ScrewCancerAdventures Exploration Facilitation (1999 Tacoma 4x4 TRD)

About 5 years ago I was made well aware of mortality at the ripe old age of 34 with a stage 3b non-Hodgkin's lymphoma diagnosis. Several operations, 18 rounds of chemo and 45 straight days of radiation have left me with some scars and limitations that will never go away, but I'm determined to not let that get in the way of making the best of the time I have left. During Covid I was re-introduced to hiking by a coworker and have continued to get out as often as reasonable (every few weeks), and this renewed enjoyment of the outdoors prompted the purchase of a 2021 Jeep Wrangler as our new family vehicle as my F250 is wider than many of the forest roads, but my wife has really grown to enjoy off roading/adventuring/overlanding/backwoods camping and this has created a problem of wanting to go places more adventurous than we should go solo as well as playing rock, paper, scissors to see who gets to drive.

This truck (as well as my E82 BMW 135i and the Mazda Miata race car I co-own with my brother and his wife) are ways for me to tell cancer off every time I get the chance. I didn't buy this truck on purpose, it kind of fell into my lap. I had been working towards picking up a second Jeep, but my neighbor offered me this 1999 Toyota Tacoma TRD for what he has into it in mechanic bills since October. This solved a huge hurdle for me as I wasn't looking to finance anything and I wasn't wanting to sell any other toys to facilitate the purchase of a dedicated adventure rig. I have had a Toyota Tacoma in my mental garage for quite some time (we actually cross-shopped new 4 door Tacomas and 4Runners with the Jeep Wrangler, but the Jeep won due to interior space and capability in stock form). This particular truck is a little bit rough around the edges with 284,500 miles at the time of purchase, but my neighbor has owned it for almost 20 years (second owner) and there is service history going back to the original owner - more importantly the truck runs well and is probably the most mechanically quiet vehicle I own. It also isn't the most practical configuration with a family of 4 (including 2 teenagers, one being 6' tall and only in 8th grade), but the thought is that it will be primarily used for solo or +1 adventures, with family adventures using the Jeep and Tacoma together.

Mechanically this truck has had just about everything serviced or replaced within the past 50k miles, with paint pen markings of dates and mileage under the hood on each component that has been swapped. There are a couple of question marks that will be addressed in due time (no records of ball joint or wheel bearing replacement, just a "I think they were done about 10 years ago") and driveline noise (no vibration) that I've been trying to isolate since I bought the truck. I think it's isolated to a differential carrier bearing, but at the time of writing this post it is such a faint noise that it has me questioning my sanity trying to listen for it.

This truck came with some mods that I really like and a couple that I don't. The aftermarket front grille/light combination isn't my favorite and came as a result of sliding off an icy trail and breaking a headlight, grille, bumper and hood - radiator support is original and airbags did not deploy - parts were just replaced off the record. It has an Old Man Emu suspension lift with the Dakar leaf pack with an add-a-leaf, aftermarket bumper in the front, DIY bumper in the rear with swing out tire carrier, DOM rock sliders, SCS Ray 10 wheels with 33" Toyo Open Country R/T (with 2/3 tread depth left), cable locker conversion, a winch on a tray that can be put on either bumper, a Leer canopy with Yakima load bars, but without the rear window or frame and the rear of the interior was deleted in favor of a parcel shelf. The fenders have been self-clearancing for quite some time, but some trimming is needed sooner rather than later as I will be using this truck off road a lot more than he did. All four fender flares are damaged in some way, so they are perfect for experimenting on.

Short term goals for this build are to make it a more comfortable place to be for hours at a time - sound deadening, piecing the interior back together, better seats, isolating rattles and modernizing the stereo are at the top of the list. As far as performance mods, clearancing the fenders is at the top of that list as all four corners rub at significant compression, and on my off road test drive the front rubbed hard enough to lock the steering wheel. Exterior/appearance mods will be mostly focused on repairing what is already there (the tailgate is bent, there's a significant dent below the RR taillight, the canopy window frame and glass are missing), changing the front end (I'm leaning towards a 2001-2004 front end with the Taco Vinyl "Pro" grille) and wrapping the truck in charcoal gray. Convenience mods will include some sort of build in the bed (leaning towards a 2 tier bed slide with a frame to support the canopy, then adding a RTT on some stronger load bars), an awning (I have an Overland Pros 270* on my Jeep and love it) and re-working the tire carrier to have a lower center of gravity and eliminate the fuel can mount in favor of a modular mount that will attach to the hub portion of the tire carrier.

Long term goals include building a tray and camper (drawing strong inspiration from Otis24, overlandunderbudget) with a stopping point of an Australian-style 1/2 tray canopy and RTT. This truck is purely focused on exploration and moderate off roading so it doesn't have to be every day practical (nothing I own is a good daily, so I just rotate through vehicles every few days to experience a different flavor of impracticality). This truck is still on stock gearing (3.91, I believe) and is too fast to use anything but 1st in 4L, so a regear to 4.88 by way of an assembled third member and clamshell from East Coast Gear Supply is on the list, maybe sooner rather than later depending on how the noise in the rear end progresses.

If you've made it to the end of this novel, thanks for your time. This truck has a hundred little projects that need to be done and I will be documenting them and some adventures here as well as on Instagram (@screwcancerletsrace) and YouTube (Screw Cancer, Let's Race!, @nukemmproductions) purely because I'm terrible at documenting anything so I have very little progress evidence of any past projects.

 

One of the first projects I tackled was putting license plates on. That shouldn't be a project, but the license plate had been relocated to the tailgate and the lighted mounts were non-functional. 4 hours down the rabbit hole of repairing chafed wiring in the taillight and trailer harness as well as tapping into the original license plate light to wire up the new lighted mounts got me back to what it was supposed to be when I bought it.

 

When I bought the truck the radio antenna was broken, the dome light was missing, the AC button was missing and the climate control lights were burned out. A trip to the wrecking yard solved the majority of those problems and a trip the parts store fixed the climate control lighting. First gen Tacomas just aren't in wrecking yards here in the PNW, so I did some digging to cross-reference parts with other cars that can be found in the yard. The AC button came from a first gen Rav4, the antenna came from a Sienna and then dome light came from a Corolla wagon.

The dome light in these trucks are terrible, btw. I'm looking to retrofit a map light above the mirror at some point, maybe one from a 4Runner with a sunglasses holder that can be converted to a switch panel?

 

While I was re-wiring the rear end of the truck, I also did some cleanup underneath the dash. In that process I ended up disconnecting a relay in order to make room for a brush and vacuum further up the dash. By the time I finished with the lights it was cold and dark and in my haste to get inside I forgot to plug in that relay. I had a small panic attack when I had a crank/no start afterwards, but a quick search told me the relay in question was the "circuit opening relay" and it's a go/no go for the truck to start. I have since found the same relay in a wrecking yard and carry it with me as cheap insurance.

 

Welcome to TW!

Great intro. F Cancer.

I'm sure that truck will serve you well. Might I add, good looking too! Hard to beat a 1st Gen. As you mentioned, might not be a bad idea to go ahead and knock out the ball joints and front wheel bearings.

Looking forward to seeing your adventures and projects here and on YT!

 

Welcome To TW...

 

After getting the relay situation figured out I decided to remove the parcel shelf and clean the interior. By clean the interior, I mean I put my hand down on wet carpet, found rotted wood on the parcel shelf base and proceeded to remove the entire interior a little bit ahead of schedule. Daylight is visible all the way around the rear window seals and the driver's door seal may as well not be installed with how flat it is. Charcoal colored vinyl flooring will be going in as soon as it arrives, and new seals have been ordered as well.

 

Last Sunday I took a break from working on the truck and went on a little bit of an adventure with my son. For the past few years I've been marking random points of interest on Gaia GPS and we chased a few of them down and ran into gates blocking others. We stopped at Spada Lake and hung out for a little bit and checked out the dam.

 

When I disassembled the interior there wasn't any rust to be found, but I decided to take some preventative action and apply some POR-15 to the rear cab corners where the water was collecting. There's no replacement for the OG of rust prevention, but even at $40+ for a pint can, POR-15 is worth the price for the piece of mind. Thankfully this was just a couple of brush loads and there's plenty left for some work on the bumpers, control arms and frame brackets later.

 

Somehow I managed to miss getting a picture of the swing out tire carrier during the rebuild process. Oops. Anyway, I picked up some new bearings and cleaned and lubed the hinge pin. Tire carrier opens and closes smoothly, but the pin I found in the random truck parts box was not up to the task of holding the swing arm closed. It works fine for on road driving, but it popped open on a nasty washboard section yesterday and I ended up strapping the carrier shut for my own piece of mind. The carrier itself will be receiving an update soon, and more pictures will be shown there. I'll try and get a before picture of the tire carrier in here before I cut it up and rework it.

 

A picture is worth a thousand words, or in this case what felt like a thousand hours of labor. I spent countless hours with a nylon brush drill attachment and a steel wire brush removing the recycled denim mat that was under the carpet and another entire afternoon with Goo-Gone removing the adhesive residue. In hindsight I'm not sure that removing the residue was necessary, but it was nice to have a clean surface to adhere the sound deadening mat to. Killmat was out of stock and this product looks and feels the same with good reviews as well, so I bought a couple of boxes to start out with. The entire floor from the dash to the back window is covered with minimal gaps and the truck is already quieter than it was with the factory carpet.



I also went on a small quest to fix the 12v outlets at the bottom of the dash and trace a few abandoned wires from a long ago removed subwoofer. I found a treasure left by the original owner, lost in the dash since at least 2005.

 

A week or so ago I decided to track down any obvious driveline noises. Below 20mph this truck had a terrible rotational metallic grinding noise, and above 40mph it would turn into a terrifyingly loud scream. The previous owner already had it in the shop to address this issue and after inspection the transfer case was making some alarming noises and it was replaced with a much fresher unit, but I don't know how they missed the driveshaft carrier bearing. The old one had cracked rubber and was dry as a bone, making all sorts of noises even when turned by hand as seen here. I ordered up a Timken unit from RockAuto and had it replaced in about 25 minutes, eliminating the nose as seen here. Side note - everything I found showed people pulling the driveshaft for this repair, but I was able to just disconnect the joint connecting the forward and rear sections of the driveshaft, drop the rear section out of the way and work the support bearing with the front section of the driveshaft strapped to a jack stand. Maybe that's a side effect of having a few inches of lift and plenty of room to compress the rear section of the driveshaft? Anyway, it eliminated the alarming noise and has left just the faintest of a "whirr" sound - possibly a worn differential carrier bearing, tires, or it could be wind noise between the cab and the canopy... either way, it has gone from alarming to not even audible when there's anything in the cab or the radio is on.

 

Thank you. After disassembling and rebuilding a Mazda Miata (and converting it into a race car in the process) a lot of these projects are much more approachable. I figure if I replace the easy things while they still are functional I can have trail spares for the more common failures.

Thank you.

 

Cool build, and congrats on your fight. Keep fighting and keep building, my friend.

 

Welcome to TW:
Welcome to 1st gen awesomeness!
Welcome to the PNW, a great place to 4x4

Yeah, F Cancer!

Where abouts in PNW? WA is the giveaway and the lake is also a giveaway...

 

Facebook Marketplace score! The biggest hurdle to installing a back seat has been overcome - finding the metal pieces that make up the little storage pockets under the seats. Tons of listing had individual pieces, but I found a local guy who had 5.5 first gen Tacomas in his yard and let everything he had left for an extended cab go for a decent price. I will be doing more research on the rear side panels (or if anyone wants to save me the hassle, are 2001-2004 panels going to work in a 1999?) and maybe going back for more. Since much of the interior of my truck is missing or in rough shape, I think I may use this opportunity to switch to a black/gray interior since I'm looking to wrap the truck in a metallic graphite anyway. A quick test fit shows all of the bolt holes line up, and now we just wait a couple of days as I spent a good hour or so deep cleaning everything while it was easy to access.

 

Thank you!

Thank you! I'm in Marysville, about 40 minutes north of Seattle.

 

I'm still waiting on a hardware order to install the seats I picked up earlier in the week, but in the mean time I got a nice gift from Santa (tooling account for a side job). Not 100% Tacoma related, but these fixturing tables will facilitate a couple of projects on the Tacoma. The first project I'll be using these on is the swing out tire carrier as the one that is on there is terrible. I'll be reusing most of the materials, but centering the tire carrier and lowering it about 6" while still retaining the ability to hold a 33" spare currently and up to a 35" spare by moving one piece.

 

New fixture table is being put to use today. I started the day trying to square up the bumper on my Tacoma, and after a few attempts at modifying the mounting holes I decided to cut and re-fit the mounts. 4.5 degrees off was where I started. After cutting the original welds (leaving a couple of tabs to hold the position) I beveled the edge of the mount and fit it to almost -1 degrees then used heat to my advantage and got it to settle square with the bumper itself. Test fit tomorrow or Monday, then I should be good to weld it up for good.

 

The past few weeks have been ridiculously busy with life stuff, so I haven't been able to work on things as much as I would have hoped. I have, however continued on a couple of projects. First up is the rear bumper. What started as an attempt to align the swing out tire carrier has turned into a bumper rebuild on account of the number of poor welds I've found. When I cut off the swing out spindle the bumper cap came with it (I didn't even cut that part off, but the welds failed completely). The inside of the bumper was a nasty mess (the metal protruding was the original mounts that were cut flush on the outside and reinforced with 1/4" plate by the previous owner). Through the cracked welds and gaps in a couple of places the whole bumper was full of water and years of sediment were left after I drained it.



I've since welded new caps on and ground them flush and filled the original mounting holes on the left side so I can drill new ones that are actually aligned with the other side (the left side needed to move aft 1/4" and down 1/8" to match the right side).