Paradise Blue Metallic Build

I picked up my 95.5 Taco with 148k miles in august of 2016 and have learned a lot building this truck. The best part has probably been the people I have met through off-roading and the adventures. This truck has turned into a more crazy build than I originally anticipated but I love it.

Goal:
Daily driver capable of going off road and Overlanding.

Currently: Sitting at about 4in of lift and 35x12.5 Federal Couragia M/T

Stuff already completed:

-Add Safe-t-Cap frame kits to whole frame
-Paint whole frame with Chassis Saver
-all new brake components
-braided front and rear brake lines
-New air intake hose


Suspension:
-eibach coil over springs with new top hats
-blistien 5100 shocks front
-blistien 5125 shocks rear
-SBC upper control arms
-OME Darker 2.25” springs w/oem shackles
-new tie rods
-3 degree axle shims
-all poly bushings
-new lower ball joints
-u bolt flip with shock relocate


drive-train:
-Reman CVJ cv shafts with long travel boots
-Reman CVJ steering rack
-Off road solutions manual hub conversion (toyota bearings, OEM wheel hubs, Asin manual hub lockouts, all new hardware)
-New plugs, wires, pcv valve, air filter, fuel filter
-diff drop
-ARB rear air locker with accessories
-air compressor with 3 gallon reservoir tank
-new rear axle OEM brake dust covers
-4.88 gears
-Toyota oem carrier bearing
-2” hub centeric rear spacers
-1.5” spidertrax front spacers
-17” Mickey Thompson Classic rims

Body:
-1in body mount lift
-AVS bug deflector
-weather tech window visors
-Bushwacker fender flares
-new OEM rear bumper
-had friend strip the rocker panels down, fix rust and repaint. he also added some chip resistant coating.
-Had roof repainted
-Line-X bed
-Can-Back soft topper
-window tint
-Can-Back roof rack (welded tabs to allow 4 bars)
-Tuff Stuff Overland RTT
-CB radio
-ARB off-road front bumper
-SmittyBuilt 10k Synthetic wench
-40in light bar with slang mounts
-Custom made snorkel using 3” exhaust pipe and pre filter.
-relentless fab Rock sliders w/kick-out
- front and rear fiberglass 3” over fenders
-front tubbed to fit 35s
-Custom rear tire swing out



Future plans:
-Front locker
-upgraded axles
-upgrades driveshafts
-engine timing belt and water pump
-redarc BCDC dual battery system w/solar panel
-corbeau Baha suspension seats
-upgrade door panels
-replace carpet
-upgrade audio system with speakers, sub, Bluetooth flip out head unit






here are some pics of when i first got the truck

 

Nice, welcome to the Paradise Blue Club!

 

very nice, whats your lift and tire set up on that? I am picking up rims tonight and getting BFG K02 33x12.5 r15 tires and a lift in the next two weeks. Probably going to go with the 3in coilover blistien kit #BK9504 from Toyteclifts and their 1in body mount lift. I am hoping that a total of 4 inches of lift will allow me to avoid needing to cut anything.

 

Looks awesome. Like that color a lot! If you get rid of front grill etc you know where you can send it it's my favorite look for the first gens

 

The lift is the Old Man Emu 3-inch coil-over with an add-a-leaf in the back. I'm running Toyo 255/85r16 M/T's which are 33.5" tall by 10.0" wide. I have not had to cut anything but I do rub occasionally, especially when the winch is on the front. Toytec has good lifts, make sure to post some pics once it’s all installed.

 

Update: Here is a little update to my build. Just got a bunch of things in.
-15 x 8 rims (pictured) are getting painted black
-blistein coilover lift kit with AAL
-diff drop
-extended Ubolts
-1in DayStar body lift kit
-also picked up a used BakFlip tonneau cover

The only thing I need to purchase before install is my tires. Just trying to find a good deal on some BFG KO2s. going with 33x10.5 r15
hopefully going with tires not as wide and the extra inch of body lift will keep me from rubbing at all.

 

*Couple updates*
-Working on getting a oven right now so i can try to powder coat my wheels myself. Should be able to start that here in the next couple weeks.
-All of my lift parts have come in and all I need is my tires once I finish powder coating my rims. Probably going with a gloss black but open to suggestions.
-I found a 2 more rust spots caused from trapped dirt inside a boxed in part of the frame under where the passenger shock attaches to the frame. We ended up using some pretty thick metal to patch it. I hit everything with Chassis saver again once it was done.
-Had a hell of a time battling with the body mounts when replacing them with the 1in body mount lift kit but its in. When installing the kit I found a nice hole in the floorboard on the driver side. Rest of the floor looks perfect
-The truck is at my friends shop getting a little more paint work done to the lower bed rockers and he has made a new floor board for the driver side. Should be good as new by next week. I will post more pics then.

Wondering if anyone has a idea for fixing the 1in gap in the rear bumper? For the front I'm going to make brackets.

 

Just got my truck back from my friend. He repainted the roof because all my clear coat was gone making it look pretty bad. He also touched up my rockers on the bed in front of the rear tires along with adding color matched chip resistant coating. The last thing he did was custom make a floor board patch for the hole pictured above. looks better than ever now.

 

Subbed

 

Some more parts for my build just came in. Spc control arms and some bushings. Only waiting on the rims now

 

This is not a big mod but I just picked up a bug deflector for the truck for $20 and installed on lunch. Still undecided on what i think of it. My wheels should be here the 14th so I will probably start installing all my lift parts the following weekend. The wheels are 15x8 pro comp 51's with 3.5 in back spacing. I am going to be using black center caps with chrome lugs I think.

 

So did the wheels fit? Truck is looking good! How are you liking the FZ07? I'm rockin one too

 

lol they didn't fit. The spokes were rubbing the calipers because the offset is wrong I guess... so I had to send them back and now I'm just waiting to powdercoat the wheels picture earlier in the thread. Hopefully I can get those done soon because that is all that's keeping me from installing my lift and getting my tires.
My bike is actually a 2014 Fz09. I have made a few small changes to it since that picture like fender eliminator, zx6r shock, grips, new seat, windshield, and tuned ECU. It's a bad ass bike but it sometimes scares me because it will lift the front end so easily. I'm trying to get more comfortable with riding wheelies so I'm not so freaked out when it happens lol.

 

Well I gave up waiting on a friend to clean out his garage so we could powder coat my wheels. Took them to a local place last week and just got them back. Going to start getting my lift installed now that the rims are done.

 

Those came out awesome!

 

All the rake because race truck!!

Just finished the rear tonight, going to start on the front tomorrow.

Today I installed 5100 shocks, 2in add a leaf, 3 degree axle shims, 1in lift shackle and all new hardware. I also painted my drums black since I just replace all brake components a few weeks ago.

Tomorrow I'm installing 3in coil overs, diff drop, upper control arms with upper and lowe ball joints. Also adding a 3/8th spacer on top of the coil. All this with my 1in body lift should give me 5in front and 4in rear.

33x12.5in Tires are on order. I should be dropping my truck off to have rims and tires mounted on Tuesday.

 

nice color all I can say is I'm SO happy to live down south with no rust

 

Lift was finished last night after 5 days of fighting with 22 year old frozen bolts. Everything in the front and rear end is new now! The shop is installing my 33x12.5n BFG K02's on Saturday.

 

Beautiful truck! Subbing to this one ​

 

33x12.5 Bfg k02s installed. Very happy with the final look. Now I need wider mud flaps. Need to put my passenger axle dust cover on along with make a bracket to raise the front bumper an inch.

Next project is getting the bed line X'd then soft topper and window tint.