What have you done to your Tacoma today? 1st Gen Edition

Treated the garage queen to a tank of 93 octane from the local Sunoco. $2.51/ gallon. Should last a while since it’s not my DD and i can’t drive anywhere anyhow with this damn covid zombie apocalypse

 

$1.65 at Shell today. When I left CA it was just under $5. It really is crazy how much more expensive it is to live there.

 

Why are you wasting money on 93 octane?

 

I do it too. Only non-ethanol around here is 91 in vt, all my engines but the diesels get it 93 in MA or when traveling.

I know it is sort of a waste, but I feel like its a treat for the truck being a good boy.

 

It’s like spending money on ice cream. Do I need ice cream? No. It’s a treat. Do I feel even better about it of it’s on sale? F yeah. When I saw the price on the pump I figured why not. It was less than I was paying for 87 octane a couple weeks ago and my butt dyno says the truck runs better.

 

Knocked out a bunch of little stuff today:
-new cup holder tabs
-oil change
-Cleaned the hell out of my center console while swapping tabs (it was gross underneath)
-adjusted the auto linkage to take up front to rear play in the shifter. Shifter is rock solid now!
-Installed a bpv bracket I had laying around
-sealed cracked airbox, will order a new one at some point
-installed new airbag switch blank to re-mount my Ram mount to
-vacuumed/cleaned entire interior


Next weekend will be:
-new oem LBJ’s
-new oem outer tie rods
-remove sway bar
-new steering rack bushings

 

Were did you get the airbag switch blank??

 

Right Toyota I think is where I ordered it, part # is 55524-04010. I have a double cab so I never had the switch, have my phone mount screwed into it.

I broke the original one on accident when doing my cb install, caught my hand on the mount and ripped the whole blank out. Freak thing really, otherwise this mounting point/equipment has been SOLID.

 

How long have you had the mount? I've had mine about a year and the ball split and feel off, still works fine though.

 

About 6 months, aside from me hulk smashing the original setup it’s been great

 

Thanks man !!! You rock

 

So you just screwed your ram mount into the corners of the blank? I have been thinking about doing this, but didn't think it would hold the mount and phone without pulling out or breaking.....

 

Made room for much more tire.

 

Mojave East (Mar 2020)

Preface
You'll note pretty quickly that this trip took place right near the beginning of what has become a worldwide Covid-19 pandemic. At the time of the trip, there had been approximately 600 cases and 24 deaths across the USA. 18 of those deaths were from the Life Care assisted living community in Kirkland, WA. Schools at all education levels were still open, and while some companies were starting to allow employees to work from home, it was not widespread, and definitely not mandated. There were no travel restrictions - or even really talk of such restrictions on a broad scale - in place. We were healthy, and hadn't had any high-risk contacts.

I say this to give some perspective, since things have clearly changed since then.

Day 1
Leaving home for adventure was a little different this time. Looking back now, as we headed south out of the Seattle area, we were leaving behind what would turn out to be one of the early epicenters of the Covid-19 outbreak, just before more info on the severity would come to light and large-scale cancellations and closures would become part of our world's lives. This was a trip like no other - and not because it would be full of amazing hikes and petroglyphs galore!

Read the full story, and see all the photos in...

Mojave East (Mar 2020) Part 1







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Didn't need to cut the body mount?

 

took of the stock bed liner that came with the truck I noticed this "small" pin hole in my bed probably caused because of the massive amounts of crap I found nestled under the bed liner Used some good oll rust converter on it, next step is to wire wheel it down and try and find a piece of scrap metal to weld over the top, maybe sandwich a second piece below it?, Its right by the wheel well. I mean there's nothing else much I can do right? I don't want to keep it open as Im trying to get a camper shell for the truck so I wont have to worry as much about water coming thought the top. Other then that also rust converted any open rust I happened to find near the rear springs and rear frame. At this point Im just finding things to do to the truck that are low cost or I already have the parts. hope all are well!

 

clean tub job!

 

So far it’s been solid, the two clips on the back are fairly beefy and positive when they click in.

I tried to keep the arm as short as possible to keep the leverage down as well.

Here’s the broken one so you can see the tab size

 

No. Full lock and full bump clears body mount, plus I still have adjustment in my spc control arms to pull tires forward.

 

Damn why do I feel like I'm the only one that needed to do that.