96 Tacoma restore/build

Hello everyone,

I, recently bough my first truck a 1996 Tacoma Sr5 with 3.4 V6 and 4x4 with auto trans. I wanted a truck for a long time and I knew If ever buy one it would be aToyota due to it's well known reliability. One of the main reasons why I settled for a Tacoma, is its size. I like Tundras but I just dont have much use for a big truck like that. Anyways after searching for one for a while and stalking out the seller that never responded to my phone calls/messages lol, I finally was able to meet with the seller and ended up buying it for 1900 bucks (I think it was a good deal?)

Thanks to this website and its members, I learned more about my truck. After seeing some of you guys's rigs on here really gave me inspiration and motivation to build mine and so I have decided to make a thread and share it with you guys.

Im not much of a photographer but Im working on it so bear with me

Here is the truck.






First thing was to get rid of the TOYOTA vinyl lettering on the tailgate.






Looks much better without the lettering I think.


Did some cleaning in the engine bay.

Before:


After:


Original carpet was worn out pretty bad, had holes in it and stunk so it had to come out.



Peeling back the carpet revealed some surface rust on the floor pan. (Driver side only, rest of the floors were spotless)


Closer look at the rust.




And this is after I cleaned with a wire wheel attached to a drill.





Discovered more rust . Hard to see but this is inside of the rocker panel. Looking down from the where the rear speaker is. Forgot to take pictures but that was cleaned as well and I want to say that was little more challenging to clean.




Not in pictures but treated all the rusted areas with a rust converter (a product from company called Eastwood) to get into all the pittings and areas hard to reach. Then covered with a rust encapsulator from Eastwood. Then sprayed with white paint over the black encapsulator.

 

Looks good. How long did it take to to do the cab floor?

 

I did my floor as well, was pretty similar as OP.
Took me about 3-4 days.
I did lightly grease my whole floor before putting everything back, so it wouldn't rust again

OP, how is the frame on the truck?

 

Thanks it took me about a week between cleaning and topcoating with paint. Rust converter and encapsulator requires atleast a day of dry/cure time.

 

The frame is rusty but not rotted through or anything. Its definitely saveable. I will post pics of the frame too.

 

Since I had the interior apart I've decided to cover the entire floor with FatMat sound deadening material.




Then the new carpet..




The back panel was all scratched up. I learned a trick with the heat that actually works. Left side of the panel is what it looked like and the right side is after the heat treat.

 

Power steering was acting a little funny, opened up the PS reservoir to check the fluid level and I was shocked to see how dirty the fluid was. Here is what it looked like:

 

Got the seats cleaned with an extractor at a local carwash/detailer shop.




Didnt get the best results after cleaning the seats but atleast the bad smell is gone and they are cleaner.

 

Next to my buddy's truck.

 

Got some goodies:
Old man EMU Dakar leafs with Bilstein 5100 for the rear as well as greasable shackles, greasable bolts for the main eye and bushings etc.

 

You paid HOW MUCH!?

Yeah you absolutely stole that truck. That is incredibly cheap for a 1st Gen, ESPECIALLY the Limited trim level on you have. Those are becoming increasing rare. How many miles?

 

Thank you! I thought I had a good deal. I even heard that the first gen might gain a little more value over time. Not going to lie I was even a little hesitant buying this old truck but luckily she is pretty solid. She has 180K miles on her though.

 

That truck would get $6-7k any day here in California, more if it’s 4x4. Wow.

 

Removed old leaf springs and shocks..




Old vs New


Old shocks


Done!

 

Wow thats really nice to know! I guess I got lucky

 

Looking like she'll clean up really nice!

 

This setup lifted the back really high up (will post pics tomorrow), more than I expected. I need to level the truck ASAP as she is looking like a "funny car" right now with the ass sitting super high than the front. I would like your input on the front end lift feel free with any suggestions. Also after the lift she developed a driveline vibration, seems like they sell a CB dropping kit? If so has anyone used it does it solve the problem?

 

Thats my goal sir.

 

Haha been there, I've had those leafs on two trucks now, pull the largest overload and the third leaf and it'll ride pretty level with a 2.5" lifted front. Be aware it won't hold as much then though (but still quite a bit). Also I used 3 degree axle shims to cure the vibe

 

It's pretty popular to go with OME front coils (880's for stock weight, 881 for steel bumper) and 5100's in the front as well. Check out the OME thread. Until then, try putting some heavy weight above the rear axle to bring it down more level.