Honoring Dad's Truck

First post and first Tacoma (though not first Toyota).
- My Dad (Clifford "Tom" Ashe) gave me his 1999 SR5 with a Raider shell, about a year and a half before he passed away from stomach cancer. He (and my Uncle Pat, who owned it before Dad did) always took very good care of it. The only thing I did when I got it from southwest Washington (Napavine) back here to Scottsdale, AZ was to replace the exhaust (which was original) with a SS one. Should last the rest of the life of the truck here in the dry desert.
- Plans for the future? Well lets see, we did a lot of camping, fishing and hunting as I grew up in Washington, so some of the mods will be to help it perform in those activities. I just did the front brake pads, but probably will do a complete rebuild of the front and rear brakes in the next six months. I'd like to put a 3" lift kit into it and especially beef up the back end for cargo and a little light 4-wheeling while hunting and fishing. I have a tow hitch cargo rack, but noted that I bottomed out pretty easy with a medium load in the bed and a couple hundred pounds on the tow rack. I'd like to make that not happen so easy. Probably will swap out the stock radio for a combo unit for tunes, GPS, hands-free phone, backup camera, etc. The backup camera and much brighter backup lights are on the agenda because of the tinted windows everywhere except the windshield, which makes backup up at/after dusk an iffy proposition with my aging eyes. Lastly (for the near future that is) I'd like to get an around the shell rack that extends all the way out over the cab, like a ladder rack, but with steel mesh decking welded in for general cargo on top. I saw several like what I'm thinking of on one one of the threads here (thanks everyone, I wasn't even registered yet and already you're inspiring me with ideas), including a couple that were DIYs that looked great.
- Hope to have some modest mods to post in the near future.
- PS: if anyone has ideas/thoughts/tips on getting ABS brakes on a 1999, I'm all ears.

 

Welcome to TacomaWorld! Sorry to hear about your dad

 

Welcome & Hello.

 

Welcome!

 

Welcome!

 

Welcome to TW

 

Welcome to TW!!

 

welcome

 

Welcome, when you go to redo the front brakes look up the "Tundra brake swap" here on the forum, there's a great deal of info and write-ups on how to swap Tundra calipers and pads/rotors onto these Tacomas. Improves braking ten-fold, so they say (haven't done it yet myself). Just have to make sure they'll clear your wheels, some 16" wheels and all 17" wheels should work.

 

Welcome to The Forum!

 

Welcome to TW!