Tim's Taco Tales

Finally finished my suspension off with matching Icon 2.0 Remote Reservoir rear shocks. Now I essentially have the Icon Stage 3 kit with Bilstein UCAs instead of Icon ones. The Taco rides amazing now!

 

After two years of searching for a camper shell for my truck, I finally found one. It needs new shocks and a new lock, but I am one happy man. Happy Easter!

 

Relocated my reverse/chase lights below my rear bumper because of the shell. They work much better as reverse lights now!

 

Installed a 3rd gen exhaust tip that I got from @TSAVO yesterday. No real purpose, but its cool

 

Drove kids on a scout outing this weekend. We did a bunch of work opening our charter organizations summer camp up for the summer. We also drove up "an old jeep trail" to go see a waterfall, and I got to flex my truck's superiority over all the other scoutmasters, as they all gave up and had to hike up further. One of the other scoutmasters has an '03 that I am absolutely in love with, but he is never parting with.










My brother and my truck's parked next to eachother, with the smoke from all the pine needles we were burning:

 

Yesterday I picked up a BAMF bedside molle panel to mount my shovel on, so it's not just loose in the back.



Today, while closing my camper shell side window, it shattered. Damn it. That just blew my mod budget for a while, I'm hoping to replace it with a windoor.

 

Finally got my CB wired up all proper-like, since I can no longer run the coax through the rear slider since I got the shell. I went through the grommet by the drivers seat.







Still waiting for the local dealer to hear back from LEER for a quote on the shell window. It's gonna be expensive.

 

Still waiting to hear back on the camper shell window, I'm getting a little peeved at this point and am not sure I want to spend a lot of money with the dealer that hasn't even gotten me a quote after a whole week.

On better news, I went to my girlfriends cabin and had a great time, we celebrated our year and a half anniversary, and the end of the school year.

I am still absolutely blown away by my icon suspension, it is so smooth and controlled on dirt road, even over washboards. Best money I ever spent on my truck, hands down.

 

After much careful deliberation, and realizing how useless the roof light bar is, I decided to remove it. All it does is light up my dusty windshield and hood, and all the usable light is overlapped by my bumper light bar. I've got a naked roof now.

 

Took some of my AFROTC buddies out off-roading today, neither of them do much but both have very nice rigs. Had a great time!







Took Maddie as well, she had some fun in the water.



We went to In 'n Out afterwards



I also sold my OEM roof rack as soon as I got home.

 

What happens when the mounts for your lightbar in your bumper are 22" apart but your lightbar is only 19" from mount to mount? You build some ghetto spacers. They worked great! Now I've got my Diode Dynamis SS18 Amber lightbar in the spot pattern mounted in my bumper instead of the Rough Country one I had before. Love it!

 

I also picked up some KC Hilites Gravity Pro 6s in the spot beam, soon to be mounted on my front bumper.

 

Sweet build man and some really nice mods done! Looking back at some of the tacoma ive had i wish i would have been smarter with some of my mods

 

Yeah, there's definitely some things I would do differently if I was starting from scratch, but my truck is starting to get to a place I am really happy with.

 

You've done some really sensible mods that will last a long time.
Myself my first tacoma was a '95.....6" lift cranked to 9" with a 2" body, tundra rear axle and front diff, 38.5x12 Swampers, straight piped exhaust . Got a whole 10mpgs but got called by everyone to pull them out. id have to find a picture of it. Miss it tho.

 

Dang! Sounds sweet! I plan on keeping this truck forever, so I didn't want to ruin it in any way. It has morphed into a similar build to a lot of others I feel like, but I don't care because I love it!

 

Oh it was a unit and half but also the same reason my junior and senior year of high school I worked like a mad man. Mobile oil change that serviced big rigs. Spend many morning in truck stop showers to wash up and change into school clothes.

 

Sounds fun! I work at Bass Pro now to fund my truck.

 

It was fun but nothing like changing the oil on a Hot Shot truck that just stopped to eat after running since 4am and is 11pm. 5gals of liquid lava, 2 felt like 200lb filters that you prayed came off, and 42 grease zerts. But hey for the money I was making and free oil changes it fun.

 

Two years ago today I bought my truck. Many memories have been made since then! I had no idea what I was going to get myself into.

Then:



Now: