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

Nope - took the pics today. I got lucky on this truck. My 2005 had almost 440K on it and I would have needed new Cats to get through the California Smog test. I knew this would happen 'cuz I barely passed Smog in 2019 due to the Catalytic Converters. My neighbor's Grandmother passed in 2019 and she had this 03 Taco and it was pretty much a garage queen for quite a while. I bought it with 73,000 on it knowing I would eventually need to replace my '05 Taco. Interior was excellent, bed was almost perfect, and except for a few tiny parking lot dings and needing to repair the rear window latches it was in A+++ condition. This truck was barely used from when I bought it 2019 until last month when I sold off my '05. Now it's my daily driver. I think it was quite a steal for $11,000. Couldn't be happier.

 

I finished installing my vinyl flooring this morning, got a little overzealous trimming around the shifter boot under the dash but I'm a big fan of how it turned out.

 

Any advice?

Doing this next month

 

It's pretty straight forward, definitely harder in the regular cab with so little space to maneuver the flooring when it was way oversized. I would say the best way to do it would be to start by lining up the molded areas then slowly trimming away at the back of the cab where you have a nice straight line. Go slow and use some heavy duty scissors, I found them to be much easier to use than a box cutter blade. Then I drilled out a hole for a bolt on both sides of the cab to fasten the floor securely while I worked on fitting the floor to the front, I used the two bolts that fasten the seatbelt ends.

With the flooring secured and not moving, trimming up front was pretty straight forward, I cut too much away when fitting the shift boot but in most places you have a decent amount of leeway in how much you trim because the trim covers it. The biggest pain was locating all the holes I had to drill. I used a pin vise with a small drill bit to make "exploratory" holes, once I found where the bolt was going I used a large sharp drill bit in my handheld driver at a slow speed to make the bolt hole.

The flooring is pretty stretchy and quite forgiving if you go slow and take your time. If you pay close attention to how much your plastic trim covers when you disassemble you shouldn't have any problems. I had weeks between disassembly and floor install because I had to scrub each piece and disinfect after a nasty mold issue.

 

I've had that jack for 5 years now... Great piece of kit

 

I bought a Snap-On Floor Jack, brand new (the guy needed cash NOW) 25+years ago for $200.00
It's been a great investment!!

 

Finished up the majority of my topper reinforcement: https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/1st-gen-topper-rebuild.694546/page-2#post-25463730

 

Pulled the old girl out of the garage first time in 10 weeks. I have been doing a wheel well makeover. Hopefully in a couple more weeks I will have the fender flares and liners installed...new clips in hand.

 

Man that truck is CLEAN. I've been meaning to try the plastic restoration on mine, looks damn good.

 

Painted the area behind the bumper the same black as the bumper. Now the small (motorcycle) front turn signals show up a lot brighter.

I also painted the small trim piece under the headlights, since they were all chipped up, but I think that was a mistake. Oh well...

 

OH! that d-ring is supposed to be straight? I thought it was supposed to be bent

 

What about a d-ring with a welded backing rib and some delrin bushings?

 

Id be interested to see how that holds up

 

Question: anyone have had a problem opening from the outside driver side door and it locks on you I just want to confirm if this is the switch in the door itself? 2001 trd
thanks in advance.

 

Raptor lined the bed and installed the bed stiffeners

 

how was the raptor line job? Did you do it outside? Id like to do mine but dont have an indoor space to do it and right now I feel like it would turn out yellow with all the pollen in the air

 

What brand bed stiffeners are those? They look nice!

 

I've thought about making it stronger more then a few times. I've decided not to. If I make the d-ring bend proof I'm positive I'll bend the rack. lol

 

I think the rack would probably crack at where the steel tube is pressed into the alum rack body. But we've also seen the dring stud and bolt hole rip right out of the frame too, not sure which happens first haha