Little Red Turbo Creeper

There was a spot of shotty bondo work on the bottom corner of the bed when I picked it up that I forgot to mention. I literally picked at it and chipped away everything loose the day I got it home. I hate bondo once it's cracked it just creates little hidden rust factories.

I noticed this on my original walk around of the vehicle and thought that spot isn't going to matter because I'd like to cut it of for a high clearance bumper like Coastal Offroad or the Relentless Fab option that I've been eyeing since the first tacoma I had. For the time being I just made it less noticeable and less likely to create further damage







I used alcohol and elbow grease to wipe off the over spray and I was able to get the color to blend pretty well without having the actual color match paint I just used very thin layers of some left over Magnetic Gun Metal paint match from the 09 and a bright red I had left over from a Ford F-150 Rear dif cover I painted and a little radiant red paint pen from that I bought for the my 01 tacoma years ago.





Eventually I threw a quick coat of paint match down and I hardly see it at all

I also replaced the Latch that keeps the top of the center console closed but i dont have a picture because really who cares haha

I also replaced the plastic seat guards on the drivers side with a replacement I found on ebay

I also replaced the handle for the seat back adjuster lever due hicky that's missing in the above picture.

I want new seats and I want them to be equipped with heat and AC. it's been a little lower on the priority list but we're getting closer to luxury comfort time.

 

Right on! Excellent build thread. I enjoyed reading through it. Love seeing a truck get some TLC to keep her going

 

I appreciate the kind words and encouragement.
I should get a few more progress pictures up today, it would have been a lot easier to keep all these pictures organized if I would have started the thread a bit earlier but it seems to be coming along well enough.

 

Id like to give a shout out to my ol tool box. For something I picked up second hand for $50 I really couldn't ask for more. I bought It from a local while stationed at Cherry Point NC ten years ago. The only tacoma I didn't have it on was the 2012 and that's because it had a soft toper (also a very handy thing)

This picture was taken the day before the night I spent standing on the brakes. It's one of my favorite pictures of that tacoma. A local buddy of mine still has the 17" wheels from this truck on his Yukon.
Anyway back to the box
it was there

It was here. you can see it leaning against the guard rail, I'm glad it didn't go flying down the hill (really I'm glad nothing went flying down the hill, that would have been very bad considering I didn't have a seatbelt on
And yes the officer gave me a seatbelt ticket that day
But I appreciate all that they did for me that day

Back to the box
After the last accident the hinge broke so the lid on one side wouldn't stay closed.
Amazon to the rescue

Somewhere around $5 and the lid stays closed. It also doesn't make as much noise anymore which was an added bonus.
I actually still have all the pieces from the original latch and the lock still functions so I may attempt to weld it back together if I get a wild hair, however im happy with this repair for the time being.

I decided to give the $50 toolbox a little love.
Started by chipping off the loose paint, a quick bit of rough sand paper and washed it off with the garden hose


hit up the rusted spots with a can of Dupli-color rust barrier (something I use fairly often) followed by a can of Dupli-color premium truck bed coat

First time using this stuff and I was pretty happy with the results. The spray nozzle itself is worth the can

I also went ahead and added a light coat to the rest of the bed liner while I was there and had the Cab covered by plastic.

The bed liner was pretty old and hammered. I did basically no prep work to the bed but it still seems to be holding up well

Great enough about the box now.

How about some new tires and some made new 2nd gen wheels (because yes I'm still a little partial to the 2nd gen)

 

Shortly after leaving a local car show I was feeling a bit of a wild hair and decided to try and climb a hill that I can see on the other end of town out my living room window. At the time I wasn't aware but my 4x4 actuator switch was dead. I should have knows something was up when the 4x4 indicator light wasn't coming on.. But I was in a mood to send it so I lined up at the base of the loose gravel trail leading straight up to the top and smashed the throttle. I didn't have much traction but I still had momentum keeping me going just before the very top I realized there was a little bit of a rock ledge that I didn't want to hit at speed so I slowed down and thought I'd turn and follow where I few 4wheelers had gone around the ledge. Bad idea, now I have no momentum and I'm a little sideways on the hill, no longer on the main trail in the dead of summer surrounded by dry grass that's a squirrel fart away from a forest fire. This is where i came to the realization that I was indeed still in 2 wheel drive.
This was also a great spot to address the situation I had placed myself in again. Fear of rolling/sliding down to the bottom of the hill started to creep in so I calmly and kindly asked my wife to exit the vehicle.
She gave me a look of puzzlement and I reiterated slightly more sternly to please exit the vehicle, promptly. my right ankle had started to shake, a fairly common issue I have had since the reconstructive surgery in 2012 and of course a little adrenaline doesn't help, or maybe it does. As my wife exited the vehicle I asked her to take pictures or record just in case but she refused.
The soft clay we have around here can make getting traction a bit difficult and I don't like needing to trust the brakes for extended periods of time, I had a buddy go off a cliff back in high school when his brakes failed on his mid 80's 4runner and that goes through my mind. Hope for the best but prepare for the worst.

After a few puckering moment I was back to the trail and straighted back out. The immediate threat was gone so I snapped a quick picture but they never do justice.


And again from a little further down the hill


My lovely wife told me I wasn't allowed to go wheeling until I bought new tires. Music to my ears. I also still owe her a new pair of burkenstocks whatever those are.

So now I NEED new tires (and a 4x4 actuator switch)

 

New tires means getting the wheels ready.

Started out motivated

Ended up frustrated and falling short.
Easy solution

Took the wheels to a local powder coating shop and originally just wanted them to sand blast the wheels for me and I'd paint them myself
I painted these exact same styled wheels on the 09 years before



Sand blasting done now time to paint..

But I was already there and they have the space to do it right and I've never had anything powder coated so what the heck let's try it

Felt like Christmas a little bit



Wheels ready, time for tires
I walked into another local shop expecting to order some General AT 3's
I had a brand new set of 33 KO2's on the 09 when it flipped and even before that i felt they were lacking grip so they were out of the running
The AT3's I wanted were back ordered so I went with Cooper Discoverer ST MAXX in a 235/85-16

Talk about Pizza cutters!




The fit is perfect. No rubbing anywhere at all and my pinch welds haven't been touched since it left the factory.


I was dying to see how the tires would do stuffed up in the wheel wells so I hit a quick local trail for a little articulation therapy


They stuff nicely all the way to the bump stops

I have a U bolt flip kit on the shelf but need some new strut perches and a little more knowledge before burning them on

Did the trail comfortably in 2 wheel drive with plenty of traction

 

Now about those 3rd Gens aah?

A close friend of mine went out and payed cash for a 2018 in 2018 and ended up with a TRD Sport thinking he was getting the TRD Off-road. He's a short man in his late 60's so I don't think it really matters much but he doesn't like the hood scoop because he can't see the road (maybe because the 3rd Gens are built like a boat)
I told him he could find any other tacoma owner without a scoop and they would gladly trade him. He thought that was a good idea so I jumped on the hood swap thread and set it up with @Fortune Taco


We started just before the sun went down so didn't have much time for pictures and honestly the swap went so fast it was done before we thought much about it.

I couldn't resist getting at least one photo with all that red taco in the driveway after the swap was finished though.
The next day before @Fortune Taco headed home we decided to grab some Pizza for breakfast and snagged a couple quick pictures

 

After swapping fuel caps 3 times and reseting the P0441, P0442, and PO446 codes countless times I decided to focus my attentions on the evap leak. Also I was really getting tired of smelling gas every time I exited the truck. Just money floating away to go off and kill polar bears.
I took the truck to a buddy of mine who had access to a smoke machine he hooked it up turned it on and immediately had smoke billowing out from behind the fuel cap and said I needed a new cap. Impossible, it's on the 3rd one in just as many months. I even has a second one on hand swapped it in and had the same smoke results so he suggested I replace the fuel filler neck. I walked across the parking lot and ordered the part from Toyota (along with a carrier bearing for the driveline and a new oil filler cap) hopeful that the problem would soon be gone



Out with the old in with the new. I gave the old filler neck a bit of an exam and couldn't find anything that seemed to be causing the problem.. That's because it wasn't. Got it back together and the CEL came back on the next day

Filled the truck up after a long dirt road drive, looked underneath and surprise surprise

For obvious reasons my next thought was the fuel pump tank gasket so I got that ordered, no big deal gaskets are cheap.
Ordered one from Toyota and had a local shop help me out with dropping the tank and while I was there they did my carrier bearing.. Upside down and backwards


Picture is of the old gaskets in the new gasket bag. It seemed soft and in good condition to me, turned out that wasn't the problem either

Feeling a bit defeated and not wanting or order a completely new gas tank with all the fixings worth of parts from McGeorge Toyota I scheduled a same day appointment with to the dealership an hour from here for a evap test.
When I arrived at the dealership I checked in at the front desk with the man I had spoken to an hour prior, he did some click clacking into the computer and took my keys and told me I'd be paying for an hour diagnostic unless Toyota performed the repair. Great so I killed 20min walking around the lot Oogling other used cars and a Ferrari rocking someone beautiful brakes then proceeded to wait for an hour. That was to be expected as I was paying for an hour of diagnostics. When I went back to the counter i noticed the truck wasn't moved. Apparently they didn't know who's vehicle it was or what was supposed to be done to it. .
once that was straightened out I went back to waiting for the hour of diagnostics helping myself to at least three cups of free hot coco mostly out of spite. Then the service adviser said I needed a new evap canister, the accordion shaped plastic hose for the canister, the overfill check valve and gaskets plus the Vacuum Switching Valve under the hood. add that to an estimated 6 hours of labor for the install and we are getting close to a $2,000 bill I asked them about the evap leak test and was told they didn't do one because that requires them to drop the tank and would have been a 3 hour project... But I was scheduled to have it done, payed for that to be done and waited an extra hour after it wasn't done the first time.
It took a lot for me to keep my cool. Said fuck it and ordered the parts but had them shipped to my house.
I mean hell there's 320,000 miles on the system, things are bound to fail


VSV was installed before I thought about taking pictures




I did take a little extra time to clean up some frame rust that I should have handled when the bed was off but I didn't have the tank out of the way.






But the real kicker here.. The ECU codes P0442 and P0446 together tells you that there is a specific problem between the overfill check valve and evap canister or something along those lines, I forgot the actual wording. Toyota told me I needed all those specific parts but I'm not sure sure about that.

All those parts, all that time just to discover a hole in a $5 hose.



These parts were all considered special orders so Toyota would not take any returns, but at least they should last me a long time.

Good news is I haven't seen a Check Engine Light since
bad news is my fuel sending unit is going out

 

After that long battle with the fuel system I was in need of a little 4x4 therapy and lucky me Trail Hero was happening at Sand Hollow and my older brother "voluntold" me for the event.

That meant addressing the 4x4 actuator switch



Toyota wanted something like $500 for the switch but O'Reillys had one in stock with a lifetime warranty for around $250 I happily went with O'Reillys.

They like me over there and if it goes out again it's fairly easy to replace and I know where to go.





I took the money I saved from not buying a switch from Toyota and bought a new battery


But I also needed to clean up some rust under the old battery first

 

Trail Hero was a blast.

I need to get out to Sand Hollow more often

235's did pretty good. Never even aired down, well not this day but I definitely did air down a little bit the next day.


My brother got stuck in his heep

Truck is in the background with the hood open cooling the transmission off

Taco to the rescue!

Or not

Traction boards to the rescue!



But in other news Taco to the rescue!

 

How about those Anzo Taillights ah? In my opinion they are the better looking aftermarket taillight available for these trucks but they are not wired to work in the 2000-2004 Tacomas.


They use the same size plug and have the same body shape so i figured it couldn't be too hard to figure it out and I wasn't the 1st person to make it work either


Pre 2000 Tacomas have 5 pins in the plug and the newer models have 6 pins, that extra pin is just a jumper wire for a ground

If you look closely in the picture below you can see the top left pin is a little darker because it came off an old set of taillights. This is the Jumper wire I'm adding and it clipped right into place like it was designed to

The other end of the Jumper wire needs to be spliced into the middle pin. I used a tiny flat head screw driver to press in the little barb on the pin and then it pulls right out of the plug.

It is important to note that the passenger side Jumper wire does not splice into this same spot.

Ask me how I know
Then ask @JKO1998 if you still don't believe me

On the passenger side Jumper wire you will still add the pin into the same spot (its the only unused slot available) you will splice the Jumper wire to the pin right next to it this time like so


Here's a pic of the passenger side stock Jumper wire that you are recreating

(white wire with black stripe)

And a pic of the drivers side Jumper on the OEM light

I cut the white wire with black stripe to get it out of the way for a better picture of the green Jumper wire

Long story short make the Anzo plug look identical to the plug on the OEM 6pin plug

If your passenger side taillight works correctly while plugged into the drivers side, something is wrong.

I thought it would be more complicated and a local Audio video shop told me it couldn't be done, the owner even went as far as saying the wiring on my truck was incorrect and had no power running to it at all even though the OEM lights were working properly when I arrived at the shop. I'll never have them do work on my vehicle again

 

Are you going to reinforced the frame before swapping everything on?

 

In areas. Motor mount perches, front coil perches. Cam tabs, front diff mount likely (the one with the Allen but, really rare break, but I’m there) rear plates. Should cover what I will do to the truck. While it’s all apart I’ll reinforce the bed of the truck too.

my 98 won’t be getting any reinforcement because it’s staying stock. The 95 as of now is just getting a rear bumper and used as a more fuel Effie my hauler for stuff I don’t need the tundra for

 

I couldn't resist getting at least one photo with all that red taco in the driveway after the swap was finished though.
The next day before @Fortune Taco headed home we decided to grab some Pizza for breakfast and snagged a couple quick pictures

[/QUOTE]
Such a fun trip!

 

I've seen the weld on cam tabs a few times cruising parts catalogs but haven't heard much about it. What are the advantages.

 

Such a fun trip![/QUOTE]
That honey glazed jalapeño and pepperoni pizza is still my go to. Maybe next time I can point out more than just good places to eat haha

 

If a cam bolt sliips while playing hard it can fold the tab over making alignments almost impossible

 

The alignment shop told me my cams were seized after I did my suspension and took it in. They were still able to get decent numbers but I figured I should look into new cam bolts and figured I'd look into the cam tabs too.

 

If they’re seized you’ll need bolts and lower control arms or the bushings at least