Restoring a Filched Tundra

I've always wanted one of these trucks for some time!

It's not my first project truck when I was living in California I had a 1975 F-250 Highboy man that was a one sweet truck it had a 390 bored .30 over 427 crank with 428 heads Edlebrock intake and carb, divorced NP205 T case, High pinion Dana 40 in the front with a bra and 60 in the rear I do miss that truck, but we had to get out of California its not what it used to be.
So we moved out here to IN to meet the other side of the family, meh.. they are not a family originated bunch tbh. It's been nice here in the sticks in Indiana the kids really do enjoy the FFA school out here, but they do miss seeing their grand parents more often then they have so we plan to move back to the west, but up a state and needed something that can tow because starting over sucks.

After some time I found a rust free tundra! It really is the Rust Belt over here.
It's a 2007 Tundra with 209k miles on it I am the 3rd owner well technically 5th, but the last 2 were dealer owners. 4th had it for 2k miles and performed 2 alignments I think reason why maybe the needle bearing on the front driver side I understand they are notoriously noisy.

You can tell the first owner really loved this truck from the history they had it for about 180k miles. barely broken in haha. I sold the 97 4runner I had with 380k miles on it before me it was owned by a toyota mechanic and it ran smooth 380k miles.

The CF said the Tundra came from the Tacoma WA area and ended up being brought to the east where the 2nd owner had it for about 20k miles in Schaumburg IL then they let go it made its way to Lafayette IN and into my hands.

It's in bit of rough shape it had a tick and quite a few of parts were filched even some head rests were missing, the jack and wrench along with all the bits to drop the spare tire and spare is toast btw. It sat around in a yard for a wile before it was sold the tires got flat at one point so there is some rot in some areas.

The more I work on it the more I learn about it and oftentimes I wonder if the second owner took a bunch of parts to make ends meet? You can tell it had a topper and air bag suspension at one time it would explain the filching of bits and pieces around the truck.

 

Fixed the tick using the metal strap trick I've seen other people have done around the forums.

 

I could use some help if possible in identifying what airbag suspension was on the truck.

 

Looks like the Firestone air bag kit I put on mine

 

Welcome!

 

What’s the metal strap trick?

 

HAHA!! it's not that type of a strap trick Zapp.

 

What's the metal strap for?

 

Oh mybad, so in the first picture you can see the carbon deposits forming on the air injection manifold bracket that meets the air injection bracket tubing and I read that the manifold tube is susceptible to warping and it was a common occurrence.

So the trick is to use a metal strap to better mate the air injection manifold tube to the bracket thus fixing the tick.
I used WD-40 for a couple of days on the bolts and I worked on it when it a little warm because stripping the bolts would be the worst case scenario.

If I was a rich man I would do the air injection delete and get some sweet headers, but this $5 fix was sufficient!

 

Bought some new tires today and I've never bought new tires, ever!

I've always bought used, but used tire shops are few and far between here in Indiana and after hrs of research trying to get the best outta the buck I learned that you can get top tier tires in just a different name.. yeah it's a knockoff, but its the same exact mold.. youknow?

Thunderer looks like some Nitto's. Mastercraft and Crosswind looks a lot like some Coopers. LEAO Lion Sport looks like they make some Toyo lookalikes.
Accelera almost looks like a BFG.
Kenda is another Nitto lookalike same with Centennial.
Ironman all country looks like nittos open country or there is Mazama Open Range.
Fuzion has some of the Firestone molds. Riken or Husky has some Michellen molds.
Falken under a cheaper brand name is Arturo! or Deantires! or Pirelli Scorpion Mazama, Sumitomo.
So many cheaper alternatives under a different name and after I've done all this research I see them around now.

I ended up getting tires that have been recapped by tirerecappers
unfortunately they don't have any recapped tires in the aspect ratio 65, but they had some 70's because I guess it's more of a semi truck thing to use retreads?

Also I think there is a thread dedicated to 275/70R18's ?


I am excited for some BFG lookalikes!

 

Bad move on my part?

 

I understand tires are ridiculously expensive, but I would never trust a re-treaded tire. But maybe its just me.

 

Yeah I am reading some horror stories on here, I might just change my mind on them.

 

You would be better off trying to find some lightly used tires in the size/aggressive look you want, instead of risking these things coming apart at highway speed. Good luck on whatever decision you make.

 

I second the thinking that your airbag kit was a Firestone brand one. I have a Airlift brand and its brackets are a bit different. Plus I know Firestone come with red air hose and mine came with black.

 

I concur that the truck must have had a Firestone ride rite at one time due to the red air hose lines.

How is the airlift btw I was looking at that yesterday and was considering getting it.

 

I had to cancel my order after reading all the horror stories last night it seemed like a good idea at first, but I will be on the hwy towing cross country with my family next year and I can't afford a blowout. I'll just pick up some used ones off fleabay nbd.

 

Check the Marketplace, wheels and Tires on this forum.

 

Good call! I'm looking into the Wheels and Tires forum now and it would be a lot easier if these guys would put the city and state in the headline or if they sold it put it in the headline not in the thread smdh.

 

So far so good on the airlift brand. The ride seems unaffected but I only run 10 psi per bag for daily driving. This is my second truck with airlift springs, I ran them for years on my last truck, a 2500hd, and have never had a problem one with them.

 

Welcome from CO. My Firestone airbags with Daystar cradles have been excellent.

 

Has anyone else had any problems with the Trico brand?

I picked up a couple of ultra wiper blades from them and out the box they were bouncing and after a couple of weeks I'm starting to see some streaking so I contacted support about it the other day they asked for my info and told me they will send out 2 boxes for each side there will be 4 in each box.

I got them in today, but idk if should I bother I've never had new wiper blades be like this out the box, but you know it could have been part of a bad batch hence why they sent out a pack of them.

Has anyone else had any issue with wiper blades?

 

New Tires! First time getting new new treads!

 

Swapped out the gas pedal today for the 0440C because there was no steady acceleration and it seemed to jump sometimes after a stop
.

Wile I was in that general area I seen a wire to a Tekonsha.

I was also testing out the parking break which does need adjusting, but when I was testing out the parking break a little box fell down at first I thought was a fuse box and thought oh great something else needs fixing.
After a little researching it turned out to be a remote start, but the function wasn't working at first the lights would continuously blink with no function?

After disconnecting the battery and waiting ten minutes to reconnect it everything seems to be working as intended!

 

After a bunch of research I found out that I needed to clean and buff out everything that was on the windshield from contaminants and water etched into the windshield.

All I used was some Invisible Glass, a few micro fiber cloths, meguiars compound and a basic buff pad nothing special and after some time the windshield was looking clean asf.

Put on the new wiper blades and no more chattering from the wiper blades!

 

Using Cosmoline

 

Should have changed the oil myself! They gave the the incorrect quote for an oil change smdh and I asked about the Zerks on the U-Joints if they can service those to, but they were convinced my truck didn't come with serviceable U-Joints. Went under the truck today and found Serviceable U-Joints a totals of 5 Zerks!

I cleaned them off and hopefully get those serviced along with getting my new tire replaced Tire Barn said the thread coming out of my tire was just cosmetic so I contacted Cooper tires and they said that it should be replaced immediately because there could be something internal and lead to something catastrophic.