What have you done to your Tacoma today? 1st Gen Edition

Last week I addressed some body damage I had incurred in an accident 3 years ago. I had been putting it off because I didn't want to pay the 1,200 quoted repair price. Figured I could buy the parts myself and do OK. The damaged area bent stuff behind the actual Bumper area, so when I put the light and everything back on it wouldn't fir right. I'm guessing glue is my best shot for the light, but it's better than it used to be, and for only $150 in parts and a day of learning from scratch.

 

Sheet steel and plate steel is just semantics. No difference.

Why would a fabricator make continuous welds? They already know about deformation. Normal procedure would be to go opposite sides, alternating top to bottom.

Maybe I shouldn't bother with this discussion,it's only raising my blood pressure.

 

Eh, maybe .5 inch at most. Not really 'bad'.

 

Weren't you going to bed?

 

I was wrong. This topic was annoying me enough to keep me up. Good call.

See, it's not that hard to admit i was wrong.

I'm married, i do it all the time.

 

Oh nice! Bet that'll be fun!

 

How many miles on that plug?

 

I want to know, too.
75k?

 

Some silicone would work too and be flexible i'd think.

 

I'm actually not sure. This was the first time I changed them since I bought the truck so at least 45-50k.

 

No need to break out the blood pressure medication, it's just a conversation.

My mistake earlier, you talked about welding sheet metal in your earlier post - usually anything over 1/8" is not referred to as sheet metal, which is why I pointed out that the gussets are bent plates.

After reading through the link that @Blackdawg posted about spindle failures, I'm convinced that post-weld cool down is even more important than preheating in this case. These brittle fracture failures are textbook examples of high residual stress, most of which could be relieved by slow cooling. I would crank the oven up to 400 degrees, preheat, weld, then throw them in the oven and turn it down 50 degrees every 30 minutes.

 

Ok. G'night.

 

How many of you guys have a VIN sticker that states it was manufactured by TABC, INC. in Long Beach, CA? All the 1st gens I've ever pulled parts from (or I've bothered to look at the VIN) has a VIN sticker that says it was manufactured at "TOYOTA MOTOR MANUFACTURING CALIFORNIA, INC." or a variation of "TOYOTA MOTORS". So far my truck is the only one I've seen that states it was manufactured by TABC, INC. instead of Toyota Motors (or a variation of the Toyota name)

I have all the NUMMI stickers all over the body indicating its final assembly was in Fremont, CA - but I found it weird that my VIN said it was manufactured by TABC, INC. instead of "Toyota Motors". According to Wikipedia TABC manufactured the "sub-assembly", truck beds, and emission system components.

Here's two VIN stickers I found online from '97 manufactured trucks, one with MFD. by Toyota, and one with TABC, INC. (ignore the yellow arrow)

 

Has anyone ever had to replace a shattered window in their camper shell/topper?

I bought a really beat up Snug-Top camper shell for $50 bucks. It has scrapes, and gouges, the paint is coming off, the fiberglass is visible, and the rear window and one pane of the passenger sliding window is shattered.

Anyone ever have experience with replacing them? It looks like the windows are non-serviceable and require replacing the whole assembly. There's little bolts all around the windows and I painstackingly removed each one when trying to remove the rear window, but I discovered there's two rivets keeping it in place when I tried removing it.

Here's a picture of it. Not bad for $50 bucks, the inside is carpeted and it's mostly intact. I didn't even plan on buying it but when I bought the front doors off the donor truck, the guy offered it to me.

I'm planning on sanding it down, using some bondo to fill up the gouges, painting it black, and replacing the broken windows with tinted plexiglass. Anyone ever paint and refinish one of these? I've never worked with fiberglass before.

 

Found out a mud bomb exploded in my engine bay....

 

More work on this dumb aluminum center console have to weld both pieces together, add new switches and gauges

 

Alright, for those of you who want a bit more into the science of this...

Post weld cool down is a largely overlooked procedure in all of this, glad you brought this up. The rate at which steel is cooled after being heated past ~700C (Eutectoid temperature) will actually dictate the change in internal grain structure of the metal, depending on it's carbon content (check out the phase / time-temperature-transformation diagram below). Remember, steel melts at 1370C, so any area that has been welded will experience this. As a result your material properties will change (ultimate/yield strength, ductility, etc). I wont go into how to read TTT diagrams (basically just tells you what % of each grain structure will be present based on your cooling rate and temperatures), but:

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ZCPoKdrBo...zLKWVJPM8/s1600/FeC-PhaseDiagramWallpaper.gif

http://www.totalmateria.com/images/Articles/kts/art14-p1.gif

On top of all of this, as previously mentioned, internal stresses will become present ultimately reducing your overall part strength by whatever stress is introduced. For instance, steel begins to yield at approximately 250MPa. If you introduce say, 25MPa of internal compressive stress, you've now lost 10% of your part strength in that localized area. I have no idea what types of internal stresses can be introduced by skipping out on the proper heating and cooling processes, but often times it shouldn't be overlooked. At the end of the day the best thing you can do is take your time when welding and move around your part. Stitch at the top, wait a few minutes. Repeat at the bottom etc etc. Cheers.

 

Ah Strength of Materials, I hated that class. Professor was horrible

 

I loved that course. But then, my mechanics prof was a badass.

 

It was an interesting subject but with my shitty professor and it was a summer class way too much material for 8 weeks