Help talk me off a first gen rust ledge...

That is nice! You have zero worries about frame rust.

I've lost 2 Tacoma's to rusted frame damage. I think I'm qualified to say you can move on and not worry about that frame.

Drive and enjoy for the next 8 years.

 

Well shiiiiiiiiiiiddddd.

these comments are just what I needed.

haha, definitely not a flex. More just paranoid about the purchase. I bought it and THEN started down the hole. So I didn’t want to kick myself in the ass about it.

all your comments are very very reassuring and helpful. So thank you!!

I’ve wanted to own a truck like this for a loooooong time. Waited and waited for the right one to pop up. And booom. Had to jump on it!!

Should I bother costing it with something? I miiiiiight take it up to Tahoe this winter or might try winter camping in it.

It would be super rad to hand this down to my toddler. She freaked when she saw it and loves riding around it in with me. So if y’all are saying another 20 years…. Then SIGN ME UP!!!

What a forum — thanks again!!!

 

I use Fluid Film to coat my frames. I bet you could do your whole frame on 5 cans. Probably have some left over.

I cost mine every other year.

 

Ok cool — I’ll check fluid film out. Can I just spray it Willy nilly under there? Or should I be more intentional and focus on certain spots more than others?

 

Absolutely false I live in southern California and I have seen a ton and I mean shit load of toyota trucks in California that have been California their trucks their entire lives with heavy flaking rust (all live by beach)

I woolwax/fluid film my trucks and I live inland empire southern CA (caltrans salts the roads in commiefornia btw including socal)

I am also super neurotic and anal I purchased a 4k high def boroscope on Amazon for about 40 dollars to look inside my frame. You should woolwax yours now to stop rust and welcome

 

If you're as anal as i am you can get a wire brush and brush the surface rust off then hit it with some rustoleuem rust reformer (on the areas you brushed the surface rust off) once that dries spray on woolwax

 

People would kill for a frame in that great shape !!

 

Good info, but I think Central Valley is not on the shore.

Fluid Film and Wool Wax are great products.

I'm not going to go into detail, because there are many threads on their application. Do a quick search and you will be able to grab all the info you need.

 

When you can see through the frame it’s bad.

 

LOL... ok dude.

 

No offense but you know in those old 50's movies where the lady starts freaking out and the guy shakes her and tells her to calm down then finally slaps her back to normal? Your post made me feel that way.

 

Yup one was a 4th gen v8 in hunting Beach walking distance to the beach, original owner. It was literally flaking not Midwest bad but pretty fucked up where it would be a nightmare to work on. Even asked the owner if it went out of state and he said no.

I saw a few other 1st gen tacos down in San Diego they weren't as bad as that 4th gen but had a fair amount of rust on the frame

Last I used to surf quite a bit and still do on occasion and usually surf hb with my buddy who is an hb lifeguard there so we sometimes change at their hq and they have 3rd gen tacomas as their safety vehicles so I checked them out and they had some surface rust already on frame and since they actually used their tow hitches quite a bit those things were pretty rusted

Might not be a big deal to some but definitely not my idea of a "pristine" California frame

 

So, you're basically talking about a few trucks you've seen... that, literally, get parked in Salt water.

That's not really much of a representation of the VAST amount of CA trucks.

I've lifted, or done work on probably close to 30 Tacomas/4runners in the past 5 years. I've had problems with ONE of them (due to rust)... that was originally from Colorado.

 

I have a 1999 that lived most of its life in FL. I’ve had it for the past 13 years and move from FL to Philly to TX. When I moved the Philly I fluid filmed the frame, but I never even thought about doing that in FL. My frame looks like yours and I don’t worry about frame rust at all. I did my own inspection with a hammer and inspection camera back when the “recall” first started, but I didn’t see anything significant.

 

lmaooo. non taken dude. I deserve that… my over paranoid self

 

There's thousands of tacomas and 4runners that live by the coast go to any neighborhood in San Diego, hb, ventura etc so no it's not just mitigated to 1 or 2. The only reason I bring it up is awareness to future prospective buyers to watch out and not to simply assume just because it's a California truck not to assume everything will be fine.

Seems like you wrench on other people's rigs so you should have an idea how blissfully unaware some people are out there on such things

 

Honestly, you don’t really need to do much if anything. Your frame is in great shape. Just forget about it and enjoy the truck.

 

preeeeeach! Now that I have piece of mind and had some work done on er today, yeah, I’m enjoying it soooo much. Why haven’t I been driving a manual all along?