PennSilverTaco's "Perfect 5-Lug Regular Cab" Build, Aspergers, and General BS MegaThread!

That's what she said!!!! ​

 

A story of two First Gens...

First, the story of my uncle's red '02 PreRunner...

This was a time when used cars were in particularly high demand, and my dad had been getting hounded by the dealership where we bought the 2010 RC I still have, saying they'd buy it back from him for top dollar. At about this same time, my uncle had this low-mileage '02 AC that he wanted to get rid of. He had https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/this-truck-deserves-its-own-thread-repost.475963/ and didn't need two trucks, and he wanted to give his older brother an opportunity for the "family discount" before selling the truck at full market value. This truck was older than the RC I still have, but it had numerous things my RC lacked...

1. Intermittent wipers (which as of December 2016 my truck does finally have)
2. Power windows and locks
3. Rear space that, while being totally useless as a backseat, was perfect for stashing a backpack or a high-powered subwoofer...

My dad and I both test drove my uncle's red '02 Prerunner and liked it, but ultimately decided to keep the 2010 (my dad even paid off the 2010 a year or so early).

Jim's white '03 RC 5-lug...

and the only thing I really do remember about that truck is that it was really warm one time I drove it. I always have been and always will be a prolific A/C user, and I remember cranking the A/C in Grandpa's friend Jim's '03 Taco and thinking it wasn't cold enough. By comparison, the A/C in all of my parents' three vehicles ('96 Pathfinder, '02 BMW 3-series convertible, '04 Honda Odyssey minivan, respectively) would numb your fingers. I commented to Jim that his A/C needed a charge, he didn't particularly seem to care, and we subsequently spent that driving lesson with the windows down. Also, it's not like I blatantly drove without a license...

I got my learner's permit for the first time in December 2005, about three months before I turned 17. What my parents and I failed to realize was that a Pennsylvania learner's permit is only valid for year, even though the length of validity is actually printed on the physical permit. If you renew on or before the expiration date, there's no problem. The DMV just prints you out another learner's permit that's good for a year, and I don't think you even have to pay anything. The cost of a learner's permit includes the cost of a driver's license, which was about $30 in 2005. My first learner's permit expired in December 2006, but my parents continued to give me driving lessons until well into 2007. It was not until I happened to look at my permit one day in about April '07 and notice that my learner's permit had expired about 4 months earlier.

This did not stop my Grandma's friend Jim from taking me up to the Stabler Arena parking lot and giving me driving lessons in his truck. By this time, he'd decided he wanted a bigger truck, given the '03 Tacoma to his son, and purchased a 2007 GMC Sierra Classic 1500 ('99-'06 body style, but MY07) with the 4.3L V6. Unlike the A/C in the '03 Taco, the A/C in that Sierra absolutely cranked. Jim still has the Sierra, by the way. I'd buy it from him if he ever wanted to sell it...

So, due to DMV bureaucratic bullshit, I found out in the summer of '07 that even though I'd passed the learner's permit test on the first try back in '05 and had any car-related incidents while my parents were giving me driving lessons, I'd have to take the computer test again and my parents would have to pay the $30 or so again.

 

The good news here is that I was 18 now and thus legally an adult, so I wasn't subject to the same rules as 16-17 year olds! I could technically sign up for the driving test the day I got my permit (though due to demand, wait time to take the test is typically a month or so from the date you sign up). However, the summer of '07 was very busy. My parents rented a house in Doylestown from one of my dad's Navy buddies from July '05 to July '07. In 2007, my dad's friend decided to sell the house, and since my parents had no desire to actually buy the place from him, we had to move. In April 2007, my parents signed a contract on a brand new Toll Brothers townhouse about 10 minutes from the place in Doylestown, in Buckingham Township (specifically the tiny little "town" of Furlong). When my parents officially signed on the Furlong house, the foundation had been poured and the first floor was in place, but the actual house had not been framed yet. Toll Brothers estimated that the house would be completed by the end of summer. So, we moved out of the Doylestown house in July '07, all of our furniture and most of our belongings were put into storage, and we ended up staying at Grammy's place in Bethlehem for the entire summer (a lot of fun that was...NOT!).

While I probably could have gotten away with using the address of the Doylestown house on a new learner's permit (My aunt works for the CDC and currently lives in Kenya, but in addition to holding a Kenyan driver's license, she also recently renewed her Georgia driver's license with the address of a house in the Atlanta suburbs that she sold almost two years ago!), but things were just too hectic. I was incredibly pissed at myself and my parents for literally neglecting to read the fine print, and pissed at the DMV guy for being such a douche (more on that later), and I also didn't feel like taking the test again. I was fresh out of high school, and ended spending the next few months in solitude, playing my PS2 in the bedroom of my parents' beautiful new house. My dad bugged me for almost two years to get my learner's permit again, and said that he really wanted to teach me how to drive. He even enticed me by saying that he'd give me the '96 Pathfinder (as in sign the title over to me), and I really wanted to get my license, but I just couldn't find the motivation. I had my parents and my cousin Lanae (who'd gotten her license at 16) to drive me everywhere, and I didn't have a full-time job or much of a social life, so I really wasn't motivated. Then, my cousin Sara (Lanae's younger sister who is 3 years younger than the two of us) turned 16 in March 2008 and got her driver's license six months later. I was a bit jealous, and I probably would have gotten my learner's permit in the summer of 2008 if it weren't for one little thing...

In May or June 2008, I had an accident involving a laundry hamper and a Sony digital camera while running down the hall of my parents' house and fractured my right radial head (Translation: I broke my elbow). The fracture was not severe enough that I had to wear a cast, but I was in a sling for about a third of the summer and prohibited by the orthopedist from driving a car. Even after my arm healed in early July, I was still had no motivation to get a driver's license...

Then, in January 2009, something wonderful happened! I was accepted into the Coffeehouse Center of Bucks County, a group for young adults with Asperger's Syndrome, and I made a ton of friends in a matter of a few months. Most of my new friends had driver's licenses, and few of those with licenses had their own vehicles. I grew tired of being driven everywhere by my parents, my cousin, and some occasions my new friends, and I finally started studying the driver's manual again. On the third try, in August 2009, I finally got my learner's permit!

My dad's '96 Pathfinder by then was 13 years old, and while it was in excellent shape and very reliable, it had over 110K miles and starting to become a bit of a money pit...

Like I said, the old Pathy was very reliable (one of the best vehicles we've ever owned, and it still holds the record for the longest amount of time my parents have held onto any vehicle at thirteen years, with my Tacoma mere months away from my mom's '04 Odyssey at nine years and being in second place). However, it failed inspection for the very first time in 2007 for reasons my dad can't remember (I believe a hole in the muffler, and the muffler which was not a cheap fix). The A/C blew cold, and everything you'd expect to break, like the cruise control and heated seats, still worked. My only complaint about the Pathfinder was that it didn't have an AUX input for my iPod. It came from the factory with a 6-speaker CD stereo, and the factory head unit started acting weird and overheating in '03. My dad had a Sony Xplod CD player installed in May 2003, and while the Sony did not have any problems, my dad didn't like it because the buttons were too small. In '05, my dad bought an Alpine CD player with more intuitive buttons at Circuit City and had it installed there. I ended up selling the Sony Xplod to a foreign couple at a garage sale, and my parents were so happy I'd cleaned out the house that they let me keep all the money from the garage sale (I sold the CD player for like $30). This foreign couple had an early 90's Nissan Hardbody, which has the same stereo slot as a '96 Pathfinder, so it was an easy sell.

In '09, when I got my learner's permit, the Pathfinder still had the Alpine receiver. Though they were not the upgraded Bose speakers, my dad's Pathfinder's factory 6-speaker system was still pretty decent. I just asked my dad to buy me a new stereo with an iPod hookup, and instead he bought me a whole new truck, so I am not complaining!

 

Too many dang commercials on Hulu. I watched Hulu as it gradually went from 15-second commercials to 3-4 minute commercials, and then I gave up.

 

I'm pissed at the commercials too, but right now I'm on a South Park binge!

 

So, it looks like I'm gonna be getting the caliper covers as a birthday present!

I saw them on an Impala in a parking lot and it reignited my interest!

 

Congrats dude!

 

Though I'm probably gonna have to pay the extra $75 to have "TACOMA" etched into them...

Should I have TACOMA etched in silver?

 

@Iamraiderpower

What do you think of Chevy S10s and GMC Sonomas/S-15s?

They are second only to the Tacoma as my favorite "small" pickup truck!

 

The Syclone is a favorite of mine or an S10 LS swapped

 

I'm gonna start a thread in General Automotive to showcase all of my S-10 pics! I've got plenty of pics of V8 swaps and Syclones! Also got some Typhoons!

 

Typhoons are pretty neat little rigs too

 

Problem with Typhoons and Syclones is you can't town with them...

You're better off doing an LS swap!

 

But AWD is mo betta!

 

For a street truck, but I want something V8-powered I can take off-roading!

A 302/5-speed and 3.42 posi in a 1990 Ford Bronco II would be fun!

 

@Iamraiderpower

You keep saying that Emily is a narcissist, but why do you think she kept targeting me when I was nothing but nice to her?

 

@Iamraiderpower
@ChadsPride
@LocoLocal
@Jamesboy2233

People with mental problems and certain intellectual disabilities make me uncomfortable. There you go...

I SAID IT!

I have a relative in my family who has bipolar disorder, and one of my friends has it too, but blood (and friendship) is thicker than water (and politics, and just about everything else out there).

There are quite a few group homes and section 8 apartment buildings in my area. A few of these people with mental problems have driver's licenses and their own vehicles, but most do not have licenses. However, there are plenty of options available to them. These include Uber, Lyft, Bucks County Transport, the #55 SEPTA bus, and a large local taxi company...

I do not have a problem with these people themselves, and I can't help but feel a bit sad for them and their situation...

What I have a problem with is that a lot of these people seem to gravitate towards me. I have no idea why...

In Doylestown it's to be expected, but in the spring of 2016 I encountered one such individual at a car show in the middle of nowhere (how the hell did he get there?). I was trying to take pictures of a custom lowered Chevy S-10, and this 30-something guy who obviously wasn't all there approaches me and demands to know why the truck was so low to the ground...

He wasn't trying to be an aggressive, and he obviously couldn't help it, but he just kept following me around the truck trying to engage me in conversation about it (It wasn't my truck and I could barely understand him).

It just made me uncomfortable...

 

Yes, but there are people trained to help them...

Approaching some random guy at a car show is not the way to do it...

Don't even get me started on the social worker who brings his intellectually disabled clients to my bar and let's them get drunk!

 

That's a good one...

One time one of his clients, a 20-something guy with low-functioning autism (I have Aspergers; there's a huge difference) did something to me that would have earned him a black eye, a bloody nose, and/or a few missing teeth if he'd done it to anybody but me...

 

It was May 2017, and it was Wednesday so it was open mic night.

I wasn't even drinking. I was having a Beck's non-alcoholic beer. Of note is the fact that I was wearing a zip-up hooded sweatshirt, unzipped with the hood down...

I was chatting with my friends and sipping my "fake beer," and all of sudden someone comes up behind me and pulls the hood of my sweatshirt over my head. All of my friends and coworkers know it is not a good idea to come up behind me or otherwise startle me.

I spun around and standing there was this short overweight little dweeb with a stupid grin on his face...

I glare at him and say "What the hell'd you do that for?!?!" All he can do is laugh, and the aforementioned social worker (who I did actually know at that point, but not by name) intervenes by apologizing time and leading his intoxicated autistic client away. He then approaches me without the autistic dude and apologizes, using the guy's autism and the fact that he'd been drinking as excuses. I'm technically "autistic," I've gotten way more drunk than that kid was that night, and I manage to control my impulses, so I was not feeling much sympathy. I told the social worker it was fine, and he got the message and walked away. That was not the end of it though...

The social worker brought this same client over to me outside the bar and he apologized. I accepted the kid's apology, and then told him point blank why he couldn't do what he he'd done to me, especially in a bar...

I told him that while I was pissed at him at first, I was a friendly and understanding guy with good self control. Most people at a bar would not as nice and if he did that to the wrong person he was likely to get his ass kicked. The social worker agreed with me, and the autistic kid stumbled into an Uber...