The Project Pad

dana wrote:

DE80q wrote:Looks really good Dana! Is that a real cat on there, or one of those fake stainless shelled ones?

dead with this

Holy crap Dana, so much awesome! Congratulations on your daughter and getting the truck driving!

Well, over a year has past, and I have made some progress on the truck again. Turns out having a kid takes a lot of time. I was able to start working on my house again this summer, finished off the basement and started tackling finishing out the downstairs. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.

I decided it was time to get back into finishing this truck and then moving on to finishing off my 90 and getting that sold. I built the lower radiator hose, swapped the rear end gears from 3.59 to 4.10 (gear ratios are way better now), started routing the power steering hoses and other plumbing items. Nothing too exciting, but it feels good to make some progress again. My goal is to do a couple nights a week out in the shop.

My 'baby' is now almost 14 months old and extremely interested in being involved in everything. She has even spent some time in the shop with me doing simple things like changing oil. She is always involved in the projects in the house. Good times.

I remember those days. My daughter was almost 2 years old the first time she crawled under my old eclipse with me. She came out with the wife, saw me under the car, crawled under and handed me a wrench that was sitting next to me. That was the first and only time she was under a car with me, she is 11 now...

I finally finished this project. I told myself I just needed to get out there after baby bedtime a couple nights a week, and work during naptime on the weekends, and I made a lot of progress over the last year. I found getting this engine bay to look good and be functional a bit of a challenge, but it came out pretty well. The truck runs and drives great. Its got and inspection and alignment this week, then its daily driving time.

Looks super clean. Hopefully you can put a bunch of miles on it this summer!

Truly the dream small truck.

That really is an awesome build it will make someone really happy when you build a 4 door

Thing tows pretty damn well too, even going up the side of a mountain with a steel utility trailer and a B5 S4 avant.

it towed pretty well for sure, stopping.....not so much.... and it turns out there was a major boost leak too.

This thing is sick . I would live a diesel Tacoma !!

What's the plan for braking upgrades?

Love the project, super cool idea and implementation.