45acp’s DIVORCED build!

Oh damn! Only took me 3 days to read, but i Just finished 172 pages of laughing my ass off, scratching my head, and jaw dropping amazement. I said to myself many times, this guy is crazy!
Mostly I'm just completely impressed that you have taught yourself the skills to build your truck to a level of ocd (or add) that is mind boggling.
I have learned a ton from your build. Thank you

 

Thanks man. I have plenty of 'what not to do' and more to come, I'm sure. haha

Doesn't look familiar. My movie-fu is weak, I blame TW.

 

Is that arachnophobia?

 

^^^ Yep, Arachnaphobia...

 

Time to move

 

Ah, you guys! Yes, Arachnaphobia. Goodman was a hilarious in that movie!

 

Jon got so bored of cutting shit off the tacoma.... so...

 

It was only a matter of time..

 

Building a plate bumper for it

 

Starter died. I'm wholly convinced the sadistic fuckers at Honda are making these things increasingly difficult to work on as time goes on in order to force people to take them to a shop/stealership for repairs.

Funny enough I have the billion-paged Honda FSM and this single page is the instructions in its entirety for the removal of the starter. I couldn't for the life of me see the top bolt and connections, let alone access them with tools without removing the radiator and/or intake manifold and other crap.

 

F paying for a new starter, I fixed it myself. Saved at least $150.
Ford Edge is painted, Honda Fit is back on the road, Eric's truck is still holding together, time to start working on the Taco!!

Goal this summer is to get the body work finished. That includes all tabs, mounts, flooring, cab tie-ins, etc. Also a repaint as well. I'm just going to stick with standard Lunar Mist and clear coat, rather than raptor liner or similar, mostly becuase I have plenty of leftover supplies from painting the Edge.

 

And only 34 hours of labor went into it.

 

On a side note, the Edge turned out pretty good after the 3rd attempt. Learned a shitload on painting. Perfect practice for the truck.

My grandmother was in a fender bender, so I replaced the driver's side fender and bumper. Didn't prep it correctly the first time and the paint didn't adhere haha. Second time, I used the regular base coat instead of the PRO base (which is twice as expensive and has 3 slightly different shades ) and only painted the bumper and fender so the color was off. I didn't know about blending into other panels, which I did on the 3rd try.

Pics of the damage and the result of the 3rd attempt.

20141212_140907 by Jonathan K, on Flickr

20141212_140846 by Jonathan K, on Flickr

DSC09878 by Jonathan K, on Flickr

DSC09888 by Jonathan K, on Flickr

 

4 months later, 13 grand in supplies and 500 hours of labor. Seems legit

Good thing you didn't specify which taco you'll be working on in your earlier post

 

MY Taco.

 

^ Ha.

I removed the springs beforehand so the truck would be sitting at full compression. That pic was with the wheels straight.

Chopping the end off all the way to the support only allowed turning the tires little more than halfway.





Orientated the tires straight again and this is as far as I got before the tire was hitting the bumper. The shop crane is maxed out and the driver's side shock still has 3 inches of travel.



Even at that point, there's so much trimming that I would have to remove the corner lights and most of the fender. Even more so with steering lock to lock. No thanks. I know I could shorten the links a little but I don't think that would be enough. Time to look for 37"s.