Ricostacoma - 01’ DCSB Build!

After a lot of browsing of other peoples threads and scrolling through many many posts about 1st gens - I’ve decided to finally make a thread on the truck

A little info about me: My names Matt, I am a Helicopter Mechanic who lives in very far northern Canada, in a province called the Northwest Territories, I’ve always had a itch to fix and repair things and that has transferred into my career!

Enough about me and let’s get into the truck, In June of 2021 after 6 months of searching for an Imperial Jade Mica, Double Cab, 1st gen, I finally got a hit on my “Looking for kijiji Ad” and after a quick flight from Yellowknife -> Calgary -> Saskatoon I finally had my eyes on my dream truck, but now to test how well a 20 year old truck with 350,000kms can drive me 2500kms home. The drive went great other than one issue, after pulling into a gas station. The drive went pretty well with a few hiccups along the way; a broken battery terminal and finding out that 20 year old headlights have terrible light output. The truck has come a long way since when I first purchased it and I am excited to share the process

Here’s the truck when I first got it!



Somewhere in Saskatchewan - 2500kms till home!



Home sweet home, made the trip in two days - definitely gave me some ideas about plans for the truck!



First mod: get rid of the chrome grille!



First camping trip with the truck!





Took the truck down a small trail off the side of the highway!



Some shiny new headlight housings and “blinker” housings



During my drive home I replaced a battery terminal and somehow broke another, I went ahead and ordered SDHQ Billet Terminal Leads and plan on doing “the big three” battery wiring upgrade in the future



The new headlight housings really brightened up the truck!



Another upgrade!
Got some Bi-xenon ACME H1 Universal Projectors from Theretrofitsource!
What an upgrade, my headlight output is brighter, and further than current model tacoma’s, for the price of doing this it is worth it’s weight in gold. (6000k bulbs here but eventually moved to 5000k)



A cheap Amazon light bar, I used some scrap aluminum and made some custom brackets to mount it to the front rails of the bumper support!



Some maintenance: All drive belts, timing belt, water pump, front cam shaft and crank shaft seals!



She’s alive after all that work!



I managed to get my hands on a Snugtop Canopy - I had a buddy down in Calgary go have a look at it, the day before someone broke in and smashed the side window, I got it for $400+$250 for freight shipping to Yellowknife, add in paint and I have a canopy for under $1000! (I love orange peel)





Mounted just in time for the winter, I went with the canopy for a couple reasons; keep snow out of the bed and to have more storage in the truck, I made a custom “gull-wing” style window, I have plans of re-doing this with a different style hinge and reinforcing the window frame on the canopy!



Scored some Diode Dynamics SSC2 Sports on sale from Prolightz in Canada, mounted them onto some Rago Fabrication ditch light brackets!



A few months have passed and I worked a lot; now it was time to buy a boat!

Hundreds and hundreds of lakes around where I live and i’ve been quiet into fishing for the past few years, Not many people fly fish up here but fly fishing for pike is very fun and accessible, lots of other species up here - Lake trout, whitefish, Walleye, Inconnu the list goes on!



The boat is a 2017 Mercury 320 Inflatable with a 20HP Mercury outboard, honestly got it for a pretty good deal considering the price of outboards nowadays!



Now since I have the boat, I needed more storage in the truck bed for boat things!




Also this is Rico, me and the missus’ adopted him from a lady in town, he’s a Mini Australian Shepard, at the time of making this he’s just over a year old!



Testing out the new suspension! I went with a OME kit from 4wheelparts, they had good customer service but “covid delays” took about 5 months to receive the kit and I was sent the wrong leaf springs bushings and no bushings for the rear struts A quick email changed that but still unfortunate!



Decided to update the headlights, went with some black Apollo 3.0 housings amber diode dynamics halos (110mm). I managed to custom mount them onto my old shrouds (mini gatling guns) so i retained a unique chrome ring inside of the new shroud, looks pretty mean. I plan on re-wiring these so I can turn on the halo and the headlights independently, I just haven’t gotten to it yet!



I get to do some cool things with my job!



Decided to paint match the fender flares and was surprised to find some rust under the flares, I mean it’s probably been 10 years since anyone removed them so there was some build up but nothing a grinder can’t handle and very little of it was through the actual metal



Some photos of the suspension, I ended up getting JBA UCAs after reading endless posts about lifting these trucks and dealing with OEM UCAs and not being able to get the caster to where it needs to be, also was planning on bumping up from a 31” to a 285/75r16 Falken Wildpeak AT3w (33.4”) so I really needed to be able to push the wheel forward in the wheel well so I pulled the trigger!



The old suspension was completely shot, someone at sometime had custom mounted 98’ GMC 1/2 ton leaf springs to the truck and the front mounting bracket hung down so low below the truck, I also just really didn’t like how it was custom mounted on, oh and the truck didn’t have any rear bump stops so i picked up some OEM ones for now, I have plans to go to a 2-3” lift rear bump stop in the future, haven’t made my mind on what setup yet especially since they seem to be a lot of $$$



A new grille! For my canadian friends I found this grille on “Alienperformance”, they’re a quebec company and you have to pay over the phone which is strange nowadays but they shipped the grille very quick and it was the cheapest chinese TRD pro 1st gen grille I could find!



Some new black out corner lights courtesy of @rhody04 on instagram! He also sent me some lightly used OME 882s for a steal, needed to change over to the longer spring when the new wheels and tires arrive!





Added a new tailgate decal courtesy of the decal maker at my work!



After 3 months of waiting, my new wheels arrived, I went with a stealth custom series F5 in 16x8, 0MM (4.5” BS) and I got them through @kraveautomotive in Calgary, great great customer service, hope to stop by there one day with the truck and say hi to the guys there, wicked folks!



Now to fit the new wheels, difference between OME 881 and 882 springs!



I got the new rubber mounted on the wheels, I was so pumped I took the rest of the workday off to get them onto the truck!



Front clearance check after getting the new springs on, still needed to get aligned but after a quick smashing of the pinch weld and reforming of the fender liner, she was barely rubbing



Wow what an upgrade, been over two years in the building of this truck and this is my favourite upgrade yet, what a difference!



I also added a front aluminum skid plate from @ramotorsports. 1/4” thick is that thing beefy!

And he’s some of the latest photos of the truck, I’ll be trying to update this as time goes on but I still have lots of plans for the truck, i’ll try to update regular maintenance items as well as future plans for the truck!





A photo of the light output from the headlights, ditchlights, this was before aiming the ditch lights after I lifted the vehicle, hence the direction being above the snowbanks haha

 

Wow. Amazing build, I really love what you have done with the truck. Nice write up too!