Oh boy, let me tell ya 'bout my 1995 Toyota Tacoma

This isn't really a build thread even though i want it to be, consider it story time. I've became one with this truck over the past few years of ownership and let me tell you its been glorious and awful at the same time and more. This 4 banger lives at the rev limiter and mechanically i have only gone through a clutch so i think its pretty safe to say this 2.4L 2wd base model pick me up truck holds its own ground. This is my first car and i inherited it from my dad at 150,000 miles. It sat in a driveway its whole life as he bought it new and 'rarely' drove it so basically it's brand spankin new for a baby yota as it sits at 170,000 miles currently. I have dreams and aspirations to one day convert this bad boy to 4wd and do serious wheeling (SAS, engine swap more than likely going to happen too) but for the moment it does pretty good ripping up a field and getting stuck It's tail happy and excellent at doughnuts but that's about where the positive things end....OH it has a 5speed i forgot to mention!!!!! Enough of the funny talk this truck doesn't amount to much of anything but i try to make the most of it and it puts a smile on my face so it will do for the time being.

I'll be attaching pics of things i do to the truck as i attempt to build it into something decent as this truck IS DAILY DRIVEN. I have little to no experience working on cars and this is my first time taking this truck apart and putting it back together. But the fear of your truck potentially falling apart at any second adds some excitement to your day don't you think?

Apologize for the long introduction but let me tell ya 'bout my 95 taco named Calvin
(fenders and bumper are missing and i will get to explaining that headache too but looks pretty mean dont it? lol)

update currently:

 

NICE

 

My headlights need those frown thingies. Where did you get them?

 

Welcome to TW

Interested in the rest of the story

 

I just taped them off and used plasti dip.......did a poor job but looks good from a distance. I will make sure to include pictures as i will be updating this post with more information on little things i have done to the truck

 

Welcome! Looking forward to the story

 

Day 1, taken before i even got my license but probably the best shape this truck has ever been in
pretty much downhill in reliability from here

 

Originally hated the truck. Despised everything about it and thought it was hideous (which it kinda was) but as a young car guy getting to learn to drive stick and the thrill of racing down a back road the truck began to grow on me. I can't begin to explain the handling as it was stiff and nimble yet a boat at the same time but for obvious reasons it was more fun to drive than my grandmas camry. Soon after, i plasti dipped my bumpers and wheels (over the rust *cringe*), somehow ended up w a cone in the bed and also thought i was a cool guy with my patagonia an destin stickers on the back window. Overall just freshened up the look of the truck. Also if you look closely you can see where i removed the plastic bottom piece of my front bumper for a more rally ish kind of look. I'm not too sure why i believed it to be a good decision at the time but i guess we can conclude it looked "better".

 

i would daily that in a heartbeat, and your story makes it even better. awesome.

 

A better picture of the front end, also tinted the windows. Looks clean and crisp.

 

OKAY! sadly my old ipad hit the hay and its refusing to cooperate with my computer so i lost a lot of photos between the last photo and this video but, trust me, you didn't miss much lol. About a year ish has gone by and i finally convinced my parents to let me hone my acquired driving skills in my back field. It's an old horse pasture and my truck became a lawnmower as you can see how tall the grass was but i was having a ball and this is where talk of looking at lift kits came into play. I also mastered this lil corner i made i promise i didn't spin out everytime!!!! Also had a buddie bring his jeep just in case i got in too deep. Funny story it ended up catching on fire because too much grass got caught under his skidplate and the heat of the exhaust started a flame.....got put out before any damage was done but was a good scare.



(both had overheating problems)

 

I found some old photos. I met my match this day, pretty hosed and had to wait for a friend to pull me out which wasn't till the following day. I was pretty upset lol mud not my friend

Here is just some more old random photos, The school lineup every morning was interesting just know my truck was he easiest to park and yes i did wrap my truck in wrapping paper one christmas just cause and after a painstaking weekend of work just for it to be ruined by a day of rain i don't think ill be doing that ever again

 

The day everything changed. Story time: While riding around with my friend, (the chevy^) we were running errands to several local offroad shops for his truck and i started asking around about finding a lift for my truck. The shop i got in touch with i wont name but i began to get in contact with them on a regular basis and we closed in on a deal for a fabtech 3" lift that replaced the factory torsion bars in the front and includes a new UCA with an add a leaf for the rear. It was the most affordable option as the other choice was a 6" lift priced well over $1k that i had no way to afford and it redid the whole suspension setup altogether blah blah blah. Now the shop did nothing wrong i was left on my own to buy the wheels and tires and didn't pay attention to the fine print and bought 17 x 9 fuel hostage rims and wrapped them in 265/70r17 nitto ridgegrapplers which "fit" but my backspacing was about an inch off. So the shop told me they were not going to touch my truck from the get go because they told me the setup would not work as my tires were too big. understandable. So i packed up my corner of parts and $1200 tires that i couldn't return because they were already mounted and balanced and went home. I mocked up how they would look because i was so anxious trying to figure out what i was going to do being 17 and $2k in the hole. I ended up throwing in the towel and my parts pile occupied the corner of my garage for about a year.

 

my fairly new snow/mud rubber is drooling

i had to pass up a low-maintenance country road outside of the flooded area here the other day

what state is this in?

 

I got tired of looking at the wheels sitting in my garage. They were listed on craiglist since the day i got home but buyers were only interested in the tires and i wasn't going to not sell the wheels as a whole package because i just wanted everything gone. Toyota's 5 lug bolt pattern (5 x 4.5) steered away most buyers. They continued to sit. The fall of 2018 i was fed up, i convinced myself and my friends that we would make them fit. I got my buddies together and with absolutely no plan whatsoever we dedicated a weekend to put the lift on ourselves. A group of teenagers with no instructions and no mechanical knowledge of suspension geometry what could possibly go wrong? Well, we made numerous mistakes along the way and "wasted" a whole day taking the entire front end apart trying to put this there or that through that hole and just kept getting stuck. It took a while but it became apparent after watching several youtube videos that my truck simply didn't have any torsion bars period. The torsion bar setup i believe was introduced in the 1995.5 tacoma and not my 95 taco. A half of a year difference that caused a whole world of pain. The UCA included in the kit also, surprise surprise, didn't fit. 2 days of going at the front end from every angle we could and we came up with nothing. I am a normally chill guy but i was furious, tired, and lost. We were sitting on the garage floor staring at the truck in defeat. We put the tires on just cause we felt as if we had nothing to loose but to at least at full droop the truck looked perfect! if only it would stay that way. We messed around and slowly put the truck on its own weight and we came to the conclusion that maybe if we just took the fender off it wouldn't rub! So we got ideas. Soon after both fenders were removed along with the front bumper. The tires weren't rubbing.......only when pointed straight but it was a start. The front had clearance for miles but the rear quickly hit the footwells of the cab. Now it was getting late and we've seen online that people bang out fender wells to fit bigger tires before so why not. Why not. We got to hammering, it wasn't pretty and my neighbors probably didn't appreciate the loud banging in the middle of the night. We managed to turn the tires with minimal rubbing so we deemed it good enough for a test drive so we bolted up all 4 and drove to the gas station on the corner of my street and back. And it worked!!! It was functioning and it was a mess but we celebrated. We managed to fit the tires with no lift at all. No plan no nothing. I also took the opportunity to cut my muffler off because i wanted to be more aggressive sounding.




i apologize for the lack of pictures as im posting all of this after the fact but everything will be more in depth as the build continues.

 

i live in kentucky and own about 8 acres of a flat field i can do whatever on

 

I like it .

Get these and make those fenders and bumper fit. If it's rubbing on the firewall don't be afraid to beat it in with a hammer. If it splits just seal it back up with RTV

 

Dig it!

 

Yes lots of hammering had to be done on the firewall! The driver side turned out perfect but the passenger side did split and i attempted to seal it back up with all the wrong materials and i managed to to create a really bad leak that i can't find the source of . If i actually dedicated time to finding it I'm sure it would be an easy fix, it only floods my whole passenger side when it rains. Cutting the fenders!! That is my plan to go with in the near future but i plan on painting my truck when i do so so I've kind of waited till i get that situated and ready to go when i do. I had the same tool choice in mind that you used and they seem to have worked great. Thank you for the reply