The Tale of The Taquito

I have changed the name of her to The Taquito. I originally called her Terri, but my friends kept calling it The Taquito, so it kinda stuck.

This is the tale of The Taquito. A bit of backstory, The Taquito is my first Tacoma. I was a Honda and Ford guy for most of my life. I always liked Toyota's, just never bought one. These day's the wife and I have 2 Toyota's, 1 Lexus and a Ford sitting at home. Before I bought The Taquito, I had a 1st Gen Tundra for awhile. It was a good truck and I really liked it, but it was more truck than I needed. It also didn't help that it was originally an east coast truck. The frame had been replaced, but so much other stuff was just crusty as hell. Maintenance became a royal pain. So, I sold it. I've always preferred regular cab trucks, bonus points if it's a base model!!! Yes, I'm a bit off. To add to that I'm also 6'5". There is just something about the way a reg cab looks and drives that I like. It also helps that the kids are out of the house and the wife really doesn't like wheeling. I bought the truck in Jan of 2020 and the wife still hasn't even driven it. All that being considered, that means I can do what ever I want with it!

With all that BS out of the way, let's get on with it. The goal from the start has been for her to become a pretty capable trail rig, still drive ok on the highway and be unassuming and comfortable to camp in. I will be slowly getting this thread up to date to her current state. I'll also leave a day 1 and current picture in post #1, along with a list of mods and such. If you're hoping to see the build up of a beauty queen, it's never going to happen. The Taquito is all about function. Her purpose in life is to take me on adventures into the middle of nowhere, set up camp and drink beer.

Current Specs:
2013 Tacoma 4 Banger Auto 4x4
5.29 Yukon gears
ARB front and rear lockers
ARB on board air
Factory Cruise Control Install
Hayden Transmission Cooler
CMC done by Cali Raised Off-Road
Yokohama Geolander G003 MT 255/85R16
ScanGuageII
Bilstien 5100 with OME 884 coils
JBA UCA's
Removed Front Sway Bay
Bilstien 5160 with Deaver stage 2 leaf packs
4Xinnovations Rock Sliders
4Xinnovations rear bumper with tire carrier
Topo Toppers Badlander
OVS 270 awning

Day 1


Current

 

Is it a 4x4

 

Nice pickup!

 

As I mentioned, The Taquito replaced a 1st Gen Tundra. In order to give that Trail Whale the respect she deserves, here is a picture of her.

Day one of bringing The Taquito home. Initial thoughts were, damn, those wheels look like do do and the tires are mismatched and rub, but I see potential.


Step one was to get rid of those wheels and source a set of factory wheels. Just trying to keep it simple. I'm just going to scratch them all up anyhow. I found a Tacoma that was being parted out on Craigslist. I called them and they said that they still had the wheels. Headed on over there to check them out. I ended up doing a straight trade, the wheels and tires I hated, for the stock wheels that I wanted. I might have lost out on that deal, but I really don't care.



Next stop was Big Brand Tires for some fresh rubber. I went with the same tires that I had on my Tundra. Kumho Road Venture AT51 in LT265/75R16. Then I took the truck home and parked it for a few days. It needed a very important mod, before I drove it much.


Cruise Control!!! Yes, I may prefer a base model, but CC is mandatory for me! Before you hate on my oil light being on, don't worry, the motor wasn't running. I took the picture because I was so happy that the cruise light finally came on. The Taquito wasn't one of the lucky trucks that came prewired for cruise. It really wasn't a big deal and it took less than an hour to run the wires to the ECU. After doing all that, the damn light wouldn't come on. I started troubleshooting and it turned out that I crushed a pin, on the connector behind the air bag. Cruise at last, cruise at last!






That's enough catching up, for one night. I'm at work, it's time to do something productive. Here's The Taquito sitting next to her new buddy, Silver. Yes, I DD a Ranger.

 

Yeah, I fixed that.

 

Thank you! Stay tuned, more updates to come.

 

Nice truck.

 

Cool, i have same truck but a 97, checkout my build

 

Thank You!

 

Will do!

 

Now that I had the tires, wheels, cruise control and ScanGuage II, it was time to start buying more crap for her. After spending countless hours getting lost in all the aftermarket offerings, I came to a conclusion. There may be a lot of options for these trucks, but when it comes to armor the poor Regular Cab gets the shit end of the stick ! I wanted to get full underbody skids and sliders next. I can find a front skid plate, but, still to this day, I'm having issues finding a transmission and xfer case skid for the 4 cyl auto Reg Cab. I'd like a gas tank skid plate, too. If anyone knows of any place please let me know. That being said, I did find some Reg Cab rock sliders, from 4Xinnovations.

Here we, as in my buddy Jerry, are mocking them up to figure out the spacing and the angles that we will go with.


Now it was time to make some sparks fly!


Next we did the same for the other side. Then I prepped them for paint (I'm not totally useless) and painted them. I completely failed and did not get any pictures of them painted before being welded on. As the paint dried I treated Jerry and his wife to some good ass grub, at Ephen Taco's, in Ridgecrest. Always take care of your homies!!! Now that we were fat and happy it was time to make some more sparks fly.


Now it is time for another failure on my part. I never got a good picture once we were done. That can wait till my next update. Here is a crappy picture I took the next day. They got all dirty on the drive home from Ridgecrest. Hit a pretty good storm in the Tehachapi Mountains. This picture also does a great job of showing all the little scratches on The Taquito that you can't see from 5 feet away. I'll try not to take anymore close up shots. I painted them using Rustoleum Truck Bed Coating Paint. It's been about 8 months since then, I'm not really too impressed with the stuff. It was also a cold winter day so that might have something to do with it. I'll be masking the lower part of the truck off and trying something different before winter sets in. We're still getting into the 90's everyday, so I have time.


On the drive out to Ridgecrest and back, from Bakersfield, was the first time I really drove her on the open road and in the mountains. I'm so glad that I installed the cruise control, but holy shit, she's gutless!

 

I recently bought the exact same truck, right down to the color. Got it with 60k miles and came with a matching A.R.E. camper shell and 17" wheels (31" total tire height). I wanted more power but couldn't find a 4x4 V6 with low mileage within my budget. 4 wheel drive ended up being more important to me than towing capacity. Also wasn't interested in crew cabs because I wanted a regular length bed but still keep the total length to a minimum.

I haven't found many other 2nd Gen reg cab 4x4 threads so I'd be very interested to see more updates on your maintenance and mods. I have a lot of questions about what kind of suspension mods might have been made by the previous owner that I'm not noticing.. if my upper control arms are stock, that kind of thing. Maybe yall can help me identify my pictures.



Here's a list of mods I'm considering, if you're doing any of these or would avoid doing any of these, I'd like to know your thoughts:

- 3" or 4" body lift
- larger and more aggressive AT tires
- trailer hitch receiver
- a minimal profile offroad front bumper

 

Nice truck.

 

Very Nice! From the pics, it looks so much cleaner than mine! Are you going to keep the shell?

 

Work got crazy and then I got lazy, once my time off started. Then I went wheeling, because it's fun! Now I'm chilling at home and drinking some beers, some Elysian Space Dust IPA. Shit's gooder than a bitch! The wife should be cooking dinner soon (DoorDash), so I thought I would post the next step of the 'ol girl.

It was time to give The Taquito a bit of a lift. Just like the armor, I found out that lifting a Reg Cab is not as simple as all the other models. What would be a 2" lift on an AC V-6, would be a 3" on a Reg Cab 4 Banger. I only wanted to be around two and a half inches of lift. An off the shelf lift kit was not going to happen. I contacted Marie, at Headstrong Off-Road. I saw a lot of people recommending her, as I lurked around this forum. What a helpful and wonderful person! I told her what I had, what I wanted and what type of wheeling I was going to do with it. She wrote me back well over a page of info, about all my different options. I was very impressed!

My preferred style of wheeling is slow and technical. I don't need any fancy Icon this or Fox that. That's one benefit of the smaller and lighter Reg Cab, if doesn't take as much too achieve the same results as a larger and heavier model. I'm also cheap and only care about results and not Instagram cred. That being said, I went with some Bilstein 5100's all round. Old Man Emu 884 coils up front with a 1/4 spacer on the driver side, to combat the Taco Lean. For the back I went with the Headstrong 3 leaf progressive AAL. For good measure, I also went with some JBA upper control arms. My buddy, Jerry, and I slapped it all on with no issues. Unlike the sliders, I was actually helpful this time!


I totally slacked off on getting a shot of the leaf install, but here is the finished product. Yes, it's a crappy picture of her sitting in a parking lot, waiting to get her post lift alignment.

 

Looks awesome, well done. Let us know how it rides. What size tires are you running there?

 

Thank you! It rides great, much better than before. The tires are LT265/75R16.

 

Nice truck! I have a regular cab as well, and RCI skid plates will fit without modification. Mine is a manual, but I installed an engine, transmission, and tcase skid without issue

 

Cool! Thanks for the info!

 

Just checked them out. Do the access holes for the oil drain plug line up with the 4 banger?