Chuck duh truck! tacoma prerunner

#1
Whats up guys, i live in aiken south carolina about 30mins from augusta or columbia. Im an 18 year old whos been fabin for about 6 months now and love offroading. I have a 1996 5 lug tacoma, and being from the west coast, i wanted to build a prerunner, "baja truck" as most people here in the south call it. I bought this truck in cali and had it shipped here. Ill be updating and posting pics frequently so if you like the build let me know...
 
#2
this is what the truck looks like at the moment, it has a Long travel front end cycling 14 inches of travel, A 1.75 DOM front bumper sportin 2 hella 700s, 30inch bfg/ATs with aluminum wheels, beard bucket seats, chevy leafs in the rear (bout to be deaver f31s) and is currently at Matts performance 4x4 getting an engine cage to hold my new FOA coilovers, i would have done it myself but i ran out of talent and decided i didnt want a hacked truck so i took it to Matt.
 
#3
front end that i fabricated myself, utilizing the stock arms i extended them 3 inches on each side and plated the crap out of them. These 5luggers have a realy weak ball joint bracket so i plated the crap out of those, connecting them to the side of the arms.

droop travel

having some fun out on firetower road, in windsor SC
 
#6
tearing up some clay pits here in aiken, ive had to pretty much find all my spots from using google earth for hours. No one really offroads in this little town but we have a lot of hidden jems.
 
#7
I really hope you have permission to these properties, especially posting pictures of your truck and the map view on a public forum.
 
#8
Welcome to OffroadSC. They made some good progress on the truck today. It's in good hands!
Do you know matt and all those guys? Im super stoked to see the finished product, its the first time ive ever had anyone but myself touch my truck but Matt seems like a cool guy and ive heard good things about his work so im sure itll be worth every penny.
 
#9
I really hope you have permission to these properties, especially posting pictures of your truck and the map view on a public forum.
and yeah i have permission for every spot except for that track (so i took down the picture), im trying to find the owner of the land to ask permission before i go back out there though.
 
#12
So like i said i built my own A-arm kit, it was my first major fabrication job and worked pretty well for what it was. After about 4 months though the lowers started bending because i didnt plate the bottom of the arms enough, so now that i have coilovers and didnt have to rely on the coil bucket anymore, i began building a new set of lowers…
cutting out the side plates, no plasma cutter but a milwakee angle grinder did just fine

cut off the stock coilbucket

This is the most important part of this arm, these brackets are the weakest link to these trucks, so i wrapped it on both sides with 1/8 and welded inner triangles in between.

good penetration, side view

recently upgraded from a cheesy HF welder to a lincoln, still flux core and 110v but it welds so much smoother

had to build my own tabs because of the weird curve on the arms

my extended arm next to a stock one

the actual extension itself

Finished product, took me about 30 hours of work but the peace of mind the better extension and welding gives me is all worth it
 
#14
Got my truck back today from performance and matt HOOKED it up. Exactly what i wanted, very happy and at a great price. He double sheared my upper arms, built the hoop, and fixed all my hacked up cutting. Great work and cool dude, would recommend him for sure. And those arms look sketchy but their fine been bashing them for half a year now. Some tube uppers are in the works though since i have tabs to run heims off them now.
 
#15
Ive been doing some valving changes to the coilovers, adding some 15 rebound shims to see if that helps smooth out the little bumps, truck does great on big hits and jumps but its rough in the little stuff. Also ill be putting in a new steering rack from the rack doctor and putting on some brand new bfgs. Ill be focusing on cleaning up the truck a little bit since its kinda beat up at the moment
 
#17
Nah im not putting them on till i get my new steering rack (just ordered one from rackdoctor) so ill be able to hold alignment, i throw up a pic in the next week or two.
 
#18
Got my new steering rack in, with all new extended tie rods and ends. Makes the truck way smoother, im putting on my new bfgs tmw if the ice melts and then hopefully i can make my first trip to exit 33 saturday, i talked to tim awhile back and hopefully he'll be cool with me testing it out before i pay the membership fee, ill talk to him tmw about it. Also how do you guys upload pics? I have tapatalk on my iphone and it says the admin has not approved me to upload pictures, i can only do it from a putepute
 
#19
Got my new steering rack in, with all new extended tie rods and ends. Makes the truck way smoother, im putting on my new bfgs tmw if the ice melts and then hopefully i can make my first trip to exit 33 saturday, i talked to tim awhile back and hopefully he'll be cool with me testing it out before i pay the membership fee, ill talk to him tmw about it. Also how do you guys upload pics? I have tapatalk on my iphone and it says the admin has not approved me to upload pictures, i can only do it from a putepute
Become a supporter and you can upload them from tapatalk.
 
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