'97 TacoLife & times ~work in process~ do the dew or no go home

after 265 months I finally took the plastic over-the-rail allStar bedliner off that the dealer had installed aftermarket when i bot it
pending Line-X job with custom stencils to be done next month
... thought i might be able to enjoy a couple weeks of nice clean black rails before they disappear 'forever' ... this turned out to not be the case!

the LineX job is now a priority unless I want to shell out an estimated $4k to re-paint and re-stripe entire box and tailgate



this naked Toyota steel... I have not a clue how this never rotted through past 2+ decades... someone had told me that whatever oxidation that might have started was rubbed off again in an endless cycle
there have been countless winters where the back has been piled high with snow and ice until it melted and slid on out

 

picked up the salvaged OEM wheels from powdercoater today
they were not able to exactly match the textured finish but they are to be used for winter driving
... pics when i get it

stopped at ToyoTechs to ask about this rattle behind dash going on, the saga continues....

 

Line-X job is finally done and completed (for the most part).
rope hooks not back in yet...
the yellow sticker was just too much and vacated itself off the window very quickly...

 

... still recovering from this past weeks 2700 mile journey north to Lake Superior, reaching the furthest north my truck had ever been to the Canadian border ~3 hours north of Duluth, about 30 miles from Thunder Bay Ontario. https://www.google.com/maps/place/G...527267ecc75899!8m2!3d47.9637433!4d-89.6848712
Drove pretty much the entire southern circle tour all the way to Marquette Michigan, a place I had not been to since the dead of winter in early 1999. It was much different in the middle of the summer without the Icy lake waves, 10ft snow piles and brutal temps. But it was much more humid out than I thought it might be which is a bummer (I loathe humidity)



I was without any technology, so unfortunately no pictures
oil change @ Kari Toyota in Superior WI early Monday and was on my way to Marquette (with a little detour up to Bayfield then to Port Wing and then back to US-2

 

tire rotation at DT & had them change to white letter out and put weights on inside of wheels and rebalanced, picked up new plates at DMV, first time I have had custom plates on a vehicle since 1991-1993 on the '78 celica
also a box of new silicone vacuum hoses arrived via FedEx



a different day, a different angle

 

mileage milestone today...

 

tried powdercoating some old weathered parts
brake drums and rear lug nuts, not sure if it was the right decision but so far its better than it was getting to be



^^^ was quoted at local dealer all NEW black nuts would cost me $400
Camelback is a bit less than 1/2 of that @ $7 per piece (roughly)
the powder coat was $1 each nut

 

10k average per year will take me 100yrs to reach 1 million miles

 

oh W@W what a pain it was to take the spare tire off, have never done this before and have only seen it lowered once while getting the new tires and the DT checked the spare air pressure.
I have only had one flat tire in 22+ years and call it 126k miles, knock on wood or wot

tire lowered relatively easily down to about 2 inches off the ground and the damn cable got stuck arghhh
I thought it was supposed to lower ALL THE WAY down

...
came back later after soaking cable in Pb blaster, gave the cable a yank and tried the tire wrench again with no tire on and it finally lowered all the way to the ground!

i suppose it was just bound up in the spool from the DT check last time

 

Gonna check out the air compressor rentals today at HoneyMan, see if they have the right one to work with the Eastwood blast from a bucket kit
other than a little rainy out the weather should be decent to see how this cleanUp project will get a kickOff.


i am not happy about this rental when a couple days later i find a near similar one for purchase at Harbor Freights that is marked down $350 to $650

 

... did not get off to a good start with the long holiday weekend, found out i also need a moisture regulator between the compressor and hose that the rental was not equipped with!

so instead i paid my last respects to a fallen 1st gen unicorn at the local salvage lot. A regular cab v6 with 239k miles that had 3 owners and was registered here locally since April of 1997, a month older than my truck! ... but the pictures I took are not easy on the eye! ... it looked to have a brutal life with abusive owners ... but it gives me some clarification on what i need to do to protect my truck from the winter monster

 

a messed up week, it was...

 

earlier this week i made some more progress on the Lake Superior circle tour... the bummer was the dense blanket of fog most all day on Monday

some pics from my recent journey to the U.P. after TW wheeling adventure in northern Wisconsin
a genuine midwest survivor made it all the way to the top of Michigan!


stopped at the Welcome Center in Marquette to figure out this new-2-me used camera and stretch


lake view behind


made it to the end of the road on US-41 and had to turn around, it was getting late



made it to the top of the mountain outside of Copper Harbor
this road might be very challenging in the dead of winter with the snow piling up, the sign said its a seasonal road



after a long journey i was ready to head back home (900+ miles)
this thick blanket of fog in the morning was a bummer!


Lake Superior down the road from Copper Harbor MI, the fog was not too bad by mid-morning







the long trek back home...


but before the journey to Lake Superior I met up with a TW group from Wisconsin to have a small adventure called the Pipe in northern Wisconsin by Antigo




at the camping place by Boulder Lake, ...very hard rain on Saturday evening, clothes were soaked and had to weather the storm to change into dry clothes for a small amount of shuteye

 

miles and miles

 

the tank was THiRSTY 2day ... 17.036 gallons on the fillup @ Shell in the Bluffs @ 2,28 per gallon after nickel discount



never in ~22.5 years have I ever put that much into the tank at once, and I have kept a fairly accurate fuel log since May of 1995 in a little memo book
(of which the pages are nearly full )




https://www.crutchfield.com/S-ZYuo7sQJqMt/p_130X8800BS/Pioneer-DEH-X8800BHS.html

looking...

 

some recent updated Nada table of values for comparisons

-----------------MSRP -- LOW -- Average -- High
4Runner SR5: 26,578 - 2775 ---- 4975 ---- 6250
T100 SR5: .... 24,828 - 5225 ---- 7025 ---- 12,350
Tacoma SR5 .. 22,448 - 6975 ---- 8800 ---- 13,450
S10 4wd v6 ... ------ ... - 3175 --- 4800 ---- 6075
Dakota 4wd v6 ------ ... - 1975 --- 4300 ---- 6300 - nonSweptline
Dakota 4wd v8 ------ ... - 2075 --- 4525 ---- 6575 - nonSweptline

 

had some new plugs put in today + throttle body cleaning
@ 131,319 miles these plugs had about 39k miles on them since they were last changed long ago

 

22 1/2 years old as of today and still surviving
but things are definitely getting challenging to keep on surviving in this climate...


https://www.youtube.com/embed/GrzX_K-jcuo

 

thank you TW for a great 1st year