Bdribb's Mystery Meat Taco

Greetings all,

I just picked up my first Toyota Tacoma. Its a 1999 Toyota Tacoma Ext Cab 4x4 3.4l with 245000 miles. When I purchased the truck it was getting kinda dark and it wasn't in the best part of town so I wanted to get it done with so, I just made sure that the truck didn't have any bad frame rust and looked at the truck how I would any other used car. What I didn't do is look at the entire package. Im see a new bumper, cool. I see a new radiator, even better. But why would some one get a new bumper and a new radiator? Because the truck was involved in an unreported front end accident. My two brain cells didn't put that together when looking at the truck. Also the truck had no ownership history whatsoever.

Since I have no history of the vehicle I am calling it the Mystery Meat Taco because some things dont quite add up. So i'm doing the best automotive archeology I can do to learn the history of this machine. Here is what I have found. Obviously it has third gen rims. It has the TRD Off Road bells and whistles but It does not have to decals for it and shows no signs of it ever being there, but it has this old 4X4 decal that you can see in the paint and I can't tell what its from, and it makes me believe that the bed isn't original. Let me know what you guys think if you can see it.
I bought it thinking it was the SR5 trim level but im not sure since its missing the decal on the passenger side C pillar and shows no sign of it ever being there. Then when I punched in the VIN into a VIN decoder it said it was the DLX trim but I know those can be unreliable.

Here are some more pictures.



You can see the passenger side of the bed is lower than the driver.
Here is a bit bent frame. More evidence of the accident.

Interior is in decent shape
This truck runs and drive great although the power steering leak is annoying. Sticker on engine says that the timing belt was about 1500 miles ago, which is nice but im going to take a peak at the belt just to verify that.

What I have done since I bought it 2 weeks ago.

Replaced 4 lug studs- 2 cross threaded and 1 snapped on FP and 1 snapped on FD
Replaced brake pads- Had to drill out guide pins since they were rust welded in
Replaced Spark plugs and wires-
Missing KN filter from the intake

This is why I choose to replace the wire and CP boots

NGK for the win


Old sparks look not to worn but ready for replacement.



Im excited to finally own a 1st gen Tacoma but im not sure on what direction I want to take it in. Im leaning towards the overland route but we will see where this mystery meat taco goes.

 

Not a bad looking 1st gen. How much did you pay for it. Did the frame check out okay, If the truck tracks straight and drives good, that's a plus. If the repairs were done on the up and up, that's another plus. Doesn't look like the best paint job, but I wouldn't worry to much about that, if you scratch it up a bit going off road, you won't be too pissed about it.I'd take it to a reputable shop and get a front end alignment done, that will tell you a lot about the front end. Check your lower ball joints now, there the one failure point you don't want to encounter, and buy Toyota Genuine, lower ball joints, don't go cheap. Change all the fluids fro the rear end and transmission if it hasn't been done in a while. And good luck with your new toy.

 

For the sake of transparency I paid $6300 in the Phoenix,AZ. There is only light surface rust on the frame, there is nothing that I have found that requires repair. I guess that's a benefit of buying a vehicle here. Drives great given the fact that the truck does have nearly 250k miles on it. It does pull to the right just a little, but I have had cars that have been a lot worse. Ball joints will need to be replaced soon, but when I do those im going to replace all the bushings in the area as well.