PennSilverTaco's "Perfect 5-Lug Regular Cab" Build, Aspergers, and General BS MegaThread!

Might wanna go grab a beer, this is a long one.

A few years back, my sister, Brenda, and I had converged on my brother's apartment up in Grand Rapids for a weekend of stupidity. My sister was a student at UMBC in Maryland and I was up visiting from Texas. I had just returned from a 9 month deployment to Afghanistan and was ready to let off some steam. My brother, Bill, lived in a small apartment perched on top of a pawn shop on the corner of a pretty busy intersection, along with his wife, daughter and Rottweiler; kinda cramped. There was a gas station across the street with a bar right next door.

After hitting up the gas station and, between the three of us, killing a 12 pack of Bud, we were promptly kicked out of the apartment by Bill's wife, Barbra. Of course we did the responsible thing and, after looking both ways, walked across the street to the bar and proceeded to get wasted. While we were there, Bill's buddy Bob calls him up and tells him to come over so we can all play Shimmy (a dangerously fun drinking game). At this point, all good judgment and sense of responsibility is out the window. So after paying the tab and running across the street, Bill convinced Barbra to drive us to Bob's house.

After a plate of fried chicken and macaroni that Bob's wife made us, we started playing Shimmy. Like most drinking games, if you are bad at Shimmy, you are going to drink the most. Having played the game before, I was doing second worst, better only than Brenda. Brenda, by the way, was only 19 at the time. And being a responsible officer in the Army with an entire career ahead of me, letting her get drunk made me kinda nervous. That is, being charged with providing alcohol to a minor wasn't something I wanted. Unlike most drinking games, Shimmy is played with Tequila shots. So Brenda was drinking a lot, and I was getting progressively more nervous. After maybe two hours and two bottles of Jose Quervo between the six of us that were playing, we decided it was time to call our ride to take us home. Bill's wife, somehow, managed to corral the three of us into the car and we started to head back to the little apartment above the pawn shop.

On the way back, Brenda was having the time of her life dancing to the music and flailing around in the car. I was sure we were going to jail when a squad car pulled up behind us at a light and we were unable to get underage Brenda to sit still. My heart stopped when those lights lit up. I've never sobered up so quick in my life. But by some miracle, the cop flipped a U-turn and sped off in the other direction; I assume responding to call. I looked at everyone in the car. I looked at Bill; utter relief. I looked at his wife; pissed off at everyone. I looked at Brenda; passed the f*** out. In the previous 60 seconds or so, Brenda went from high as a kite to knocked the hell out. No matter, a few more blocks and we'd be home safe, right? Wrong. As we approached the pawn shop we saw the red and blue strobing of a police cruiser's lights; "shit". As we got closer and pulled into the parking lot, one police cruiser became three police cruisers, an ambulance and a couple firetrucks, as well as a group of 10 or so onlookers; "shit, piss, f***, damn". Someone had run a red light and plowed into the side of the pawn shop.

Brenda's still passed out and is not waking up anytime soon. I would never condone striking a woman, except in cases of emergency. At this point, I was nervous like a worm on a hook is nervous when you dunk it into a tank of piranhas. I made an executive decision and deemed this an emergency. I shook Brenda like a British nanny, and slapped her too many times to count trying to wake her up; wasn't happening. We were going to have to carry her ass upstairs. So after some back and forth yelling and convincing, Bill's wife agreed to go distract the cops while we carried our pretty obviously underage, passed-out-drunk little sister upstairs. Bill's wife walked over and proceeded to make a scene worthy of an academy award. Yelling and screaming and carrying on. Meanwhile, over the cops' shoulders, two caucasian males in their mid to late twenties were carrying a pretty little underage blonde college student up the stairs to their apartment. I still can't believe we got away without any of them noticing. We did get a few "WTF" looks from some of the onlookers/neighbors, but nobody said anything. Only consequence for that night was some mild hangovers, and my sister had a pretty bad headache; we only dropped her twice.

Note: Brenda, Bob, Bill, and Barbra aren't really these peoples' names. I just don't feel comfortable putting their names out there, lol.

 

Got drunk and chugged some breast milk at the last TW wheeling/camping meet. It did nothing to prevent a hangover. @dirty deeds has a vid

 

https://youtu.be/ydWR-oeIoJw

 

It was a spurr O' the moment decision, had never tried it before ...or again!!

 

Hook me up with a job

 

Most of time I drive by myself and keep the two passenger side vents closed to make the two on the driver's side blow harder.

I happened reach over there to open the vent today and noticed that the air coming out of the Garth right vent is weaker and blowing warm.

The inner right vent is blowing cool but not cold. The two vents on the driver's side are blowing ice cold and are plenty powerful.

My friend who is an ASE certified mechanic thinks the vent actuator is bad, based on the description I gave him. What do you guys think?

 

I was leaning towards the same exact thing when I started reading the post before you even mentioned your ASE buddy. I would go that route before anything else.

 

Is keeping the vents closed bad for it?

 

Interested in Results sub

 

Sitting in truck right now with A/C on. Far right vent is actually not weak at all, but still blows warm.

 

If it is anything like a home HVAC, yes because the air does not get diverted to the rest of the system it keeps blowing at the closing and therefore would increase overall pressure on the system. Unless you are running a different blend function (feet only, defrost etc) and want max air through that area instead of leakage through the vents, I would say yes it is bad for the system.

 

probably, but no one would really know

 

This vent is ice cold:

This one is as well:

A/C set to MAX with recirc off:

Kinda cool but not cold:

Quite warm:

 

May have to open up the dash to see how all the vents are connected

 

Installed a new stereo about a month ago. Could that have anything to do with it?

 

And with recirc on, it improves somewhat:

 

mine comes on automatically

 

Cabin air filter...

 

My Tacoma is a 2010 regular cab 2WD 2.7L auto, manufactured in August 2009 and purchased new in September 2009. It has just under 74,200 miles on the odometer as of this thread...

The air-conditioning system in my Tacoma has NEVER been serviced. All parts (compressor, condenser, evaporator, filter-drier, etc) are original. The system has NEVER had to be recharged and as far as I know has never lost an ounce of refrigerant. I say again, the system DOES NOT leak!

THE PROBLEM:

The two vents on the driver's side crank out cold air that literally numbs my fingers. The inner right vent blows cool but not cold. The far right vent seems to just be blowing hot and humid outside air. If the "recirc" button is pushed, the inner right vent blows cold but not ICE COLD and outer right vent blows cool at best.

I have already established that my cabin air filter needs to be replaced. This will be done tomorrow.

Two of my friends who are former ASE mechanics said it was either an actuator/flap, or a foreign obstruction of some sort.

Another friend of mine who is not a formally trained mechanic but is a lifelong Rolls-Royce enthusiast who really does know his stuff, believes it is either the filter/drier or expansion valve/orifice tube.

PLEASE NOTE:

The compressor in my truck also tends to cycle on and off a lot when it's like below 70 degrees outside or whenever it's dark out. I can actually feel when the compressor cuts out because it'll blow warm air for like a millisecond.

The A/C also tends to blow warm for a short period of time during rapid acceleration.

The heater in my truck works flawlessly.

What do you guys think? Does it sound like my A/C is going to need a major overhaul?

 

As you can see, I need a new filter...