1995 Taco adventure

I figured after roughly 6 months of ownership, it was time to start a build thread.

The pictures above are the day after purchase.

To start, I purchased my 1995 extended cab Taco early last October. It's a v6 auto with about 248,000 at the time of purchase. It seemed to run well, had one minor spot forming on the frame, and seemed to be fairly decent for the $3100 asking price (I should have known better). We drove the truck for a couple months without issue, doing little things like fluid changes and cleaning things up because it ran well but certainly had areas where there was neglect. As the temperature started to drop we noticed the heat didn't work well and replaced the thermostat simply to find that there wasn't one at all (clearly a sign of things to come) upon replacement the truck immediately began to overheat. We took the thermostat back out and continued to drive for a little while longer thinking that the radiator was somewhat clogged or the water pump was going bad so we ordered a timing belt kit and a new radiator and changed it a week later. All seemed fine again.

Then on a short trip later shortly before Christmas, it gets too hot again. We have it towed back to the house and park it for a little while. After the holidays we take it to a local mechanic to have it looked over. After a week of attempting to find the issue, the shop had no luck, so we figured there was a blocked cooling passage or something similar as compression, leak down, and cooling system tests all came back okay. We park it again and early February we take it apart the top of the engine and removing the cylinder heads showed all we needed to know. The previous owner put them on the wrong side (proving why it was a $3100 truck). I decided to wait until our tax return came to buy parts, then life happened By the time we got around to actually fixing it COVID struck so there was no chance of finding a shop locally to resurface the heads. We wound up just buying some remanufactured ones from our local parts store, which was costly but came with a warranty, new cams and valves and I could have the truck back on the road after sitting for several months. We had everything back together with new parts by May 3rd and it's been rock solid since then.

There's the back story. Tomorrow I'll compile the list of things it still needs and future plans for the truck. It's going to be a slow project as this is my daily driver and I have two other long term projects and a house to work on but I want to bring this truck back and keep it as a permanent fixture in our lives I want to use this thread to keep track of what I do with the truck and the adventures it takes me and my wife on.


Here's how it sits now.

 

Sorry for ghosting on my own build thread before I could even give you all my long term plan. I've already done a lot to bring it back to life, but there's a good bit more to do.

1st is going to be to fix the frame rot before it gets worse. I'll be having the back half of the frame sandblasted, new rear springs and everything will be painted a nice coat of black and then coated in fluid film or woolwax.

 

2nd Is going to be a slight lift in the front probably putting OME springs with Bilstein 5100's up front, and I'll leave my rough country rears for now since they're brand new.

3rd project is paint since the black is beginning to fade through to metal on the roof.

4th will be interior rehab with 4runner buckets and console, a double din radio with touch screen, new headliner, and carpet.

5th will be tires, bumpers, rock sliders.

I'm sure I'm forgetting pieces, and there will be tons of small stuff happening along the way, but I want to try to document the rest of this truck's life. I hope to take it on many more adventures and have just as many years ahead as are behind it now.