1999 Tacoma SR5 TRD Imperial Jade Build, Sweat and Tears

Broke my silky saw from cutting 20-25 trees. These things are kinda expensive for what they are so kind of a bummer. Most of the footage was video but I dont think you can post video here. I took some screen shoots. Not the greatest but its a record of the trip.


Tried to used the broken piece but just ended up cutting my hand open.


Went to a hardware store the next day and came back that night ready to go.






Was hooking a strap up to the hook at the front to drag the tree in reverse out of the way once I cut them


Got tired after clearing like 30 trees for hours and decided to just drive over some and got stuck for an hour. I didnt try and power through since I was deep out 30 miles with no cell service. I just took my time and cut the front and the side off. Was a pain in the ass. 30min each side.


Got free


Made it out


Was super fun, going through all the snow. Hit some steep climbs on some narrow paths and got some nice rash down the sides. Good times though.

 

Went though my phone and dug up some photos over the last couple years that I dont think was ever posted. **Looks like Im having a problem upload*, Ill get back to it tomororw**

Film

 

4runner sighting in Flagstaff AZ

 

Ok back to regular programing.




15 min later

 

So I crawled under the truck to check where the spare tire is to see what kind of room is under there to move/make a new 2nd fuel tank, and legit felt like shit when I seen this..

What the actual F, this wasnt here 6 months ago


I can even push my finder into the rust pocket


This is crazy. Ive only been in salted roads a few times. I guess theres a pocket above it, I stuck my finger in there and its all packed with dirt. Looks like Im gonna have to cut this out and replace it. The rest of the frame everywhere else is pretty clean from what I can see. IDK what to do, Im not trying to ruin my truck. I need to see about preventing all this. Once I mock the tank from under with cardboard, I guess Im gonna pull the shell and bed and go after all this. Wire wheel everything and replace whatever doesnt look good and coat it with something.

What should I do with all these frames holes? Should they be covered up?


This legit sucks.

 

Hey bummer man, I enjoy your posts and thread. I know you have a camper but take it off and lift the bed off so you can check it out. I know nothing of rust problems cause of my area. But you will get a better view. When you get to a place you can.

 

Thanks, thats the plan. Never expected to see this, its a CA/AZ truck, its only see salt roads a couple times since Ive had it and the fame was fully clean when I got it. It might be because theres a channel/pocket right above the spot packed with dirt. Everywhere else seems to be okay. Further back in the thread during covid, I had everything off and wire wheeled everything and painted it. Didnt see any spots and its pretty much just been sitting in Los Angeles for the last couple years while I drove my car.

Im gonna wire wheel everything and patch that area. I need to find out what the best type of paint would be to resist this. I think Im gonna get this rear box kit and box in the rear frame too, https://kpoffroad.com/product/tacoma-rear-frame-box-kit

 

Went under again to measure my exhaust. Im gonna try and keep the magnaflow muffler and add a vibrant bottle resonator and see what happens. My exhaust is crazy bad but Id like to make it a little quieter when rolling around really late through camp grounds or quiet neighbor hoods late at night. Im also gonna make a tail pipe. Its crazy how rusty this add on piece is for driving 2 days on salted roads, kinda insane.



2.5 inch

 

It's probably in this thread somewhere.. but maybe you can tell us again if that's the case; what camera do you use? I dig the style of your pics.

 

Thanks, its one page back I think but, its a bunch of different cameras. I rotate through cameras to keep it fun. Most of the thread is A7RII and some of the newer stuff from this past year is A7RIII. There are several film cameras ive used and some random Canon 5D MKII shots. Then the crappier shots are just iphone.

Today I got out the Canon 5D MKII that Im about to post.

 

Went to the junkyard today. I read up on an electric fan retrofit thread that the Lincoln Mark VIII was a good fan for the retrofit. The junkyard by me had one so I went to go see if it still had the fan in it. I was also looking for BMW e46 xenon headlights to try and make mine own retrofit kit for my truck. Not sure if its gonna work or if these are even a good choice but Ive messed with them several times on my BMW so I guess Im gonna give it a shot. Theres probably a better car/suv to take from, if there is let me know. I didnt get a photo of the BMW, I ended up finding some lights but I only took one for right now to see how much of pain its going to be.

Frozen over, was about 20f out and snowing.


It still had the fan. Had trouble getting the connector disconnected, they prop up the cars to high here, plus I wanted to cut the connector with a good amount of length of wire and I forgot my cutters in the truck.


Went back out to my truck to get cutters and the locks were frozen on the shell. I dug around and found my cigarette lighter, heated it up and stuck if on the lock for about 10 seconds. Free'd it up right away. Good to know.




It had the fan. Didn't do a lot research on it. Dont know if there was any sensors that I needed. Ill have to see, then go back if I need anything else besides the fan off the car. The guy there freaked out that I was wearing shorts. Wasnt even that bad. The worst part its holding anything metal with bare hands or trying to pull on stuff with bare hands, didnt even know I was getting cut or that anything was sharp. At least the blood freezes right away.




Did a little looking around on the 4runners to see what was there, just in case I need something. This one still has a lot of clean parts, was gonna take the fogs but someone got em.


Bonus shot of some cool graphics on an explorer.

 

Went and messed with the headlight and learned a couple things I didnt know. I was wondering why the lens didnt have a cut off line in it. Well I guess there is an option on the e46 where the left light is the high beam. On my BMW it has a flapper that folds down for the high beam on the xenon and the left light is a flash only. Bummer, I wanted the flapper for the high beam.



The reason I decided to try the e46 xenons is because they had this cover that would look kinda cool.




With the cover off. You can see the cut off plate. Wish this was the flapper one. Idk what Im gonna do now. I guess I dont need the flapper/high beams with all my other lights but id prefer to have it.


It would probably be a pain to figure out, but these have a tilting unit. The e46 has a sensor on the control arm and it takes a reading to see how much weight bias there is and adjust the headlights down if theres more weight in the rear. Thought it might be cool to try and integrate that with a knob in the cab. When im loaded down I could tilt the lights on the fly while driving.

 

Just watched a youtube video of someone doing a retrofit with this kit https://www.theretrofitsource.com/bi-xenon-acme-h1-stage-3-kit-crk-acme-h1?quantity=1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0HBJK2W5VFI

For $208 this might be the way to go. Im dont really want to run these BMW ones without the high beam flapper. If they had the flapper Id go with it but I dont want to be stuck with just low beams. I guess I could find a different car in the junkyard but $208 isnt bad and it has all the wiring adapters already. Its crazy that the guy in the video was saying something like it was $140, that was just a couple years ago and now its $208.

 

Dumping today


























Parts came today. The resonator is looking tiny. Hopefully for the price it actually does something.

 

Went to install the new cable for the mirror/dash cam. Same thing, it wont charge. I used a regular (green color) usb cable into my hardwired usb outlet and it worked fine. Used the 2nd cigarette outlet and nope, same thing. Took off the panel to see if theres a bad connection and no, it was all good. Maybe these charges are putting out enough volts for some reason. Idk, really shouldn't be this confusing.

Then I noticed my volts at idle is around 11.5-12v, not sure why its so low. I think I noticed this when I installed the bigger battery. If I bring it up off idle to 1500rpm it goes to 13.5v. Not sure if itll help but Im going to add some batter ground straps from the body to the battery.

 

Im gonna wait on chasing down the mirror issue till I get some ground straps. Maybe that will fix it. Just ordered 4 copper ground straps, ill try and use at 3 if not all and spread them around the truck since I am using body grounds for a lot of the lights.

 

Went and took the exhaust off to put the resonator on.

Tried to fire up the diesel heater but the battery was too low.


Gonna line up the resonator with the heat shield. Wish I had a bender to make a whole new pipe and get the exhaust closer to the bed of the truck, but its been fine so far.


Gonna wire wheel the bracket down and paint it with some hi temp.




Cut the weld to save as much as the factory pipping as possible.


Chopped off the nasty torch job from the last guy.


Ground the weld off


Pretty much stopped here for the day. Its cold as shit and I spent most of my time chasing things that didnt work like battery being dead in welding mask, exhaust pipe expander nut was jammed and couldnt find the right thread chaser. Researching if I can weld mid to stainless with regular mig wire and gas. Just one of those days, where Im spending more time running around than working. Ill get back to it later tonight or tomorrow.

Starting to wonder it I probably should of just saved the $90 and left it.

 

Back at it.

Dragged my Dad off watching tiktok videos and had him heat the pipe.


Ran a die on the pipe expander and got it back in action




Nope, broke part of the expander and couldn't get it to go far enough


Hacked off the expanded part and welded another straight piece back on.




Ive only welded a couple times in the last 25 years so this will have to do. There was an 1/8 gap all the way around that I had to fill, so I just washed it up and down. Im not sure if this is right but it seemed liked the stainless meld/penetrated a lot faster than the mild steel.


This definitely one of those things where the juice really wasn't worth the squeeze. It did make it a little quieter. For example, say the volumes was at 10 it brought it down to 9. All the tone and everything is still all the same. Just slightly made it quieter. Honestly the last second cheap tail pipe I made probably made a better difference. I probably should of just left it, lots of hours wasted and I spattered my UV filter on my camera too. Ill update again after I take it for a real drive.

 

Finished shot. The back half of the resonator is clamped on. I might have something for the future that I may need to separate it for.


Ground straps came in, ill try and get them on tomorrow.