Gray223's "The Resurrection" 98 rebuild build

Badass.

 

Update on the Tacoma:

My dad text me today these pictures. He has pulled the bed off. Everywhere we didn't plate is just completely falling apart. He just uses the truck as a farm/hunting rig. It's still drives and runs good though. The bed itself is also rusting out on the seams where the sides meet the bottom.

 

I headed back home to do some turkey hunting. My dad has been working on the truck, cutting out and replacing just about everything from the cab back.


I just don't know if you can ever really stop rust after seeing this. Unless it in completely cut out. The rocker panels on the truck, especially the driver side are very bad. The whole underside is complete mush.


This will be almost exactly 10 years since we brought the truck home. It's interesting looking back at everything my dad and I did. I'm still impressed with the bumpers, doing all of it with no brake press, just a plasma, a welder, and some cardboard cutouts. I'm very surprised the headlights and the halos still work and that's all holding together. All the monstaliner held up well, though it has started to peel off on places of the front bumper, with rust forming underneath. Which was kind of odd since that was fairly clean steel...rust just finds a way I guess. I can't believe it attached to the fender flares so well, not a single flake off those or any of the cab/body panels, besides underneath as mentioned above. None of the chassis saver did much to stop the rust. I really wonder how much the poorly mixed first coat affected that.

I'm now have my own home and shop and currently looking to buy a salvage Chevy/GMC with a 3.0l Duramax and start that project on my own. It will replace my current Tundra which part of me hates to get rid of, it's given me zero issues at 120k miles. I don't love the idea of leaving Toyota, but the fuel milage of those small diesel is just too intriguing and will pair really well for what I use a truck for now. They have there issues, but what truck doesn't these days? I've got confidence I'll be able to work through any that come up.