New old guy

I just joined. Finally! I have had my 2005 Tacoma since July of 2016. It a black, very base model, automatic 2.7 that just turned 370,000 miles on it. This was an old parts delivery truck that I bought,cheap. It has as fiberglass cap and the body is in great shape.
I am a mechanic by trade working ONLY on import vehicles since 1971. I also was the general manager of a large import parts warehouse and a group of company owned Jobber stores where we sold import parts only and also did the repair work on most of the 50 company delivery vehicles, mostly Toyotas,Nissans and Mazdas. I also worked at an import spares yard for a few years, buying,selling and parting out imported cars. As you can see, I have only import car experience my whole life!
I was a British car mechanic for the first 10 years and when they started to fade out I switched over to Volvo and Saab, eventually becoming, primarily, a Saab mechanic specializing in manual transmission overhauls. Not to many Asian Cars in my area but I did manage to work on most of the models and was always impressed with the longevity of Toyotas, so when this Tacoma came up for sale with about 363,000 miles showing I bought it knowing I would have to do some work to allow it to go on with it's reliability.
It had sat for a year outside thru the Michigan Winter and Summer. I knew it had a lot of miles on the clock, but I knew that most were in town miles and it rarely got going faster than 40 miles per hour. I was a bit leary of the automatic trans, but I was told that it had regular scheduled fluid and filter changes.
To make a long story shorter, I had to do some repairs to get it on the road. Things like replacing the steering sector shaft, replacing tires, front pads,calipers and rotors.New battery, Plugs,filters,etc. I had to replace the front "shocks". I also had to weld and repair the bench seat frame and restring the lower "cushion" supports using parts from another broken front seat.
I used Tacoma World forum's for all kinds of help and info. This is the best information site in the world! This why I decided it was time to become a member. I still have a couple of nagging problems and I hope to delve into these using this site.
Curt

 

Welcome aboard! What was the hardest thing to work on regarding your Toyota?

 

Welcome

 

Welcome to the TW family. I'm sure in time, many of us will try to tap into your knowledge base.

 

Welcome to TW!Reading is fundamental!

 

Welcome to TW Curt

Glad to have you here!

 

The hardest thing so far has been replacing the front shocks. They are coil over and you really need to remove or pivot the lower control arm down to get shock out and also to put them back in again. Unfortunately my lower control arm bushings were rusted to the bolts that go thru them. I could not just loosen them up to allow them to pivot down nor was I unable to remove the control arm from the bolts to achieve the same results. I was not in a situation where I could use a smoke wrench to burn them out so I ended up using a come-along and hooking it from the control arm I was working on and hooking it up to the opposite bumper bracket that attaches to the frame. By ratcheting the come-along I was able to pull the arm down far enough to just get the old shock out and the new one in, fighting with the coil spring seat to get the proper angle to allow the shock to go up thru spring(it stays in place) and the upper control arm( if you want to call it that!). Once I found the method and way to do it, bypassing the removal of the lower control arm, the other side was easy.
There is probably easier and better ways of doing this, but at 9pm on a Sunday night and it is only 26 degrees outside and no heat in the garage, this is the only way my numb mind could come up with to accomplish the job.
Curt

 

Welcome!

 

Thank you.

 

Welcome...

 

Nice P40!