Thread: Never ending tacoma build

So I have been trying to convince my friend Scott (T.C.TACOMA) to start up a build thread like I did for Reno. He doesn't spend a whole lot of time online so he told me to write one up for him. He may not even post up on here a whole lot, but I will try and keep updating as the progresses.

Scott and I (Curtis) have been going to the desert together for close to 10 years now. Back in 2005 we lost our good friend Tim, the 3 of us went on all of our desert trips together. After Tim passed I feel Scott and I became a lot closer. I started getting into prerunner trucks and began doing lots of research and collecting parts for my truck. Scott caught the disease and started to follow me. Scott however built his truck with the mentality of keeping the truck in the dirt and doing upgrades little by little (especially since this is his DD). This is something that I wish I too had done from the start, and would tell anybody the same thing looking to build a truck. Enough with the background, onto the truck.....

The truck is a 2000 Tacoma with a 3.4L v6, he originally got the truck back in 2002. When he first got the truck it had a doetsch tech coilover kit in the front and 33" tires on weld wheels. He at one point got rear ended and decided to have a roll pan installed on the truck and shaved his tailgate. At the time we were into custom trucks and went to a lot of truck shows. This however will end up helping with his build and come into play down the road.

After he got the prerunner itch he began collecting parts. The first thing he bought was a set of 8" Racerunner coilovers and held onto those for awhile. He also got a pair of glassworks 4.5" front fender that were already painted silver. Eventually he saved up enough for the Total Chaos Long Travel kit that he got directly through TC. We installed the kit and poly urethane bushing upgrade on the side of his house using a pretty minimal selection of tools. Looking back at these pictures I laughed my ass of at how fucking sketch the jackstands were. We took the truck to a friends shop and welded on TC spindle gussets and made the start of his bumper. He took the truck out to glamis for its maiden journey with the LT kit. He was stoked how well the front rode, but realized right away how much the stock rear sucked and started saving/collecting right away.








We started roaming all the classifieds and picked up a set of deaver F67 leafs, u-bolt plates, 16" Racerunner smoothbodies and a T100 rearend. He and I both got 32 gallon fuel cells from the group buy that HITMAN on DR put together years ago. He later went to TC and picked up the hangers, 12" shackles, shackle gussets and spring perches.

Since Scott was working with a very minimal budget we were forced to sell basically everything that we took off of his truck in order to fund the rest of it. And we literally sold every little piece, most of which we got high value for. We sold his bed/shaved tailgate for $800 and his stock rearend with electronic locker for $850. Items like this definitely helped fund a lot of his build.

We took the truck to our friend Dan's house in Lake Mathews and started tearing into it. This is about the time that our friend Reno also came into the picture. In fact me and Reno went and worked on Scott's truck one weekend while Scott was at some family reunion in Nebraska or some shit. He put a lot of trust in us considering it was our first build!

We stripped the frame down to nothing and then boxed the frame from the cab back, welded the hangers, shackle pivots and spring perches on the truck. We drove the truck up the street (with just the main leaf to the pack bolted up, thing sat low) to my grandparents house also in Lake Mathews and began working on the bedcage. We read the bedcage how to build on desertrides.com and used the board method. Drew arches at full bump and droop to determine where to mount the shock. Went to G&J aircraft in Ontario for extended brake line and all fuel cell lines. Plumbed the fuel cell using the stock internal fuel pump. When we finished the bedcage he drove the truck home using tie downs to hold the cell down. The next week we went to a friends shop and made some cell straps.

He drove around for a months after that with no bedsides. We decided that the 4.5" glassworks bedsides he had were not going to cut it with the wider T100 rear on it and the wide offset weld wheels. So he decided to go with the fiberwerx 8" bedsides.













After finishing up the rear Scott went out and used the truck a lot. The only problem he encountered with the kit while he owned it was that he bent one of the stock tie rods. Over the next few years he had a lot of smaller upgrades. He built a bumper, and mounted 4 hella black magic lights on it. He sold his 4.5" glassworks front fenders and got a set of Chad McNeil 6" fenders. Added a 4 pin Glassworks hood with scoop. Mounted some PRP seats to sliders that bolted to the factory mounts in the cab. I finally convinced him to ditch his old sub box so he would have room for camping gear since he no longer had a bed. He eventually also got rid of his weld wheels and got a set of KMC enduro's in a black finish. He went from a 15x8 with a large offset to a 15x7 with a smaller offset. This made his trackwidth shorten up a bit.

We scored a killer deal on a set of Fox double bypass shocks on RDC and he installed those using a the TC secondary shock hoop. This made a huge difference on the kits performance. He noticed the difference right away his first trip out. He and Reno later changed the valving around some and was able to get the shocks to work very well together.

He found a set of Racerunner 16" triple bypass shocks at the swapmeet one year and swapped those out for the smoothbodies. He also added a set of 2.0x4" Racerunner bumpstops in the rear. He traded his deaver F67 pack with desert_silverado from DR for his All-Pro 50T pack. And eventually he got the truck painted one color again.


[IMG}http://i92.photobucket.com/albums/l32/xjohnnyy5/taco/ocotilla.jpg[/IMG]










We found a Camburg Race kit in the DR classifieds for a pretty good price and Scott jumped on it. Sold the TC kit and bolted on the Camburg Race kit, while still utilizing the stock coil bucket.

The new Camburg kit runs wilwood 4 piston calipers up front so he had the stock front calipers laying around. He swapped them into the rear using bolt on brackets from ruffstuffspecialties.com.

After having the new kit on he took it out a few times and was very happy with the kit. He started to push the truck a lot harder with the assurance of the stronger hubs and components in the new kit. On one of these trips to Reno's place in Johnson Valley he ran into trouble with his bypass shock rubbing into his tires. The smaller offset wheels along with the addition of the bypass tubes meant there was a lot less clearance between the two. The first night we were there he blew through two tires and was forced to drive to Apple Valley to pick up a new tire. He took it easy on the truck the rest of the weekend and made it home.

That trip Reno, Scott and I came to the conclusion that he should have wheel spacers made. He ordered a set of 1.25" spacers that he had made both hub and wheel centric. He also had the spacers made to convert from the stock lug size to a 5/8" lug in order to match his front lugs. The spacers also helped the rear match closer to the width of the new wider front kit. On top of that it also gave him the clearance he needed for his bypasses to not rub anymore as well as helped fill the rear fenders like they had before.






Here are a few random shots of the truck out in the dirt....

DR Meet in Riverside


Pitting for friends at MORE Night Race


El Mirage


Glamis



Johnson Valley with Reno






We went out to Ocotillo Wells for New Years 2010/2011 and Scott got in an accident. Scott not being very familiar with Ocotillo was out driving around at night and he ran into a ditch that snuck up on him real quick. The rain that had come earlier that week had basically made a large rain rut and the drivers side of his truck took the blunt of the impact.. The drivers side frame got bent up a little bit and he cracked his steering rack (thank you autozone lifetime warranty!!). He took the truck to a body shop and had the frame straightened.

After the accident happened he couldn't be out of a vehicle to get him around so he bought an F250.

Now that he had a DD his original plan was to tear apart the Tacoma and build a cab cage and engine cage for it. On top of that he wanted to run longer shocks in the front in order to obtain the maximum potential out of his Race kit that his 8" shocks wouldn't let him get. However after doing lots of thinking he realized he wanted to be able to use the truck this season, and with the amount of time he had to devote that wouldn't be possible. He decided to just concentrate on the front. He is in the process of reinforcing the frame up front, running an engine cage, and running 2.5x12" Racerunner coilovers and triple bypass. This has already been started, but pictures are soon to come.

This truck is super clean I've seen it a
bunch driving around placentia

I think Ive seen it as well here in long beach near csulb / pch.... def a clean & well done truck , loook foward too seeing some updates

Itll never work

Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk

Nice!! Ive been waiting for this thread. I have some spy pictures Curtis. Im sure you have them to. I remeber when i met scott at school when his truck was lifted, had the roll pan and those subs haha Truck has come a long way. I think I caught the disease seeing scott truck transform.

What all did you guys do to swap the rearend from drums to disc's.

Sweet Build. Truck looks awesome,its come a long way. Especially the parts lol. I now own those 8" racerunners that he ran, and Nelson Matt Owns the Older TC Kit.

^^^^^Nice little peice of history haha. Trail gear make a rear disc kit. Not sure how this one is done. Wanna say a GM bracket of something?

Originally Posted by tacomaT

Nice!! Ive been waiting for this thread. I have some spy pictures Curtis. Im sure you have them to. I remeber when i met scott at school when his truck was lifted, had the roll pan and those subs haha Truck has come a long way. I think I caught the disease seeing scott truck transform.

Ya I have been going with him to help the past few months here and there so I have seen quite a bit of it. Trying to get all the new pictures together so I can post up where we stand on the project now.

Originally Posted by dirtsentinel650

What all did you guys do to swap the rearend from drums to disc's.

Basically took the drums off then ground down the axle flange on the axles so that the front rotors would fit over. Bolted on the brackets and bolted the calipers on. Here are a couple of links that show some pretty good pictures of the install. We used the "redneck lathe" method like posted in the second link and it worked great. Only problem was that you had to smell the exhaust the whole time we were grinding.

While searching for these links I read somewhere that ruffstuff stopped making these yet again. When we ordered our brackets the description on there website said that they were back after being gone for a few years. Anyways I looked on their site and sure enough they don't show up. Bummer because the install was fairly easy with only minor modifications needed. Maybe you can talk Dan at ruffstuff into making these again.

I also saw that Sky Manufacturing makes a conversion kit, but it uses some GM calipers.

LT 4x4 04 double cab - Page 4 - TTORA Forum

Rear disc brakes on the Cheap - TTORA Forum

love this truck. and yes, scott's old TC kit lives on my truck

This is such clean truck, I remember seeing this a long time and wanting more details on it and here it is!

Originally Posted by HnM Expy

Ya I have been going with him to help the past few months here and there so I have seen quite a bit of it. Trying to get all the new pictures together so I can post up where we stand on the project now.



Basically took the drums off then ground down the axle flange on the axles so that the front rotors would fit over. Bolted on the brackets and bolted the calipers on. Here are a couple of links that show some pretty good pictures of the install. We used the "redneck lathe" method like posted in the second link and it worked great. Only problem was that you had to smell the exhaust the whole time we were grinding.

While searching for these links I read somewhere that ruffstuff stopped making these yet again. When we ordered our brackets the description on there website said that they were back after being gone for a few years. Anyways I looked on their site and sure enough they don't show up. Bummer because the install was fairly easy with only minor modifications needed. Maybe you can talk Dan at ruffstuff into making these again.

I also saw that Sky Manufacturing makes a conversion kit, but it uses some GM calipers.

LT 4x4 04 double cab - Page 4 - TTORA Forum

Rear disc brakes on the Cheap - TTORA Forum

Thanks for the links, the moron in the second link doesn't give real clear instructions or pictures but between the two I figured it out. I have the sky manufacturing brackets and I'm gonna go that route. Thanks again,

Mike

....

We've been working on the truck the past few months on the weekend. Scott decided to keep the core support so we didn't have to remount headlights, grill, radiator, hood and fenders. He ditched the AC because it was completely in the way and cut a big hole in the firewall so there's room for the bypass. We reinforced the frame up front, and cut most of the coil bucket off. Double sheered the upper arm mounts and gusseted it in. Ran pretty much all of the tubes in the engine bay, made mounts for the coilovers and bypasses. Still have a lot to do, but we have a pretty good start on it. The drivers side is definitely a lot harder to work on dealing with the brakes and steering being in the way. That and we cut out everything in the way on the passenger side.

Plan is to build the engine cage entirely then remove it and weld it all up 360. While the cage is out we will cut holes in the firewall for the cab cage and close up the gaping hole that the AC left. Have plans to do a few other things while the cage is out of the truck too.

Next couple things we plan to tackle is figuring out all the tabs needed for mounting fuse box, reservoirs, intake, etc. Basically want to finish most of the engine cage before we take it out to weld everything. Oh and also figuring out what to do about the brakes since the booster was completely in the way and had to go.

Originally Posted by HnM Expy

With all the gusseting you guys did why not just lop off the coil bucket and run two more vertical plates where the heims are and just have 2 bolts instead of that long one? just my .02 seems like a whole lot of work to keep the bucket in there

Originally Posted by dirtsentinel650

With all the gusseting you guys did why not just lop off the coil bucket and run two more vertical plates where the heims are and just have 2 bolts instead of that long one? just my .02 seems like a whole lot of work to keep the bucket in there

We are actually going to cut the tube in the middle of the coil bucket and run two smaller bolts. The coil bucket will be plated in some more too, waiting for the cage to come out to do that.

Oh nice. this build reminds me of mine keep up the good work

Hydro boost break system will work dandy

Sent from god

awesome build!

what did you guys step up to, 10" or 12" shocks?

Shocks are 12s

Awesome yota man!! That camburg race kit is Sweet... and nice way to cram up all the good stuff in the first page!!

This pos will never work.

Originally Posted by 714 Redneck Ranger

This pos will never work.

Thats what I'm saying....

Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk

sweet whip greg.

Originally Posted by T.C.TACOMA

sweet whip greg.

You swore you wouldn't tell

Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk

Got the brakes figured out. Decided to go with a 7" Dual Diaphragm Booster. They are commonly found on hotrods or lowered trucks that are limited in space to work with.




After the brake booster was figured out and mounted then everything else got mounted like fuse box, charcoal canister and eliminated a bunch of wires.



Once pretty much everything was mounted the engine cage got pulled out so that everything could be welded completely around. While it was out the cab got plated back up and cut holes in the firewall so it won't be such a pain in the ass to cut out later when the cab cage comes.

a little triangulation wouldn't hurt ...

another beautiful taco...

Originally Posted by jodaddy23

a little triangulation wouldn't hurt ...

i see two triangles... and a hexagon

Open to suggestions, it's just that everything is pretty damn tight. There is not a whole lot of room to add anything else.

i do belive im in love with this truck haha..

So this is where your truck has been. Nice!

Not bashing any idears here, but take into consideration the thickness if the extra long break rod you will need to get to the pedal. You might wind up with some deflection and maybe even bending it. Or, I'm just overthinking... Either way it does look bitchen

Originally Posted by jodaddy23

a little triangulation wouldn't hurt ...

Its fine its not a basic shock hoop its a basic engine cage that will be tied in later way stronger then any stock coilover mount