Shop Time w/T.W. Friends

Awesome. Gotta go try that…

 

Yes, at the end

 

and It work's !!!!

 

That's an amazing transformation!

Clear coat repair on anything is a whole other level of repairing.

 

They look amazing!
Something so cool and unique they should be displayed, people will stop and admire.

About how old?

 

No clear coat. Sand from 120 grit to 5000 grit. Ball polish and buff.

 

Good Sunday morning Wrenchmen

Yesterday we went downstate to visit some of Mrs Greens family, 375 more miles, the old van turned 186,000 along the way. This has been a good few weeks, about 3200 miles.

We got home around 10:30, I sat down in the chair & one of the cats jumped up - woke up at 3:45 , he was still out.

 

Hard to say. No build dates… poss. 10 years.

 

The Tacoma is kind of the Swiss Army knife of trucks, it does a lot of things but not especially well...

The car is over 4000 and the trailer another 1500, between the spare parts included in the sale, all the towing & tie down gear and my chunky self it is probably at max GVW.

Going down the highway at 70 in 4th gear is 3400 rpm, the engine is well into the power band so going across flat states like western NY, Ohio and Indiana is fairly easy driving.

I have an excellent WDH and enough experience positioning the car, adjusting the hitch & truck rear tire pressure that after a few miles and adjustments it drives smooth and stable with no front to back see-saw or (deadly) trailer sway. The RedArc brake controller works so smoothly you aren't aware it is really there, the brakes just work as expected. So far so good.

When your tow weight exceeds your truck weight one has to be on your game 100% of the drive, a wrong move can have the trailer suddenly having much more leverage than the truck can control. A good setup makes for easier driving however it is still stressful, my old F-250 that curbed at 6600 pounds felt solid as a locomotive under the worst conditions, the Tacoma is much more work to drive.


The elephant in the room however is the engine - hauling across those flat states has been a breeze, almost all at 70 mph just buzzing along and pay no mind to the fuel consumption.
This car however was in Va...

Take a look at a PA state map, all the north - south roads aren't straight, they go diagonally across the state from northeast to southwest bacause of the mountains - they aren't straight, flat or all interstate.
This was a fairly miserable drive, climbing some of the hills in third gear even on interstate sections.

There just isn't enough power where you need it for that kind of driving - remember this engine has the off idle torque of a riding lawnmower.

My one "advantage" is that cars are fairly areodynamic -- I can't imagine pulling a travel coach of similar weight with this truck, the drag alone would be like pulling a parachute and a strong cross wind could quickly become very exciting.

TLDR version: I'd rather get 2 cars in Indiana rather than another one that I have to go south across PA.

 

I'm surprised, the style had me thinking 1970's. Very cool!

 

Interesting

 

Morning Crew Happy Labor Day.

 

I towed with my 3rd gen automatic once when I was moving. I rented a trailer from UHaul.



It towed it pretty decent, but man would it need to SCREAM to get up and over the mountain. I manually selected S3 to keep it in power range. I was still able to get around 14mpg, but I was nowhere near the weight you were. Actually in fact, even unloaded a lot of cases going up and over that mountain it would need 3500-4000 to keep up. I did that drive for many years...

I had already moved when I got my '22 manual, but still needed to go up and over that mountain occasionally. It was a little better, but I noticed if you were at a certain RPM and needed to pass it physically would not let you shift it into 2nd. It wasn't even revving that high in 3rd (3k?). Maybe I just suck at driving stick, but man it almost caused some issues a couple times.

I'm curious what my current truck would do towing. You got full torque from like 1700 to like 4000ish before it wheezes off. Going up and over that mountain it usually just hums along at 2500, with like a max 4 psi from what I've seen at a steady pace. I know everyone hates the turbo 4, but it did solve a good bit of 3rd gen problems. I do know it would not get any better MPG's in towing compared to the 3rd gens.

 

Good morning shop crew, hope everyone enjoys the Labor Day holiday. Have a great and blessed Monday.

 

Good morning shop crew, enjoy Labor Day!

I’ve got some tree work being done at the house. They are supposed to start today, we will see.

 

I don't entirely hate them, I just need to see better reliability metrics for a time than Ford has had for the same setup.

 

Happy Labor Day Monday friends. Hope the day is good to you