fiddleplayer247

well guys, with the coming of spring, comes the opportunity for a job, and the extra income of playing bluegrass, country, and classic rock music. ( check out www.hominyvalleyboys.com )

this wont be a wicked, uber-expensive build thread, but its a college student on a pretty tight budget tryin to get his truck looking the way he wants, while making small payments on it, all while going to college. i wheel on the weekends, and occasionally when a buddy calls me to come pull him out, or go riding with him, so it wont be a wicked SAS rig, but i still want it to go where i like to point it.

my first uprgade was a brand new set of mud king 32x1150x15's i bought with work money after last summer. the 31s were slick, and winter was approaching fast. i blew a cv in the snow(knew they needed replacing when i bought it) and the truck was having running issues, stemming from a bad fuel pump.

last week, i found me a pretty good tube bumper for cheap ($60 from my little brother's friend at his high school) and immediately told him i wanted it.

im planning on cutting the ugly hoop off of it and rebuilding a hoop to put on it, and i think im going to have to cut the lower supports and flip them and use them to riase the bumper up closer to the grille. so as it sits now, here is my new bumper.

my new hoop(im hoping) is going to look a lot like a warn flat plate bumper hoop, in the idea that it comes up at two 45s and flat with the hood. if that makes any sense.

stay tuned ya'll

fiddleplayer247

SMALL UPDATE

my check engine light is still on, and currently i am still getting around 17mpg. i ran the codes, and they were 52 and 71, which is knock sensor and egr codes. i had the knock sensor go bad on my previous truck, and it dropped my mileage to about 8mpg, so as of right now, since the motor is still running pretty good, i will put off fixing the two codes until funding is available to do so. my current, more important fix is possibly a wheel bearing or loose tie rod on the front of the truck. since im pushing 291k miles, its probably BOTH. are there any suggestions on what to replace the bushings in the tie rods with, or is the stock rubber good enough? im all about upgrading while i replace. haha

on a smaller scale, i hace started on working up a custom grill built out of the stock grill. here is a picture for an idea of what ive done so far. im looking to put mesh in the empty spaces and paint it black, along with the whole grille frame, and then put the v6 emblem and the toyota emblem back on the front.

fiddleplayer247

i know its been a long tim esince i updated this thread, but between school and trying to keep this yota running (i've now determined the truck was slightly neglected by the PO) ive had little money to do mods with...

while my truck was in the shop for the drivers side cv( with me in school its easier to pay to have it done than to do it myself) i ran my little brother's truck into the guardrail close to the house being an idiot in the snow. so since the old grille centerpiece was already missing a few clips, and the headlight bucket on the driver side was shattered, i decided to start cutting up the origional grill. i cut most of the cross bracing garbage out from between the two chrome pieces on the grille, then sanded the chrome and plastic down to get a paintable surface and a smooth surface. i used a high build primer to smooth the low spots, then shot about three coats of epoxy paint so that is was tough to stand up to rock chips and such with it being on the grille. its semi gloss, and if he decides he doesnt want it, ive put enough time in it to make it mine.

i havent finished the headlight trim yet, but the center piece is finished.



and just for fun, when i replaced the fuel pump(see paragraph 1) my dad and i were going to pull the whole bed, but the bed's wiring harness has been spliced into the body harness, instead of using connectors, so we propped it up(SAFELY) and i snapped this picture....
i think it'd be fun to have a dump bed toy... it would be a quite useful wood wagon.