swampedout

"Build" Thread.
I've owned the T for 18 months now and finally about five or six months ago I got to the point where I stopped cursing it every day and swearing I was going to put it on craiglist so I guess that means I've done enough to merit a build thread. I use the term loosely, most of what I've done is regular maintenance that previous owners failed to do. As of right now my intentions are to keep it fairly close to stock.
I will post pics soon, I know everyone likes pics.

So first the stats:
3.4 5vz with about 250K on it
Standard transmission
265/75 Firestone Destination a/ts (which i think is a 30in tire?)
kyb gas-a-justs all around
jason camper shell

Through the history. Bought it for a decent price last year. Owned older trucks (89 22r yote, 88 3.0 Runner, 94 nissan hardbody) so this was new territory for me but I made the leap because the truck was in decent condition and as most people know this combination of engine, transmission and 4wd is getting more and more expensive.
So I'm going to start with the tires because I know they aren't a popular a/t tire. I like the tread design for dealing with wet roads. Most of my driving is on pavement. Off-road so far they have been decent in some mild driving/pulling situations I've put them through but I am NOT claiming they are better than anything else out there, just that they are decent. If I had the money at the time, I'd be riding something different now but the truck needed tires when I bought it so that's how it is.
When I bought the truck it had clutch problems. You had to jam the pedal to the floor to get it to shift. PO had two different shops work on it and it was still sticky asf. I made the mistake of thinking that taking it to one more shop would fix it. When it went all the way out on me, a local shop recommended replacing the clutch so I did it, figuring who knows when the last time this thing had a replacement. Two or three months later, same problem. Ended up replacing master and slave cylinders and line and only when I put in Aisin parts did the problem go away. 15 months later its still beautiful. And I learned a decent amount about hydraulic systems. So go Aisin. Thanks to forum folks who helped on this one!
The suspension was all messed up when i got it. If I hit a bump going fifty, the whole back end was in the air and I'd have a scary enough delay in steering control. Put kyb shocks on the back and it helped but still an issue so I did the ball joints and shocks up front. What a job. I never thought I'd hit this car so hard with a hammer but I did. Also cleaned out the hubs while I was at it because I was thinking I'd put new cv's in. But those cv's are torqued like hell onto the driveshaft so I left them on and they seem fine. I put new boots on at the wheels. I got those cheap emergency boots that are one piece of rubber but screw together around the axle so you don't have to take the axle out to put them on. I haven't lost too much grease but I did tape some of the seams with e-tape. Cheap fix but if I ever tore a cv boot on the road, I'd recommend this product for temporary use. My handling is way improved but I still plan on doing the sway bar links and bushing and maybe going back through one of my hubs that I didn't clean and tighten down as properly as the other side. But I'm also thinking of going to manual hubs so I might wait.
My 4wd "works" if I switch the vacuum at the regulator ports. Good enough for now.
New timing belt done by the stealership just recently. I didn't have the time to do it myself and I was concerned what might be in there when everything opened up so I wanted a real shop to do it. I've had all kinds of rust and stripped bolts pretty much everywhere I wrench on this thing. Next time, I plan on doing it myself.
Those were the real pain in the bass problems. Now I actually enjoy driving this mid sized monster. Hitting 75 on the freeway in peace is a great feeling. However I cruise between 60-65. One of the main reasons I decided to go bigger when I got this truck instead of sticking with a smaller yota is towing capacity. I've been very impressed with this thing in that regard. Boats, trailers, heavy equipment, I have yet to pull something that slowed this truck down. Am I doing any truck pull stuff? No. But anyone looking at these vehicles for mild work duty, I'd put a stamp of approval on it any day.

Other issues that have been developing:
My idle has been running high. It's rock steady wherever it wants to be but is usually high. When I start it cold and when I come back to idle at a stop light, it will be anywhere between 900rpm and 1200. When it started resting more towards the upper end of this spectrum more and more often, I decided it was time to do something. What I noticed was say I come to a stop and the engine is idling in neutral, if I lightly feathered the gas pedal, I could get the idle to drop back to 600-700 normal range. So it seems like the throttle body was being funny and so I cleaned the butterfly valve and now the idle is running at 1,000rpm. I pulled the efi fuse last night and now I'm driving around a couple days to see if it resets back to the normal range. But no more feathering to make it drop. 1,000 is where it stays and will not drop lower. So that seems like a good thing for now. If it doesnt get back to normal soon, I'm going to reset the efi again and let it idle for five minutes to relearn better and drive it a couple more days before I start changing other stuff. One thing at a time to eliminate confusion.
No air conditioner which sucks right now and will suck this summer on my roadtrip, especially for the dogs. But at least I got windows.
My doors seem to have slid out of true alignment with the locks so I'm constantly shifting them to get them right. One of the door locks started sticking so i pulled it and cleaned it and popped it back in and its good now.
Other than that, there's a big wish list of things I wanna do but me and my gf are going to new mexico in a couple weeks so I just need to keep this thing road-ready until we get back before I get into any serious wrenching again. This will also be the most off-road/dirt road driving ive done in this thing so I'm curious to see it's capabilities as a pretty stock truck. last year we took a 97 crv out west and had a lot of fun wearing out the suspension on that thing. But it was a solid vehicle too. Would have kept it if it werent for that northern rust.
Also that jason camper shell came off a 1st gen tundra xcab and fit the T perfectly. I know jason isn't a popular brand but they are hard to find and I'm happy as can be about it.
Also, I usually have to crank the engine 2-3 times especially when it's cold to get it to turn over. It's got some cheap aftermarket starter so I might switch it for OEM sometime soon. But it never fails to start.
And I fabbed up a custom spare tire wrench which is exciting because I can actually access my spare now.

So there's not much to see here and that's why I said I use the term 'build thread' loosely. But I just wanted to express appreciation for everyone who's been posting on forums because it's been priceless to me. I have the fsm but still need help understanding things pretty frequently. I mostly do city driving and don't have any plans to lift this thing or anything because I have no need to. This is my daily driver, not a recreational vehicle. I'd like something a little smaller with better mpgs (cough cough tacoma) but whenever I can put the money together I might get a lil rav4 or crv for city driving. then who knows what will happen with the T.
All things considered, I'm impressed with this truck for durability, reliability, size/speed/power and ease of understanding/working on for novice mechanics like myself. Excuse me, I mean these trucks are terrible and have an overblown reputation and you should all stop buying them.
What am I forgetting?