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

When I looked at the spiral cable to see if the terminal was there, it wasn't. I ordered a new spiral cable from a local Toyota dealer using a VIN I found online. The connector for the spiral cable (S8) also only had one wire going to it (horn). I had to source terminals and wire to be able to run a wire to the ECM. Now I just need to get off my but and start making wires for my cruise (I did test it and it works), steering wheel controls and navigation related wiring.

 

When we lived in the base housing in California, someone had a Honda 3-wheeler they’d ride around! I wonder if they’re still alive...

 

I kinda miss walking around the base housing neighborhood, looking at all the interesting vehicles...

Again, this was at Moffett Federal Airfield in California, in 1997-1998...

There was a Hawaiian kid named Spencer whose family had a white 1991 Chevy Lumina APV (think Dustbuster), and another family had the same van in Pontiac guise, a white 1994 or 1995 Trans Sport SE; There were a lot of older Japanese mini trucks and Jeeps, and this one guy had a 1989ish Bronco...

 

The guy with the Bronco’s last name was, I kid you not, Wonder...

Mr. Wonder was a Navy guy like my dad, but he was kind of an asshole, at least to me; His family had at least two cats that were indoor/outdoor cats, and one was black and white (Tuxedo?) cat named Mittens...

I asked Mr. Wonder if Mittens was friendly this one time, and he encourage me to pet him and find out; Being the naive 8-year old that I was, I tried to pet Mittens, and the little bastard hissed angrily and tried to scratch me. I just kinda brushed it off and forgot about it for the time being, but I told my dad a few days later and he said if I’d told
him sooner he would have gone over and and given Mr. Wonder a piece of his mind!

 

We lived in California from July or August of 1996 until maybe June of 1998, and I was not particularly sad to leave...

During our time there, my dad drove the green 1996 Nissan Pathfinder SE that he ended up trading for my Tacoma in 2009, and my mom drove a white 1990 Toyota Camry LE; Among families, minivans were popular...

There were Astros, Previas, and of the course the obligatory Chrysler minivans; The parents of this one kid I hung around with had like four kids and the family vehicle was a late model (at the time) Ford Aerostar.

There was a family down the street from us, in the off-base Navy housing, living in one of the apartment condo things that had a basic no-frills 1994 Plymouth Voyager in fridge white; I know the year of the van because I asked, and after reading a sales brochure I recently acquired, I can tell you it had the Family Value Package which included A/C at no cost.

 

I would never live in California now for reasons too numerous to list, but back then I didn’t particularly care for where I was living because a lot of the neighborhood kids were assholes. Remember that Hawaiian kid whose family had the Lumina van? I recently reconnected with him on Facebook, and I name-dropped a kid named Ian who liked to pick on. Ian had a younger brother named Alec who could easily be considered a bigger douchebag than him...

Anyway, the Hawaiian kid was one of the nice ones; His name is Spencer...

Spencer told me that practically the day his family moved onto Moffett Field, Ian wanted to fight him for nonparticularly good reason; Spencer, the bigger man, turned him down and they were more or less on terms for the rest of the time Spencer was there...

 

I would also like to point out that I was never a fighter...

One time in 1996, when I was 7, I voluntarily fought with one of the other kids in the off-base neighborhood; This kid was a couple year older than me, and thus bigger, but the way I remember it he asked me if I wanted to fight and I agreed...

There was not one bit of meanness involved (though this kid, who I believe was named Justin, was hardly a friend); Justin was one of those neutral types who knew something was up with me (as of late 1996, I had not been formally diagnosed) and was not mean-spirited enough to actively bully me, but found me too weird to hang around with on a regular basis...

But yeah, at the age of seven, I had a fight with an older kid and actually kind of enjoyed it!

 

Oh, and by the way, Justin’s family had a pre-1991 Chrysler minivan; I believe it was a Dodge Grand Caravan but I’m not sure...

It was definitely a V6 even it was short wheelbase, because they had a decent-sized motorboat that they pulled van...

The last time I can remember seeing a pre-1991 Chrysler minivan in use by someone I knew personally would have been in 2003-2004; I was in this group from middle school and high school kids with Aspergers, and one regular attends was this Asian kid who was a couple years younger than me...

That old minivan was his mom’s, and uncharacteristically for a family living in Fairfax County they did not have much money; All I remember about the van is that it was light blue and had an aftermarket CD player...

The kid abruptly and unwillingly stopped coming to the meeting when his family ran into hard financial times and could no longer afford to pay for it, but he was a nice kid and well-likes; Some of the Aspies in that group were nasty SOBs, and one of them had done some time in juvey!

 

Military bases you see in terms of cars when I was in was, unique cool cars and some classics. And then you would see Dodge Rams and Ford Mustangs. Rams still popular but the mustang was replaced with with dodge chargers or challengers.

 

A lot of the nerdy dudes drove Subaru STI and WRX. I got drunk one night and there were three blue ones parked next to each other. I pissed in one of the open sun roofs I was told

 

Don’t like Subarus?

 

Now that I moved to Oregon I don’t lol. Nope I knew the owners were from the air wing barracks next barracks over and they use to park in our barracks lot(infantry barracks). Well Marine infantry hates everyone not in the infantry so I was sick of them parking in our lot. So I pissed in their sun roof

 

And you didn’t get courtmartialed or anything?

 

The Tacoma had only been out for a year when we moved back to California in 1996...

I remember one time in 1996 or 1997 I saw a white RC 4x4 with no bed parked in front of what I’m guessing was a body shop; This was either in Mountain View or San Jose (99% sure it was Mountain View), and I with one or both of my parents in the car...

This was no later than 1997, so it was an “original” 1st Gen with the more aggressive-looking front end (as opposed to the more muted front end of the 1998-2000 model); It could have been anywhere from a 1995 to 1997, and it was immaculate aside from the obviously missing bed!

My guess would be that the truck got rear-ended, the entire bed got destroyed or had to be removed to replace a specific part, and the truck was awaiting reassembly; Considering that Tacos in California tend to not suffer from frame rot, I would not be surprised if that particular one is still driving around if it stayed in California...

I don’t know if it was an SR5 model, but it was definitely a higher trim because it had chrome bumpers, a chrome grille, and alloy wheels; LX...?

 

Nah. Court martial is if you do something seriously fucked up. Non judicial punishment(NJP) is for low level stuff(in the Navy it’s called Captians mast). I got two of those both for assault and they were exactly 3 years and one week apart, so I qualified for a good conduct medal lol

 

My parents bought the Camry new in 1990 and paid like $16K for it; We had it for 8 years and it had like 80K miles on it when we sold it in 1998...

There was absolutely nothing wrong with it, but my dad didn’t want to pay for shipping back across the country (I was always sure the military paid for at least one family vehicle to be shipped, but my dad no...? @El Duderino, help me out here?). He sold it to a local civilian family in Mountain View who owned another early nineties Camry and swore by them, but he quickly regretted selling the car...

My mom took a mirror off backing out of the garage one time in 1991 or 1992 and I seem to remember my Uncle Jeff buffing out a long blue scuff at some point during the same time period, but that car was never in an accident during the time we owned it!

 

If one of those “assault” stories is the one I’m thinking of, then it sounds like the guy deserved it...

 

Yup the only pay for shipping one vehicle and I think 10k lbs in household goods. Hawai’i military bases you can score some awesome deals

 

Then why did my dad sell the Camry? I’d have thunk the Navy would have paid to ship the Camry from California to Virginia...?