BartMaster1234's CRAPMOBILE - 450,000 Mile 1998 Tacoma 5-Lug v6 Manual [Build Thread]

This is going to be awesome and I hope you set a new trend.

Actually, I've never done much wrenching and now you've inspired me to possibly go out and buy a junker and learn how to tear a car apart and rebuild it.

 

Kind of the reason why I bought such a steaming pile of crap - it was so cheap and I could practice rebuilding an engine and transmission and such without harming anything of value.

 

What are you planning to do with the interior? Deep clean and shampoo the carpet, or just get rid of it all and go bare/line-x?

 

One way or another this thing is getting new carpet. I'm going to try washing it first but it's pretty bad.

The passenger seat is surprisingly okay, driver's seat is pretty torn up.

 

So I managed to move it into the garage in 1st - then it stalled when I tried taking my foot off the clutch and now I can't start or jump it because it's in such a tight space. I had to push it the rest of the way in Neutral.

There is some god awful grounding problem with this truck. When the turn signals are on, the temperature needle bounces up and down to the same frequency.

 

Subbed

 

That is a textbook grounding issue since those sensor and gauge grounds are on the engine block. You need to fix that main ground cable before you fry something. Also my cruiser's volt meter bounces to the turn signal frequency too, but that is because the cluster ground is undersized, I added another ground once with an alligator clip and it stopped haha, so I decided it was unimportant since it had been that way for over 23 years.

 

You know I totally forgot about that grounding issue until now. Let me go check and see if I can find the other end of it.

 

Bump start it. Key on, put in reverse, clutch in get it rolling, let clutch out and put back in when engine sputters.

 

That bed was a nightmare to clean.

Cured concrete and mortar everywhere which was under manure and construction debris. Oh and don't forget the rusty fifth wheel hitch.

 

I just pulled a metric ton of unused wiring and electronics from under the dash. I'm guessing after this truck was decommissioned as a fleet truck they cut all the brake controller and alarm system wiring out - but left the main harnesses.

 

This is awesome!

Once you get everything cleaned up consider some Eastwood products to encapsulate that rust. It's really harsh stuff and it works really well.

 

Surprisingly the bed is the only rusty thing on the whole truck. This was a California truck its whole life so there is zero rust besides on the bed where moisture was allowed to gather.

I'm planning on doing a spray in bedliner after I do some body work on the bed.

 

Made a lot of progress in the truck the past couple days. Stripped the entire entire down to the sheet metal, bought new carpet, vents, seat belts, seats, and other trim from four different trucks - going all out with this truck.

Bigger update coming soon, but for now here's me replacing the cracked instrument Cluster lens. It was hazy so I'm polishing it with rubbing compound. The thing about Tacoma Cluster lenses is you can't just replace the plexiglass, you need to replace the whole lens cover assembly. What I did is bought one from an earlier tuck with the cable driven odo and broke the plexiglass off from its adhesive. I'm going to epoxy it to the original Cluster backing as soon as I get the plastic restored.

 

I like it. Sub'd.

I need to do up a 5-lug at some point...

 

I have this dream where I buy a wrecked Supra and swap in the Turbocharged 2JZ.

Buuuuuut I live in California where everything fun is illiegal. The California BAR would have a heart attack if they saw that I modified their precious emissions system.

 

Wait 5 more years and you'll be good to go.

Assuming california does the whole "After 25 years its exempt from everything" thing.

 

Here are some pictures of me stripping the entire cab down to the front crashbar and floorpan.

The carpet was absolutely disgusting and far beyond repair, so I picked up a 'new' one from the pick-n-pull.



And the carpet I replaced it with.




Just a stark comparison from the new carpet I bought and power washed versus the original carpet.

 

Here's how it looks now. I have all the interior parts in the garage ready to sand and paint. I'm blacking out all the plastics.



Surprisingly, the entire interior fit in this wagon.



EVERYTHING was covered in this thick brown dust. My 60 gal air compressor and blow gun took care of that really quickly.

 

I wanted to grab a 93 2wd pickup here in town that was going for $1500. Really want to learn stick but don't want to mess up someones vehicle. But $1500 is a lot when I still have things on the list for my current truck.