PcBuilder's 1996 Tacoma Build

Figured I would go ahead and make one of these, so here we go!


As of now


Specs
- 1996 Toyota Tacoma Extended Cab
- 2.7L
- 4x4
Mods

Wheels & Tires:
- Pacer 15" wheels plastidipped
- 33x12.50x15's GT Radial Adventuro M/T's

Suspension:
- 2.5" spacers in front
- 2" AAL in rear
- Stock shocks and coilovers

Exterior:
- Orange L.E.D underglow
- Flowmaster 40 dumped
- Black projector headlights
- 6000k HID kit
- Clear corner and turn signal lights
- Plastidipped bumpers, grille, door handles
- Carr Low-profile light bar
- Four KC Daylighter off-road lights

Interior:
- JVC KD-R300 Headunit
- Kenwood door speakers
- 4 Distinct Audio 10's
- Kenwood amp
- 4 Orange L.E.D's
- Relatively new interior


The reason I got this truck is because I friend of my dad's had bought it for his son, but they needed money to build their house.
So we got it for $1500, and this is what it looked like the day we brought it home.



Loaded the bed down with pea-gravel to put under the pool deck that day and got bored

First thing that was needed was a little bit of engine work, we were told it had a bad oil leak but what it was is they cross-threaded the bolts. Fixed that but still has minor leaking to this day.
Next on the list was getting all the brake lines replaced, and after that we had the whole radiator and other parts replaced.
After we got it to the point of running decent we installed the front grill assembly, bumper, and valence


Next step was paint, my dad had been painting cars from when he was 15 until he was about 30, so we did it ourselves in the garage. Very long process with just 2 people on the weekends...
Here's the result







The interior of the truck had a horrible musty odor to it, so we got the seats, and door panels reupholstered. Then we put in new carpet ourselves.



My first mod was a new stereo and speakers, the one it came with wouldn't play cd's correctly and the speakers had all went to crap. So I bought a JVC KD-R300 and 4 Kenwoods for the door speakers.


I drove it for about 10 months like this(Didn't have a job to pay for mods) and in that time I went through 5 valve stems. Still never found out who kept stomping them...
In September 2010 I finally got a job at a restaurant And my first thing i bought was a Visonik Bass package.

For how cheap I bought it for it was a pretty strong system.
Did a little bit of mudding here and there, and decided it was time for a lift. I looked around trying to find a lift on the cheap... I know, I know that's a bad idea! But I found the Daystar Suspension lift for $160 and jumped on it. Ended up having to work a lot for a few weeks, and in that time my dad got some BFGoodrich A/T's on stock 1st gen. wheels for his 09 tacoma. Needless to say the wheels wouldn't fit, so he took his tires he had from his tundra he owned a while back and put the wheels and tires on my truck.


My dad told me they were going to be noisy when driving, but I love the sound of em' After this I finally got some time to put the lift on, took about 3 days to do it. Mainly because the AAL was a bitch for some reason, but here's the results.


After the lift I decided to "try" and show off





That same day I climbed a pretty good hill and my friends spotted me, wish I would've video'd it!

I decided to add some looks to it by buying me some L.E.D's, 3 hours later and here were the results.

Also have 4 interior's as well.

Decided to bridge my amp one day with a friend to see how hard it would hit, and ended up blowing the amp So I borrowed somebody's amp for a couple of months, the bought a guys system. Kenwood amp pushing 4 10" Distinct Audio subs in a custom box.

After having my belts squeak for about 6 months I finally changed them out! Lol and the same day I got a Flowmaster 40 installed and dumped over the exhaust.

After this we went to Whitehead's, a mud park in our area. Had a blast and nobody broke anything, other than my friend having to dry out engine bay of his FORD bronco But on our way back my truck began to overheat, and I found out my radiator had about 2 inches of mud covering both sides... Buddy said that he would just pull me to a car wash, but I warned him that unless my truck is started i have almost no brakes. We did it anyways... I had to keep pushing on the brakes to keep the chain from hitting my tire, and next thing I know he stops and i swerve to try and miss the chain, but I have to go into the ditch beside him to keep from hitting. When I did this my front right tire hit the chain and it stopped my truck. I thought my tire was gonna be torn and everything, luckily nothing got damaged. Needless to say instead I drove 40 mph to the closest car wash after this ordeal.

My next mod was caused by me having an unknown headlight out and getting this


Searched around and noticed I could get a pair of black projector headlights for cheaper than buying one new headlight, so I went with these.



Found out the next night that the black causes the H4 bulbs to have little to no light output at all! The very next day I bought me a 6000K HID kit. So much for just buying headlights


I got tired of seeing all the mud stains in my paint so I figured I would try this.


Before

After


This is it for my truck so far, hopefully new tires will be next!

 

Trucks lookin pretty sweet how you likin the output of those projectors/hid's?

 

Considering they are having to reflect off of the all black housing they do decent. If I would have bought the chrome housing headlights the output would have been insane. I still need to adjust them up a little higher though.

Here's what I got
http://www.vvme.com/hid-headlights/bi-xenon-hid-conversion-kit/h4-3-9003-bi-xenon-hid-kit/standard-h4-3-9003-bi-xenon-hid-kit

 

Projector's don't use a reflector bro...just fyi.

 

Wow.. Duh I knew that haha my bad

 

Decided to plasti-dip my bumpers and grille to see what it would look like. Actually didn't turn out to bad, but could use a few more coats.

In the process


Finished




Looks a lot better imo



Ignore the bugs...


Random pic

 

So Wednesday night my dad and I change out my 16 inch rims to my 15's in preparation for getting new tires on them. After changing them out we saw some grease in front of the sway bar. looked closer and found out they're was gear oil on everything on my right side of my suspension. We checked the fluid level and my front end was nearly empty! We filled it back up and could't find where it was leaking from because of all the old oil covering everything.
Went to get tires today and loved how they look! They look like 35's on my little truck! Haha











While I was in the process of getting the tires, they came and got me to show how much they would rub, they would brush the valence on the passenger side when turned left, and rubbed against part of the driver side fender by the cab when turned right. I told them I would take care of this when I got home, no big deal. When I got home I looked to see what the best way to fix this was, and turned out somebody had already bent back the passenger side fender tab that stuck out. This is what was hitting pretty bad on the driver side (Put a small cut in a lug less than an hour of having them) Took some pliers and a hammer and bent it out of the way, not their is only slight rubbing on my valence where it is cracked and is hanging about a half inch lower, new zip ties will fix this haha
Tomorrow we are going to clean of the old grease covering my front end and fill everything up to find where it is leaking from, and then I may be doing some trail riding again finally after about 2 months!

 

Are those whole new leaf packs or its just a aal. How much lift do you have in the rear.

 

It's just an add a leaf, if I remember right it was just 1.5 inches in the rear

 

Cam home one day and my dad was sanding on the tailgate, so we sprayed with some primer for now and put it one.


Did a little flexing a few weeks back.













Favorite picture...

















I would've got some bigger flexing pictures, but my front diff. is still leaking...

Decided to plasti-dip my wheels, and they look much better in my opinion!



Still had 2 cans of plastidip and had some free time before work, so I did a little painting...

Before


After





Also painted the lock on the fuel door, going to paint my sideview mirrors tomorrow.


Random Pics...

 

Awesome Post!

What did you use to get the mud streaks gone? The picture wasn't working for me.

 

your trucks coming along nicely dude!

do you guys wheel where you live or is it mainly mudding?

if you wheel, like more crawling type of stuff i suggest you trim the dront or you will rub like a mad man off road!

 

I used this, it's Meguiars Brilliant Solutions Paint Restoration Kit. And it works really well.

We mainly either mud, or go down trails that require more clearence than flex, It does still rub slightly at full lock. But it's not hurting anything right now. Here in the next couple of weeks I should have a light bar on the roof and some KC's mounted.

 

Thanks, It's not near how I want it! Lol

 

what do you want it to be? just curious?

 

Preferably a sas or mid travel, front and rear bumper, sliders, a rollbar, and all blacked out. Maybe an engine swap? lol

 

SAS SWAP!

 

Yeah, the problem with that is I would have no idea what I'm doing, so I would probably have to use a good bit of money to get some help lol

 

nice truck man!!! looks good. what headlights do you have?

 

This is what they are link, but I installed a 6000k 35w HID kit in it. The look nice, but the projector part inside the housing sucks. But for the price compared to oem I don't care lol