For reliability reasons, we...
For reliability reasons, we decided to just cut out all of the old stuff and start over. To get started we set the truck up on jack stands and disconnected the stock gas tank (mounted in the bed) and all of the rear air system so we could unbolt the bed.
With everything disconnected...
With everything disconnected we could take the bed off to get down to business on the rear setup.
We're not going to go off...
We're not going to go off any measurements from the old setup, so we can just unbolt the rear end and set it aside until we need it again.
After setting the rear end...
After setting the rear end aside we got bored and decided to do the same to the front suspension. To make it easy we decided to unbolt all of the front suspension and take off the front end (fenders, bumper, and grille) since we will be upgrading later (besides, taking apart the truck is always easier and more fun). Next, we grabbed our handy dandy plasma cutter to cut off the old bag setup.
Once all the old parts were...
Once all the old parts were out of the way, we cleaned up the frame to start with a nice clean surface.
Up front we cut off the old...
Up front we cut off the old bag bracket and will also be making our own control arm mounts to ditch the ugly stock setup. Here's a look at the progress so far. We'll get back to the front suspension later.
Before: What we started with...
Before:
What we started with on Saturday.
After: What we ended up with...
After:
What we ended up with Sunday.
All week long we mini-truckers plot and plan how we're going to spend the precious last two days of the week. Saturday and Sunday are rare commodities, especially free ones that aren't taken up with work, truck shows, or the occasional family gathering. So when the time does come around and winter has set in (in California we only have a month or so of winter, so we have to work fast!), we break out our grinders and get to work on the many ongoing projects that we tend to accumulate throughout the year.
This time we decided to do something we've never done before and show you exactly what you can accomplish in your own garage a weekend at a time. Instead of just doing the same old thing and burning through an entire buildup (which may have taken months) in one article, leaving you unsure of the actual timeline, we're going to approach this project by showing you exactly what we've accomplished each and every weekend in the two days. We won't skip a thing; we'll show you each time what we started with and what we ended up with. We'll show you the burnt fingers, the 2-hour-long beer and lunch breaks, and all the tools that we manage to ruin (well, maybe not the lunch breaks, but you get the idea). This will be the perfect incentive to pick up a cheap little project of your own and follow along with us to build a reliable, simple, and clean daily driver (we promise, no crazy full-frame cantilever airbags with locking coilovers on this one!).
The first step is to find the project. Fortunately for us this is all too easy because $1,000 Toyotas run rampant in the streets of Southern California. We're constantly having to lock our checkbooks in the safe and throw away the key just to keep from buying them all up. You can do what we did and buy a truck that is in the middle of project phase (already bagged, etc...) but this might end up taking more time depending on the condition of the previous work. For the first weekend, we decided to cut everything out and start fresh. So we stripped her bare and got to work. Go grab that cheap project and follow along with the buildup and before you know it we'll be draggin' the streets together in style by just taking it a weekend at a time! For more information, contact the companies listed in the source box.