06 Build

Lined the bed and she turned out beautiful. I was very happy w the work.

 

oh you goin' crazy eh? nice. Excited to what the progress

 

yea... this gets waaaaay out of hand

 

Well hell as along as the bed is off sandblast the truck and paint it.

Does look good.

they found some leaks that needed attention and a carrier bearing that needed replaced.

What was originally a simple project had gotten 3x bigger as well as the cost....

 

This is the lift kit I ended up purchasing

My son and I were going to install it. He is a newly wed and the timing never worked out. After several weeks I found a mechanic I liked to install it.

After, watching him drag out several thousand dollars worth of tools to get it apart I was grateful I let him do it. There was rust and it did not come apart with our persuasion.

 

New UCA
Tie rod ends
Lower ball joints

all installed
I thought while it was apart we would make it happy.

When it came time for alignment the LCA bushings were seized up.....so another surprise I needed new LCA

 

dust plate on this side was rusted to pieces and gone.

 

These were bigger than I expected

 

It's interesting that your frame/exhaust/rest of truck look pretty rust free but the front axle and suspension are rusted hard

 

Yes on the Frame .....I looked up the vin on the Toyota site and the sub frames had been replaced I think in 2014 as well as the LCA. Maybe the frame was cleaned up and preserved then. The LCA bushings were still froze up not allowing for adjustment. The rest of the truck had a lot of surface rust. We have had no broken bolts and it was come apart reasonable well. Everything has cleaned up well at this point. The rear differential had a couple of pin holes we welded shut and the rest of it is solid.

 

This is an Adventure truck and reliability is essential we replaced everything. Calipers, rotors, had a brake line not happy and seeping.

it’s Happy now.

 

new bump stops

 

First 3 pieces of the skid row armor.....I like these plates they are significant. Will add the transfer case armor at some point.

 

Went w a 17” wheel and a 285/70/16. I was under the impression that these would clear my frame. I think I have a -12 offset on my wheels I need to confirm that my son was in charge of the wheel/tire effort. But no, it runs a tiny bit on the frame and the mud flaps. We raised the front a bit and will remove the mudflaps. I can’t tolerate it rubbing. I addition, we added 1.25” spacers that should clear everything.

 

Stock wheels w lift

 

O

Odin has been enjoying the process.

 

replaced all the belts and the timing belt. It had the original timing belt in it.

in addition to water pump and related parts.

I have gone back with all OEM parts. Hopefully there’s A lot of Adventure left in this Truck. She’s gonna be fresh when we are finished.

 

Cleaned up nicely

 

Let’s see the new shoe setup on it

 

Had the brakes gone over in this truck a yr ago when I bought it. They never worked well. I was told it was the nature of this truck. I noticed when I pulled a boat i had to be damn carful it was stress getting it stopped.

Turns out I had no back brakes at all.....only my front brakes worked.

Since I will have it apart for backing plates all of this will go back new OEM.....Bearings seals and the such.

My parking brake was nothing.....I was always nervous on boat ramps. This truck does pull my boats better than my previous 1/2 ton GMC.

 

soon very soon

 

Wow, that's a lot of work, but oh so worth it!

I'm really excited to see the end result!

 

That you for that rock climber


I like this truck and had no idea what it was going to take to get it to a place I was happy about it thus the cost has been significant.

I will know in a yr how happy I am w my choices.

FirstGen Vol and I have had a conversation going on..... I read over them the other day. He said, “ You can get a lot of money in these trucks”..... I didn’t remember reading that until I was in too deep to back out. He was right at a very high level.


Haha ....

 

Progress