Ok folks, I’ve been working on this T for a bit and have been inspired by 55reasons build thread so I’ve decided to document my build here. Hopefully I can stick with it and hopefully someone out there finds it beneficial. I’ll put a disclaimer out there immediately. I’m just a DIY’er, no training or experience in automotive mechanics, autobody, etc. So, I’m just fumbling my way through this.

Starting with a T that I bought as my primary hunting/wood cutting rig about 5-6 years ago. Truck is in pretty good shape mechanically and had very few exterior blemishes. Those that exist now are due to my own poor decision to plow down an overgrown road trying to get in a position to glass a bull elk. But I digress. Truck had only 172K on it when I bought it and is sitting at 188K currently, due to the fact that I drive a company car and bought a newer Tundra a couple of years ago, so this guy has mostly been sitting but I’ve got a kid who just turned 16 and got his license and he’s chomping at the bit to finish this project.

The main reasons that prompted me to start this whole thing are the peeling clear coat all over the cab and drivers door, actually down to bate, rusting metal on drivers door and carpet that wouldn’t come clean even after having it steamed by a pro.

The canvass:





I had already removed the grille and front bumper in these photos. You can see the rust on the drivers door and all the clear coat peeling off the cab. The bed looked like garbage and I intended to put new carpet in so the boy and I started stripping it down. Decided to quiet the interior down with some Noico and need to change out the aftermarket deck so the kid has Bluetooth hands free calling. The following are my first experience with spray-in bed liner and us working on the Noico.








And now I’m frustrated because my pics are loading sideways so I might just give up on the build thread documentation........

we didn’t have enough Noico to cover every surface but I read that it doesn’t need 100% coverage anyways. This weekend’s project was a self-install of a Ready Remote remote starter and keyless entry that I picked up at O’Reilly’s. Took me 2 pretty solid days to figure the whole thing out when I probably could have paid an installer $150 to do it, but at least I know where everything is, now. It works awesome and I never could understand why there were power locks on this truck but no option for keyless entry. I did run into some head scratchers though. This harness with the plug obviously cut off in this pic:




I assume this had something to do with the factory sound system but not sure. And then I found this lamp dangling behind the glove box when I removed the box. It’s the black wire hanging straight down on the left with a tiny bulb plugged into the socket. It’s an insert and twist type base and I can’t for the life of me find the socket that it fits into. Nothing on glove box area. Thinking maybe ash tray but haven’t checked that yet.




I think I’ll end with these for now. Have he new carpet on the way and a whole new sound system as well so that will keep me busy for a while. I did find a couple of pretty nasty pitted rust spots in the rockers that you couldn’t see unless you were on your back and paying attention. As I said, I have zero experience with body work so I carved then down as much as possible with 80 grit on a DA and covered what was left with rust neutralizer. When I get to the body I’ll work on filling them in with filler. Got a friend with years of experience in paint/body that I’ve been blessing to come give me a crash course but that hasn’t happened yet. Plan is to work a few dents/creases out of the drivers side from that one bad decision/overgrown road. Hen I’m considering the Anthracite Gray Plasti-dip. Have gained a little confidence in my ability to spray decent with the bed liner which, by the way, is Raptor and I highly recommend it. Was thinking Plasti-dip because of the ease but now that I have the truck completely stripped down I’m wondering if I should just try my hand at actual paint.

Anyways, that’s it for now. Sorry for all the sideways pics. Advice, suggestions and criticisms are welcome

 

Spent the past few weekends doing body work. As I said before, I’ve never done it and got a quick tutorial from a friend. My thoughts after doing it? Body work SUCKS. It feels pretty good, but I’m sure I’ll see a very novice, wavy job when I get it painted. But, I’m throwing in the towel.

 

I guess it’s time for an update. I’ve done quite a bit of work on the truck since the last post. Not sure if anyone is finding this valuable at al, but I’m going to keep plugging away. I Plasti-Dipped the truck several weeks ago. I was a little concerned that the body work wasn’t up to par and I even had pinholes develop in the bondo after it had dried out. But the kid was pushing me to move on and I was sick of doing body work so I gave in. Boy did the paint expose a lot that I couldn’t feel, and although dip is really thick it didn’t fill the pinholes like I had hoped it would. I learned after the fact that I should have used what’s called a glazing putty to finish off the body work and fill the pinholes. The other mistake I made was my bright idea to Raptor line the rockers. Came out really nice I think, but the seam between the liner and paint didn’t work out so well. I’m debating putting the side molding back on to cover that seam. Got some Bushwacker flares attached and Raptor lined those too. Here’s some pics of the progress:






This last pic was after everything was pretty much back together. As you can see, I Raptor lined the chrome bumpers, too. I really like the stuff and it’s super easy to use. Have my flares on in the last pic, too. You’ll notice the hood is off. Well, that’s because I learned that horizontal surfaces are the hardest to paint with Plasti-Dip. I watched the instructional videos, but I just couldn’t seem to get through a coat without leaving tiger stripes. I finally gave up, removed the hood, hung it from straps and painted it vertical. That worked really well, although the hood now has about 20 coats on it from me trying to fix all my mistakes.

Side note, the Plasti-Dip color is Anthracite grey. I really like the color. Here’s an example of my frustration with the seam between Raptor and dip:




Despite the challenges and oopses, I think it’s turning out half way decent. A lot better than having active rust and peeling clear coat anyways. I took some time out this past week on the cosmetic stuff to replace all the worn out shocks with Bilsteins. Looking forward to driving it to see if they live up to the hype. I also noticed when doing the sound barrier that the drive shaft seal on the firewall was tattered. Replaced that yesterday with some help from another post on this forum. Also got the new Sony double-din deck installed, all new speakers in and I wired up an 8” powered sub under the drivers seat. The boy and I plugged everything in and fired it all up to make sure everything works. I bought components for the front doors and used the stock mounting plates. Even without the tweeters plugged in, it sounds really good. I even wired up a backup cam and it came out really well. Pretty funny to have this kind of technology on such an old truck. I’ll add more pics of the stereo install later on. Right now, my big hurdle is getting he headliner back in. My bright idea to refresh the headliner, since I don’t sew, was to use spray adhesive to attach new fabric to the old ratty plastic headliner. I don’t think it worked out real well so I’m dreading trying to put it back in. Also, the seats are pretty decent, not great, but decent, but I thought I’d get a quote to recover them anyways. Why not, I’m freshening up everything else and the foam on the drivers side could use some help. The recommended guy told me $2,500. Nope. They’re going back in as-is. I may attempt the door panels myself, though.