1997 Regular Cab 4x4 Auto Build

Purchased in Sept 2019, this was my dream truck, took me 2 months to find it, the guy selling it had it in the family for 5 years in which they just passed it around, it only accumalated 1000 miles in those 5 years, guy said it was ther rock crawler they never used and his nephew was in the navy and asked him to sell it for him, California truck its whole life first owner had it for 17 years and really just kept it stock, he did add a rear hitch and the wiring, other than that she was stock, second owner as I apsaid had it for 5 years and just put these awful fenderflares to compensate for the wheels it had, I immediately took those off and put some stock flares on it, at first I was just gonna put a high roof shell and make a mini rv in the back, I quickly grew out of that and started doing some more remote traveling (overlanding) and figuired I need to be lighter and have some armor, I made this post to basically track down all the things done to this truck, I’m a simple guy I dont need much just a vehicle that turns on and Toyota for me is super reliable, I chose a regular cab because Im a single guy I domt need the extra seats or storage, I Live in Los Angeles and the smaller the vehicle the better, wanted a vehicle that can do anything and this is it, the reg cab tacoma ran from 95.5-2014 and I wanted an auto I couldnt believe I couldnt find one for weeks but when I saw this vehicle up for sale on a Sat morning on craiglist with the post saying ‘posted 24min ago’ I knew I had to jump on this, and this is the progress In the process of getting sliders and arb airlocker installed this week

 

Arb rear locker installed and onboard compressor

now gotta get sliders installed this week

i also got rid of my desk and bed setup, its way lighter this way

Just odered front and rear bumpers idk how long itll take to get here

 

Clean looking truck to start a build with. Nice picture in the cajon pass. Best part is it's a West coast truck and no rust!

 

'97 taco's FTW ... the 'least popular' year in regards to total #sold out of all 1st gens (not including 95.5 because of only 1/2 year)

 

just need to weld cb antenna holder, front bumper will be done this weekend

 

sorry potato camera doesnt like night time, will post better pics, just installed floods aswell, really want to go offroading but Cali doesnt want to open

 

Finished floods and cb antenna, will post pics when I get a chance

 

did some mall crawling figuired Id take some pics in the wild

 

Went to cleghorn today, im never doing ‘the chute’ ever again I was millimeters away from scratching and breaking my rear topperand bed

after I run through these km3’s ima get 33 kO2’s

 

Nice looking rig, simple, functional mods are always best.

 

Saw your post over in the 5.29 Mega...I found this link helpful in first identifying what you have, as well as what you'd like to have.

http://www.brian894x4.com/Gearratiosanddiffs.html

Also figuring out GVW and other future weight added mods...looks like you are fairly well equipped (winch/bumpers/sliders).

Good luck...dig where your build is/is headed.

 

I love me some white regular cab action. So jealous of your truck's 1995.5-1997 face!

 

Sweet taco man! Here’s mine in the middle of the pacific ocean LoL