Rookie to Wrenching

Howdy to everyone!

First of all, thanks to everyone for sharing their knowledge here, and sorry for the long intro. I've been a forum lurker ever since I met my girlfriend (now wife). She owned the Tacoma, so I married her to get away from my Pontiac Grand Am.

I'm a bit anxious to make the jump to forum member from lurker, but mostly that's because it looks like I might finally be able to get serious about wrenching as a hobby. We've had our '97 Tacoma SR5 for 10 years, ran the clock to 225K miles, and driven it from the Oregon Coast to Moab to Durango to Detroit. Now we're about to have our second kid this November, which means we need another 4 door vehicle to take some of the pressure off our '05 Suby Legacy Wagon. Luckily for us, we'll soon be able to get our hands on a 3rd Gen 4Runner, which will take over the daily driver role from our Tacoma.

I've got a little bit of experience working on our Tacoma, but it's mostly limited to oil changes and routine maintenance. The most intensive thing I've done on it is swap the radiator out. Now that I don't have to daily drive it, I'd love to turn it into a project and get a little more experience with car repair, maintenance, and modification. We've been wanting a camper/overland vehicle for a while; I'd love to see what projects other people have done to their Tacomas to get some ideas (or, if we figure it's not worth it to start a project, look into putting it on the market).

Ideally, I'd like to put a rack on it to carry a canoe/fishing kayak and also have a sleeping area; I've got nothing but time to work on this thing now.

Thanks for your ideas and help in the future!

TL;DR: I'm a total newb and rookie, my Tacoma has just graduated from daily driver to project car, I'll need help.

 

Welcome to TW...Lots of good info on here, hide the wallet

 

Hell of a post!!

 

Welcome to the club!Bank account possibly dwindling away!