

One min ago

 

If you watched Nickelodeon when these guys were still on the air, then your childhood was awesome!

 

What is the worst vehicle you or an immediate family member has ever owned?

 

1986 Plymouth Voyager Caravan

 

1994 Ford Thunderbird.

Most of the car was fine, but the engine and transmission were chronic disasters.

 

Every GM.

 

Dodge Durango

 

2000 gmc jimmy. absolute nightmare.

 

1989 Dodge Colt...E (which I think was the "economy" version) Am/fm push button radio with only 3.5" front speakers, Manual Steering, Manual transmission...Top speed of about 68mph. Automatic seatbelts on a rail in the door frame (Which I believe would roll open if the door were to open in an accident...) No cruise control, power brakes....

This is NOT my car.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cn5zly4-ySk

 

As much as I have a soft spot the 1982-1993 S-series pickups and the 1983-1994 S-Blazers and Jimmies, the 1993 Chevy S-10 Blazer my dad owned from 1993 to 1996 was probably the worst vehicle my family ever owned based purely on the amount of things that went wrong with it...

The Blazer was not the least bit unreliable, but...

• After just one week of ownership and with 260 miles on the clock, my dad got in his brand new Blazer to go to work one morning and turned on the A/C because it was June and quite warm; The A/C system blew a seal at the orifice tube and purged itself of R-12, most of which went into the cabin via the defogger vents. The dealer repaired this under warranty and my dad got it back that afternoon.
• In May 1994, my dad turned on the A/C for the first time that year and found it to be blowing warm; He took it to the dealer, where the same exact problem was discovered, and it was repaired under warranty. The A/C never gave us any trouble for the remaining two years my dad owned the Blazer...
• At some point in 1993 or 1994, the Blazer developed an obnoxious squeak in the rear tailgate; The dealer determined that the tailgate had not been installed properly at the factory; They removed it and reinstalled it for free, under warranty.
• In 1994 or 1995, the clearcoat started peeling from the alloy wheels; The dealer replaced them under warranty.
• Like our beloved Tacomas, the Blazer had a front disc/rear drum setup; All four brakes wore out before 30K miles (I'm guessing sometime in early 1995) and had to be replaced! Unfortunately, the dealer considered this "normal wear" and my dad had to pay out of pocket.
• At some point in 1995, the light behind gauge cluster quit working (though luckily the headlights still worked), but I think this problem fixed itself.
• A headlight burned out in 1996 (that may have just been a freak occurrence).

After the brakes had to get replaced way too early, my dad wrote a nasty letter (probably three pages long) to GM corporate, though I don't know if anything came of it...

As I stated, the Blazer was not unreliable; I think it had a dead battery once or twice, but it never broke down or left us stranded in the three years and more than 40K miles (I think it was closer to 50K miles) my dad owned it. My dad traded the Blazer for a brand new 1996 Nissan Pathfinder SE in May 1996, and that Pathfinder remained in the family until we traded it for my Tacoma in Spetember 2009!

 

When we moved back to California in 1996, we lived in military housing at Moffett Field. My best friend Braden's parents had a 1990 Thunderbird. The tranny gave up the ghost in 1997, and they determined it was more cost effective to buy a new (to them) vehicle; The T-bird's replacement was a used 1994 S-10 Blazer 4-door 2WD, which they still had when my family moved to Virginia Beach in 1998.

 

It seems like those S-series trucks are reliable until something breaks; One of my friends has a 2000 S-10 4x4 with over 200K miles that gives a CEL every once in a while but is ultimately reliable...

 

This thing had like 130k on it at the time (kilometers), everything leaked, had electrical issues out the wazoo, it would randomly put its self into 4lo when you were on the freeway lol. the engine would stall out if you took corners too fast, just an all around deathtrap honestly surprised im still here to tell the tale