So here is the taco I bought for my GF.
Specs: 1999 Tacoma, 5speed, 121k miles, Ford kingpin 60 up front with 5.38's and a spool, trussed 14bolt rear with a Detroit and 5.38's, brand new 35" Nitto Trail Grapplers on H2's, bobbed bed. OME Dakar leafs up front, 63's in the rear, Deouchtech Shocks (Douchetech, they suck, need replacing) $6500.
Picked it up in Nevada last month. It's been a bit ridiculous to get this thing dialed in but I'm still happy with the purchase - or, I will be LOL. My friends are calling it the "Dried Up Bloody Taco", and I'm also calling it "Needs Nothing!" because that's what it stated in the ad. LOL
Here's the apparent definition of "Needs Nothing!" and what I have had to do to it in the past month...
Timing belt/water pump (water pump pulley bearing was bad and nothing had ever been replaced)
New radiator. This guy must've let this truck sit for a long time. Overheated on us 8 times on the way back to Chico.
He installed a ram and drilled and tapped for hydro assist, yeah it works, except he never swapped in a bigger pump, the OEM pump could not keep up, so you would lose steering at times. So I installed a new 1600psi PSC pump with the big gangster reservoir. Steers excellent now. For some reason the PO had the bright idea of mounting the steering cooler UNDER the front bumper completely exposed.....yeah.... that needs to be changed. Also the PO used a flux core welder to weld the steering ram onto the pumpkin...that's cracked.
The bumpers and sliders.....hardcore hackjob. They are all getting chopped off and it's getting a full cage done very nicely.
There is no front driveshaft. He could not tell me why, but no big deal to me. Looking more at the truck when I got home, there never was a driveshaft. The front crossmember is untouched, so someone SAS'd the truck, but never put in a driveshaft. Ok. Now I look at the 60. It's smiling at me. So what is really in this KP 60? Has a blown drivers side hub too. Makes me wonder if there is even a spool or 5.38's in it. Whatever, I will get to that after I drop the axle and have it re-tubed!! LOL it's bent on the long and short sides.
Diff fluid in the 14 bolt is black. That is getting changed asap.
Cyl1 Misfire, so I just did plugs and wires.
Fighting the truck to get smogged, it will pass fine, but OBD2 says "not associated" because the ECU hasn't relearned the gearing, so I'm doing a drive cycle to get it to register. But it's annoying because drive cycle states "Drive 55mph for 3min, then 35-45mph open throttle for 15min." That is harder than it looks with traffic and stop lights!! lol 15 min is a long time to drive 35mph straight without slowing down. I think I found a farm road I can do this on today. And this has to be done with the OBD2 showing how fast the engine thinks we are going which is all over the place.
ANYWAY. Once everything is all gravy and to my liking it will be awesome and treat us well for a long time.
Future plans - duals. That's about it right now lol. Getting this truck dialed and she can drive it for a while til my re-build is done then I'll start throwing money back into it for her. I really want to link it in the future just using a 4WU kit.