Building a capable daily

Your Taco will be the cleanest and most lasting one on the streets. Just go OEM on everything except for maybe brake pads and rotors. Use POR 15 on the frame and give it a coat every 3years. Use chassis paint on your suspension parts. Keep the rust away and it will outlast everything.

If you're serious about making it a daily, keep it out of the sand and dirt!

 

Where's the fun in that?

 

thanks for the suggestions. I've used POR15 in the past on my buggies with mixed results. It only works if you can get the metal prepped absolutely perfect and you never break the coating. Kinda the same as powdercoating. Sounds great, but not practical in the real world. Not to mention on these frames you cannot get inside them to get to clean metal and apply the POR15 to have a continuous coating all around. It WILL flake once the rust starts eating underneath. It doesn't bond to the metal like epoxy primer will.
This time I will be using a product made in America with real staying power. It's not some miracle coating, it's just honest autobody tech. It's epoxy primer from a company called Southern Polyurethanes. It needs to be applied on clean metal as well and it needs to cure at 65 degrees, but it is a proven product used by auto restoration specialists and it can be easily recoated when needed. I have a work associate that has experience using it on his Blazer project and his comment on it was when he needed to do some welding on his frame to fab something up, it was extremely hard to remove even with a flap disc on a angle grinder. I'm going to try it out and see.

Once I have it painted and cured, the inside and every nook and crannie will be soaked in a surface film like "Fluid Film" or Woolwax for the rest of it's life. I'm hoping to redo the undercarriage of the cab and bed as well the same way and hopefully do a custom paint job. I really like airbrushing and we'll see if how much energy I have for that when we get there.

Because tacos are pretty hard to find much less the collision body panels I needed to fix what was damaged, I have decided to do a 4runner scoop hood and trim. I don't think the scoops look all that great on the 4 runners but on tacos they look pretty mean.

So that's my plans so far. I see I got a vote to go stock with everything. I was doing some research on converting to 4x4 yesterday and manual locking hub drivetrains appear to be very rare in the midwest. Everything I found was auto. And maybe auto would be fine? Especially since I would need a new ECU if I went manual. It all starts getting really complicated when the swapping starts. If I was going to do that I'd just consider going SAS. And then if I'm going to do that, maybe might as well just throw the entire drivetrain and engine out of a LS truck and have the reliability that would go with that. But that adds a lot of cash to an already expensive resto.

I think going for some midtravel UCAs and fox coilovers might be doable. Then fabbing some rear shock mounts to get the shocks on the end of the axle and using some oversized shocks with modified springs for more travel in the rear could be doable as well. Thing is, the more modifications I do the more I have to work to save to pay for these things (just like everyone else) and the longer this project goes. So maybe I just focus on getting it rebuilt and quit making things complicated. I do think there will be things I reuse in the expectation of replacement in the future like the LCAs and other suspension components.

After I'm more familiar with the truck, I think it would be fun to try to build some LCAs from scratch. But I'd have to be pretty bored and short on projects for that.

 

I agree. Just gotta get around to cleaning it when you know you filled it full of sand.

 

I dont think you'll gain any reliability by tossing your 5vz aside and swapping in an LS motor. The solid axle swap would be awesome but will undoubtedly add significant costs and additional fab time .

All things considered, a lightly modified 4WD swapped Tacoma is a great do-it-all rig. And won't cost a whole lot more than keeping it stock, considering the cost of OEM parts

 

Well, you get a line on the right donor in MIchigan for me you let me know. In the meantime, I will keep looking.

Can you suggest a good thread or point me towards some definite information regarding what I would need to look for in a donor?

So far, whether it's correct or not, I think I can use a 96-02 4runner or 96-2004 taco with manual trans/ manual 4x4.

Are there any years/models that were known for this setup being most common. That would really help me know what I'm searching for. Otherwise, I'm basically just looking at pictures hoping to see inside the cab and what shifters it's sporting.

 

If auto is all I can find, would it be that bad to install a manual later if I happened to find one?

 

I did notice there's a company on ebay selling JDM trans/transfcases that are shipped from Japan for about $1600. But that still doesn't get me the rest of the driveline.

 

Have you tried Car-Part.com?

You can search salvage yard inventories really accurately and I'd bet my bottom dollar you'll be able to find all the necessary components quite quickly and within a reasonable distance

 

https://www.car-part.com/cgi-bin/search.cgi

Here's all the manual transmissions (R150F - compatible with your 5vz) that came up within 500 miles of Detroit, just as an example. Often times when you're looking for multiple related components (i.e. most of a 4WD drivetrain), the salvage yard selling the transmission will have the tcase, and driveline too.

 

Yeah. car-part.com and LKQ pick a part was mainly what I looked at. Chicago is also an option as I have family there. I hate going towards Detroit, unfortunately. I'm on the west side of Michigan, btw, Muskegon.

 

Looks like a 5sp 3.4 in Flint

 

Finding a donor would be a better scenario. yards price their crap way too high. IF I COULD FIND IT, I can probably find a whole vehicle for less than pulling the parts from a yard.

 

Hopefully the right rust bucket with the drivetrain you'd like pops up. Might also be worth posting a "Want To Buy" ad in the Buy/Sell/Trade section of this forum.

 

Question, is it wise to replace all the bushings with poly? From experience poly lasts a lot longer, but I'm curious how much rougher the ride gets especially in the control arms. I think most people put them in the steering rack.

 

I think poly is a good choice for most bushings. That being said, I think OEM rubber bushings are the best option for LCAs. Much better ride, and most people here are changing out their originals around 250,000-300,000 miles and 20-25 years after their truck first hit the streets (that's about as good as it gets for parts durability).

 

I bought Whiteline poly bushings for both my UCA s and LCAs but haven't installed them yet. There is a member in the group that says using a certain grease will prevent squeaking. I will have to find the post.

 

Usually it's a silicone type grease that is used

other greases will degrade them