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

I remember when my truck was nice

Clean ride

 

Your truck is a national treasure man. I love that thing lmao. Still has me wanting to paint my grill insert black. I think about it every day. hahahah.

 

Haha. Thanks man. Seems like lately its been sitting more than wheeling

But today ......

Thanks to @Running Board Man

 

Sweet pictures and truck man!

Love seeing all the F5's

 

It broke on assembly

 

Dust shields.....ok to trash them?

 

Been without mine for a couple of years

 

Almost forgot to post this one. Friend needed to buy an 85 inch TV (costco deal is lit) and couldn't help himself, pissed off his girl. So I finally had a reason to pick up a set of straps for my Tacoma This thing was COMICALLY huge. It looks ridiculous on his wall, and I seem to have earned my spot at the shittiest table at their wedding now for being an accomplice to this. She was soooo mad when she came home.

 

Found some seats today for my silver truck. They are from a 2001 Matrix. The passenger side is the fold flat with tray table back. Driver has the vertical adjust knob. They are going to sit higher than the bench because I re-used the inside rear vertical mount hole which requires the outer legs to be elevated. The Matrix has that same vertical bracket for the inside rear on both seats. I like the higher seating position. I am about 5'11''. Any taller maybe no good though.

I got my old bench out and some of the brackets made. Need to get some longer bolts and paint the brackets. Hopefully finish one day this week.

Console is going to work also. Color is a pretty good match for my Moonmist (blue/gray) interior. Seat fabric and side garnishes are in very good condition. Local yard sells buckets for $20 each. Console was $5.00.


This pic kinda reminded me of something...

 

Finally got some tires mounted on my 16inch stock steel wheels! Up next are the tundra brakes.

 

Spent a good portion of the afternoon polishing up an old OEM SR5 gauge cluster that I plan to install this week if all goes well. This is actually my second gauge cluster as my first one sadly turned out to be dead when I finally got around to getting it installed. This new used one was the cheapest I could find that actually showed the odometer working in the photo and had free returns, I didn't want to get burned twice on this same part!

It did have a couple scratches on the lens so I decided to polish it up. The scratches were a bit tough to get on pics but here's a couple.



I used some clear plastic polish, some new micro fiber towels, and a polishing ball on my drill to get the scratches out and shine up the lens.


Things were looking really good and were working nice. I found the best result by focusing on just a small inch or two area at a time. Then when inspecting my work, I found a piece of my microfiber towel on the INSIDE of the cluster!


So then decided I needed to remove the lens to clean the inside while I had came this far already. Found it worked best to use the screwdriver prying the tabs from the lens side to avoid breaking the plastic tips on the ends of the clips as below. A bit of pressing down and in just enough to release the clips one at a time being very careful not to break these thin old plastic tidbits and things slipped out without drama.


Everything was apart so this made it easier to get the lens clean inside and out. Some rubbing alcohol wipes took some dust off the gauges and dried nice and clean.


I kept polishing and checking each spot in the sun light to find any flaws and within a matter of hours I felt like I had came as close to show room restoration perfection as I could.


This was time well spent and the lens is almost invisible now, kind of!


I can't wait to get the cluster installed so I can get the engine speed from the tach to really help me fine tune my gear shifting, and add to the fun behind the wheel.


Also I think the white face gauges are going to add a splash of sexy oem sportiness to the truck, which will look right at home in Trudy.. once I get this thing installed and working of course!

 

I want to see the finished install

 

Yeah, gonna be a few days. They look good so far though.
But, I gotta say, after the dreaded split bench anything looks appealing. My lower back is going to love it.

 

Any more details on the GX? Lift size? Coil conversion?

Also, long shot, but is that Walker or Reiter?

 

Off the top of my head he's on Kings coilovers adjustable I think sitting around 3 inches of lift, on 35's with 17" SCS F5's.

Honestly one of the most capable rigs that was up there that day. He was going through deep ditches to get around stuck people to get them out, that thing was unstoppable.

Also Tonga Ridge near skykomish.

 

nice, nice, yes very nice!!

 

Nice, glad to hear you're getting out. Where to?

 

Nowhere exciting, just over to your side of the mtns. I'm doing everything wrong on purpose at this point, keep hitting setbacks in my own plans. Driving the truck cause it's less broken than the cruiser at the moment. Instead of getting anything done on my own vehicles I decided to lend a hand fixing up a friend's pickup so we could wheel together. So I made a custom leaf pack and he spruced up the front yesterday. I'm pleased for $10 in junkyard picked leafs, some from a Dakota and some from a Ram as well as some shocks I had laying in my garage.





If you wanna come over for some weekend welding fab work in December, I'm figuring it all out and open to date suggestions if something works for ya. If not, no worries. I've almost gathered all the stuff to do the 63 swap and fix my frame. Trying to have my truck competent for spring wheeling.

 

Damn! That's a nice workspace.

 

Agreed, wish it was mine haha. But he's kind enough to let me use it if I need to.