First time poster, long time lurker from northern MI

Hey TW!

I recently purchased a 2007 SR5 AC MT 2.7l 4x4 and have been meaning to make a post to introduce myself and thank the community here. I relied heavily on TW to make my decision, and I'm overall pretty happy with the truck so far! I was upgrading from a '95 taco extra cab 2.7 AT that treated me very well (had almost 250k on it before selling, gas lines were rusting out and front axle appeared to be leaking), and really wanted to try a manual trans truck. After doing some homework, I decided '07-'08 was a good place to start (and anything newer started to get out of my price range real quick anyway). I just hit 160k the other day, with hopefully many more miles to go!


Not long after I got the truck last fall.


Loaded up with plants (I do landscaping on the side in the summers here).


Old truck on the left shortly after I got the '07.


I found this truck downstate from a dealership, and at first was really turned off by the lift but warmed up to it after a couple test drives (took my wife more convincing as she's only 4'10" haha). Full disclosure, I'm not very mechanically savvy, and have relied on my brother (who is very much a DIY car guy) a lot for help both when making a decision to buy it and most of the work on the truck. I had initially wanted a v6, but my bro convinced me the 2.7 is a fine motor even for larger/heavier 2nd gen Taco. There's always pros and cons there, but ultimately he won me over there with reliability and the fact that I don't plan on towing anything (maybe a light kayak trailer eventually). Dealer had replaced the clutch before putting it up for sale, and she shifts very smoothly. Obviously has aftermarket wheels that are losing their luster and had only one center cap left that I removed. The nerf bars are in decent shape, though the plastic steps on it are a little loose (yet another thing I have yet to find time to fix!).

I'd love to get some feedback on the truck, but first I should list some issues I've had/probably will have down the line:

My main concern off the bat was the frame, and the fact that it appears to have gotten the spray-on dry rustproofing "fix" rather than a new frame for the recall. It's pretty clear the truck spent a lot of its life outside, and though it's originally from Indiana its spent most of its life in MI as I'm sure some of you know MI roads are salted quite heavily for a good chunk of the year. This past winter, I did my best to get the under-body sprayed off whenever temps warmed up, and though we don't have a garage currently we plan on moving in the spring into a new place with a garage to try and keep it from the elements a little. As far as I can tell the rust isn't too bad though, and what rust is there is only surface. I'm looking into sandblasting and coating it with a wet oil type rustproofing from a local shop.

The other main concern that I wish I'd done more homework on was the lift. As far as I can tell, its a combo suspension and body lift (mostly body, which I know is unpopular here on TW, feel free to flame me there). This has already caused some headaches when it came to the leaf spring recall (thankfully the local Toyota dealership didn't charge me anything to order custom parts to make it all work) among other future plans. If I did it over again, I'd try to be more patient and find something either stock or with just a suspension lift, but I got a great deal on the truck imo (just under 10k) so trying not to let buyers remorse get the best of me.

Lastly, the tires were quite old (and whoever had them put on over torqued the lugs to make it work) with the front 2 pushing 9 years and the back 2 about 6 years old. I decided to swap in 2 new ones and move the back ones to the front for now, but seeing as how they seem to be overkill I might change them out this fall (current ones are KO2s, LT 285/75R16 class E).

Other main things I've done so far:

-hard tonneau from BakFlip (nothing on the truck when purchased)
-bed ladder
-antenna swap for a stubby (old one was bent anyway and disintegrated at the base)
-cut off rusty old brush guard
-seat covers
-sony touchscreen display (old radio/CD was shot)
-RokBlokz flaps (no flaps on truck when I bought it, paint chips to prove it)
-brake calipers
-ball joints
-rear shocks (right side housing was cracked)
-axle boots

Near-term plans:

-rust proofing
-front shocks
-replacing/adding D-rings in bed and fixing surface corrosion on bed bolts
-suggestions?

Let me know what you guys think, any feedback on where to go from here would be much appreciated!

 

Welcome to TW

 

Welcome to The Forum!

 

Welcome aboard Dave

 

Welcome to TW. Truck looks good. Good luck with your plans.

 

Welcome to TW! Glad you are here

 

Welcome to TW!

 

Welcome to TW!

 

Welcome!