Glenh865

That is pretty funny on the gun rack, seems a might uncomfortable as well. Different strokes for different folks! I love my 87' SR-5 4x4 extended cab. You'll be able to sell it easy, these trucks hold their value better than just about anything. I've been asked to sell mine several times, and mine's just a scratched up work truck with 324, 500+. The answer is always nope.

joelsmithdesigns

So it's been a while since I've turned a wrench or anything else on the '89 4Runner or the '92 Turbo truck. Been busy doing all kinds of home improvement projects and other things for friends and family. Finally got a good chunk of time freed up and am getting back to my Yota projects. Spent a couple of weeks breaking things down and getting the warehouse cleaned up so that I could start fresh. Decided to flush mount the reverse lights in the lower pan under the tailgate for the black truck. Made a cardboard template that the lights fit into and used it as a guide to draw the cutouts on the rear valence. Die grinder with a 3" wheel cut most of it out, then I had to curve and feather the edges with a standard fluted bit. Picked up an electric die grinder (think 1/3hp dremel with a flex shaft) that's most commonly used in the Jewelry making industry and for dentists. This thing is a beast and chewed through the sheetmetal like butter to help me get the exact curved cutouts I needed for the rear lights (cutouts with Piaa reverse lights shown below - used the masking tape & cardboard template to draw out the shape and finessed it until they fit).

Still have to make some brackets to secure them and wire it all up, but I got tired of it being so dark in that back corner and relying on stand up shop lights and having to move them around when I worked. We had some extra troffer lights laying around so I decided to hang those up in that back work area so I could see what I was doing.

back work area with shop lights on before....pretty darn dark

back work area with new lights installed....much better!

You can finally tell that the red stripes are actually much more blood red than the magenta or fuchsia they looked like in the past with the camera flash.

Really excited to have carved out a spot to work and got the lighting in. There's a few spots I need to touch up on the UPOL Raptor liner (because I shot it basically in the dark), but hoping to have the last few things on this turbo truck wrapped up so I can get it out the door and get back to the 4Runner mods.

More to come soon, and several weeks off for staycation time coming up, so hoping to get a lot done in a short amount of time after letting everything sit idle for so long.