Chipskip's Taco & Treehouse (We got HAM and Bikes too)!

Here is at about age 6 with my dad's 80 Toyota pickup. I got it when I turned 16.

 

Starter Repair
November 4th, 2014

Don't waste money replacing you starter. 99/100 times you can rebuild it for less than $10.

I ordered the wrong bushing kit, but I was able to shorten the shaft and make it work. Took an hour to get the damn starter out, 30 mins to replace the worn out parts, and 15 mins to put it all back together.

 

Sticks For Troops
November 7th, 2014

Sticks for troops is an awesome program, they send hockey equipment to our serving men and women over seas. I am bad with names, but it is run by a fellow TW guy. He put out a request on FB for anyone in Phoenix that could help him out. I was went to Glendale Arena and picked up over two hundred hockey sticks. Then I put out the call, and TW answered. Another member came and got them from me and drove them out to ABQ over Thanksgiving weekend. Saving SFT or me the coast of shipping.



Take a moment and check them out. If you can help this great cause, please do.
https://twitter.com/SticksForTroops

 

Bed Box
June 7th, 2015

I was helping a friend clean out his parents' house. We took a bunch of stuff to the dump, I saved a rubbermaid box. Just needed a new handle, which I was easily able to get. I painted the faded top with some left over paint I had on the shelf. I drilled holes in the bed and used dzus quick release fittings to make it easy to remove when I needed the full length of the bed. Was a pain to get the bases for the fittings riveted to the bed, especially by myself.




At the same time, I relocated the 7 pin trailer hitch. It had been damaged on the trail when it hung under the bumper.

 

Here is the inverter being mounted under the passenger seat.


The current switch setup:

 

wow,you have done a lot of mods! is there anything left to do? nice looking truck though.

 

Well, more fun has been had. Clutch went out on me. I was feeling a little slipping on my drive home on Monday, but didn't think to much of it. Found a Luk clutch on Amazon and ordered it. Better safe than sorry, right? I decided to push my luck on Tuesday and drive to work... only 100 miles, what could go wrong. Well, about half way there, just into the mountains on 87, I loose the clutch, completely. Luckily, I am a ham radio guy because I had no cell service. I jumped on a repeater and used the auto patch to call my wife. She was able to call my boss and the tow truck for me. Only took 3 hrs to get one out in that area. It always suck seeing your truck on a tow truck.



The tow guy was awesome, was even able to drop it right into my garage, I have a slopped drive so I wasn't sure.

The clutch was suppose to be delivered on Tuesday, but it didn't arrive until Wednesday afternoon.

Tuesday the kids were at daycare seeing I was suppose to be at work. I dove straight in and started pulling the transmission, the goal, have it all ready when the clutch did arrive. Well, I ran into a problem getting the transmission out, I got it free, but it just didn't want to come out. Finally I called it a night and decided to take a fresh shot at it Wednesday morning. That worked, I was able to find the thing I was missing, remove it, and bam, transmission on the ground. It took some creativeness, but I finally got the flywheel out. Air tools would have been the right approach, but my C02 tank ran dry in the first few minutes of this project. The clutch arrived right before I rode down to AZ Brake and Clutch to get the flywheel resurfaced. While I was waiting on the flywheel, I rode to the Camelback Toyota and picked up some new flywheel bolts. I have read they are torque bolts and need be replaced every time you remove them. They are cheap enough, no harm in doing it.



Flywheel looks good.



Wednesday afternoon I was trying to get the transmission into the sweet spot, it just didn't want to go. I took a break, ate some food, and went back it it. Bam, right into place, sweet! I had the transmission all bolted in and the front driveshaft on when I hit my limit. I had no more strength to finish it. I had the kids Thursday and Friday, so I couldn't do any work on it. That's really a good thing, because my body needed that time to heal. Getting old sucks, doing a job like this on your own really sucks.

Friday, as soon as my wife got home and took over wrangling the kids, I went back at it. Really didn't take long to finish up. Man, it really made a difference, it's like driving a new truck. Tools are cleaned up, trash is out, and all the vehicles are back in their proper spot. Now to do some Christmas decorating with the family.

 

TacomaWorld Secret Santa is an awesome thing, strangers sending each other gifts based on the sole shared interest on Tacomas. This was my third year and it was awesome. I had a lot of fun planning out exactly what to get my guy. Then waiting on him to post that a) he got it and b) what he thought of it.

Then the second best part, the gifts I received. My SS hit it out of the park. I got something for me, my kids, and my dog.



If you haven't done it yet, start looking for it first part of November, it is really a fun thing to do. Kudos to the guys behind the scenes, who put in a lot of hours to make this time of year a little more special.

 

Another thing I did this week was clean my throttle body and MAF sensor. I was pleasantly surprised that I notice a major difference when I I started it up after. From my before pic, I don't think my TB was that bad, I have seen worse posted. I used MAF sensor specific cleaning spray and SeaFoam's aerosol can for the TB, both from the local parts house.

Here is the before pic:



Even though I forgot to take an after pic, trust me, it was all shiny and clean.

 

Been a busy week for my truck. One last thing, the wifey ordered me a Keyport for my birthday. It came in the mail today, I am super stoked about it. I hate carrying keys around. I have a set for the truck, my wife's car is a free floating key, and my bike key is on it's own keychain. This will let me carry all the basics in one spot: truck, shell, house, her car, bike, and bike lock.

My secret santa got me lock that you program to your truck key, it is really cool. Bolt Locks is the name. That is one less key I will need with my truck. I might get a few more and program with my truck key and use them on the bike, seeing now I will ride with all my keys.

I will give an update after I get the blades cut and start using it on a daily bases.



A bonus to this, I will have one more set of spares for all my keys.

 

That's pretty amazing! Lots of hard work doing it yourself! Congrats.

 

Amazeballs! I never knew these even existed! So neat! Thanks.

 

dam,i almost got you one of those but just wasn't quit sure id get the right thing so I went diff route,good thing I doidnt that would have mad her mad!

 

Carpeting a shell/topper/truck cap 1/9/16


I bought a used shell for my truck. The savings meant I had to miss out on a few key features, one of them was carpet lining. So I decided to be adventurous and do it myself. It took me much longer than I wanted, but I only had a few hours a day to work on it.


I have been using an outdoor carpet from Home Depot as a bed mat for the last few months. Doesn’t catch on things and is easy to clean. This carpet doesn’t have a backing and best of all, only cost $2 per linear foot and 6 ft wide.



I spent a lot of late nights doing research trying to find the answer for how to do this. I found several hill billy ideas as well as several that would require me to sell my porche to do. Neither being ideal to me, I took the knowledge I had gathered and decided to give it a go.



First I removed the shell and started cleaning it up. I placed it upside down on a few saw horses. I used a brush and soap and cleaned it. I also removed the old foam from the bottom. Then I tried to get the windows out. I didn’t have much luck getting them out, so I taped them up to prevent them from falling out. I want windoors, but not that way.



Step 1) Clean the inside. I took some lightly soaped water and a brush and started scrubbing the inside. I was surprised at how dirt it really was. Then I let it dry.



Step 2) Prime the inside. I decided to paint the inside with a primer, to help seal the shell and promote adhesion for the carpet. Kilz makes an adhesion primer, but Home Depot seems to be the only place to order it and they told me 2+ weeks to get it. So I went with Kilz’s 2nd recommendation, Premium. Both say they are good to the touch or a 2nd coat after 2 hours, but I read on their website to allow at least 24 hrs for it to fully dry before trying to glue anything to it. By the way, that 24 hrs is at 77ºF and 50% humidity, so adjust accordingly to your current weather. I ended up waiting closer to 36 hrs. (It was raining and a high of 55º all week, so I think that was a good thing.

As always, PREP is important. Being unable to pull the windows, I taped and covered them, after removing the inside trim pieces.

Then it was easy, roll on the primer like any other paint. Get into those hard to reach places with a brush.

While the primer was drying… I decided to only do one coat, I put it on pretty think… I did some more research in how to remove the windows. Basically, what I learned was to pull. Seriously, go slow and pay attention to what effect your actions have and just pull. So the next day, I went out and applied a little more pressure than I initially felt comfortable, but it worked I got them out. I learned two things. First, I did a good job painting even with the windows in. Second, the last guy to install the windows hated me; they glued the seal to the windows not the shell.

So I spent the next two night trying to clean the old seal of the windows. The windows of ridges to help them seal to the shell. These ridges are a great place for the glue from he seal to stick. I used a scraper, a putty knife that had a pointed end on one side, Stoner brand Bug and tar remover and a lot of elbow grease. Eventually, I got all the glue off and was able to start cleaning. This is a great time to clean the window frames and trim pieces. Do any touch up painting that you need to. I just cleaned everything really good.

After 48 hrs of letting the paint dry/cure I was ready to to move onto the carpet. I knew I was going to have to do this in sections. The front, the back and then the middle and sides could be one piece. While testing out the carpet, I discovered that steam and heat were the best way to mold this carpet. I borrowed my wife’s clothes steamer ( she doesn’t use it that much anyways). I clamped the carpet to the top and started working from the top middle, down and out. This allowed me to mold the carpet and get any wrinkles out. I did this to the back and the side pieces to. I decided to allow everything to dry over night. I had a can of heavy starch sitting on the shelf, so for a little extra help in maintaining the shape, I would starch it. I then had a few family things to do, so it all got 2 more days to rest.



When it was time, I removed the middle section and started on the front. Now lets talk glue. I had a can of Super 777 that I had used on another project. I also had a can of 77 adhesive spray as a back up. These work best if you spray the back of the carpet and the shell, then let the dry for about 5 mins before attaching them. You want a few extra hands to help you, because once the two sprayed surfaces come into contact with each other, they don’t want to let go (That’s a good and bad thing). These two cans were not enough, so I had to run to Michael’s craft store to buy some more. They had 7777 and a product called Liquid Fusion (spray and brush on). After some research I decided to give the Liquid Fusion a try. I bought 2 cans of it. Man was that stuff great to work with, I wish I had bought it first. Have extra cans, so you have plenty to complete the job.



For installing, I found it best to place and clamp the pieces into place, then pull back half, spray the carpet bottom and the shell area it covers. With he liquid fusion you only have to wait 1 minute, so you can get right at it. Work smoothing the carpet out as you laying it back into place. This is were your molding and starch really paid off, the carpet laid right into place. I did the same thing for every piece.



As soon as I was done here, I cut out the windows and put them back in. I some some heavy duty marine grade window seals from home depot. I glued it to the shell and then with a helper, placed the windows in and screwed the trim piece back in.


After the window were back in, I placed the mounting foam on the shell. First cleaning it up and whipping it down. I decided to upgrade to the two channel seal. This may or may not have been a great idea. After getting the shell back on the truck and clamped down with the four clamps I had. It was a wet week in Phoenix, so I had my first test for leaks that night. The results weren’t good. I had leakage all around. The next day I played with the clamps positions. The next day, same thing leaks everywhere.



I ordered two more clamps. Hoping that would help. This upgraded seal was denser than the previous foam I used, so the weight of the shell wasn’t enough to get the seal I wanted. Also, the end is open, allowing water to run between the seals. For this, I ordered some Sugru. If you don’t know what Sugru is, you have been missing out. When first opened, its like silly putty, you have an hour to shape and place it. Then 24 hours later is takes a permeant shape and silicon/rubber texture.

I mounted the extra clamps to the front track bar and used it to clamp the front of the shell down, one of my major leak areas. I then used the Sugru to seal up the open ends of the seal and help bridge the open gaps between the shell’s door and the truck. It isn’t raining right now, so I wont be able to truly test it for a few more days.



I am very happy with the install job, there are a few spots that show it wasn’t done by a professional, but I can live with them. The true test will be this summer, when the temps get over 115º.

Next project it to make some window covers. I plan to use reflective material facing out, flannel facing in. I will mount them with snaps and attach velcro so I can just roll them up and out of the way. For the rear, I am thinking a cover that goes from the top to the bed, maybe put some weight in the bottom to help create a wind block when camping back there. But that is all still in the planning stages.

 

Getting closer to an epic motorcycle ride with my dad and brother, so I started a thread on TW to solicit suggests and post updates.

MC Trip 2016 - CA, OR, WA, ID, MT, WY, UT, CO, & AZ

 

PVC Washer Fluid Reservoir mod

So yesterday I finally installed my PVC Washer Fluid Reservoir. I say finally, because I bought the pieces to do it about three months ago and assembled it all about a month ago. Besides the holidays, work, and family you can see I have been working on project after project.

I am working and planning the next project right now.... it will involve flannel!!!

About 6 months ago, my washer fluid quit working. I took it all out to discover it was just a cracked hose. I had two options, replace the hose and put it all back together factory style OR... do a mod/upgrade I planned to do in a few years (After front bumper). I fallowed @Blackdawg's guide with a few exception. I moved the pump to the side and installed my low fluid sensor to the bottom. I did this by using a cap instead of a reducer at the T and drilled the needed holes in it. I think it came out pretty good. Thank you to @llibrm for his help and drill press.

Link to guide I used. (What the hell, I'll quote it after my pics).

 

Quick followup on the Keyport... I LOVE IT!

It took a little getting use to it, but I am very happy with it. I had a little trouble getting the bike key cut, the first place screwed it up. I had to order a new blank and go to a different locksmith, good news... I now have an awesome locksmith.

 

Got a brand new seatbelt from Toyota. Man, that thing is sweet. I keep grabbing it and pulling hard like the old one, but that thing just flies out, nice and smooth. Very much worth the price.

Even though I gave CBT the vin, the seatbelt is slightly different. The new assembly's top pin was in the middle, where mine are on the left or right (depending on driver/passenger). I drilled a new hole and mounted it anyways. Only bitch is the shoulder pivot point mount is just enough different that the original cover doesn't fit. I reached out to CBT and they are ordering another, just in case this was miss boxed, and a new cover for me.

It's nice having two front seatbelt again. Having all three kids swashed in the back everyday to and from school was getting old.

 

hows the washer reservoir working out