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Hello From Alabama

upatree64

upatree64

Active Member
Hello everyone. I'm a long time Toyota Truck and car owner. I've tinkered with a few of them in the past but nothing serious. I've just always trusted the Toyota name and product.
I live in the mountains of Alabama, way back up in the woods. I find it all the more reason to rely on my Toyota truck. I basically live in the woods and spend my time caring for my home and a 300 acre hunting lease that's just 12 miles from my home. Needless to say going to town doesn't happen much except for paying bills, going to the doctors, gas and groceries.
It has taken me several years to come to grips with my health situation of seizures, amputation of some toes and reconstructive surgery in both feet. I continued to work for another 14 yrs until the seizures caused me to be declared disabled. I am not that guy who declares himself disabled but can outwork most everyone you know. I despise those people and would love nothing more than to earn a living.
I stepped out of my normal about 6 months ago and bought myself a 1997 Tacoma 4x4 with the 3.4 and an automatic trans. I have never owned a truck with anything other than the 22r or re, nor have I ever had a Toyota truck with the automatic. I am beside myself with happiness about this truck. It has a couple of problems but it's nothing a little elbow grease and some money can't fix. Happy to be here and look forward to making new friends and learning from other Toyota owners.
 
toyotafan

toyotafan

Toyota Truck Club Founder
Staff member
1000 Posts
Welcome to the site. What part of Alabama? There's some really pretty country out there, I've driven it multiple times but haven't stopped for the night as I've been on the way to Florida or Georgia.

Pics of your truck#
 
upatree64

upatree64

Active Member
toyotafan said:
Welcome to the site. What part of Alabama? There's some really pretty country out there, I've driven it multiple times but haven't stopped for the night as I've been on the way to Florida or Georgia.

Pics of your truck#
Click to expand...
I live close to the GA. line, off I-20 between Birmingham and Atlanta. Of course Like I said, I do live quite a ways off the beaten path. 9 miles down the mountain just to get to the road that goes to town. lol. not so far that I don't have power, tv and internet though. My nearest neighbor is the Cheaha State Park ranger about 1 1/2 miles away. BTW, that state park is a awesome place to rent a cabin and stay the weekend.
 
toyotafan

toyotafan

Toyota Truck Club Founder
Staff member
1000 Posts
upatree64 said:
I live close to the GA. line, off I-20 between Birmingham and Atlanta. Of course Like I said, I do live quite a ways off the beaten path. 9 miles down the mountain just to get to the road that goes to town. lol. not so far that I don't have power, tv and internet though. My nearest neighbor is the Cheaha State Park ranger about 1 1/2 miles away. BTW, that state park is a awesome place to rent a cabin and stay the weekend.
Click to expand...
That's funny, I live right off i-20 in Arlington,tx.
 
MuddyTacoma

MuddyTacoma

Mechanic
1000 Posts
upatree64 said:
Hello everyone. I'm a long time Toyota Truck and car owner. I've tinkered with a few of them in the past but nothing serious. I've just always trusted the Toyota name and product.
I live in the mountains of Alabama, way back up in the woods. I find it all the more reason to rely on my Toyota truck. I basically live in the woods and spend my time caring for my home and a 300 acre hunting lease that's just 12 miles from my home. Needless to say going to town doesn't happen much except for paying bills, going to the doctors, gas and groceries.
It has taken me several years to come to grips with my health situation of seizures, amputation of some toes and reconstructive surgery in both feet. I continued to work for another 14 yrs until the seizures caused me to be declared disabled. I am not that guy who declares himself disabled but can outwork most everyone you know. I despise those people and would love nothing more than to earn a living.
I stepped out of my normal about 6 months ago and bought myself a 1997 Tacoma 4x4 with the 3.4 and an automatic trans. I have never owned a truck with anything other than the 22r or re, nor have I ever had a Toyota truck with the automatic. I am beside myself with happiness about this truck. It has a couple of problems but it's nothing a little elbow grease and some money can't fix. Happy to be here and look forward to making new friends and learning from other Toyota owners.
Click to expand...
Welcome to the site, sorry about the health issues that you've got, seems like there's a lot of that going around these days. It will give you some time to be a homebody though and looks like that means that you're going to be doing a lot of projects, which is good. Looking forward to your interactions!
 
upatree64

upatree64

Active Member
toyotafan said:
So when are you planning on doing the engine swap? Is it planned or are you still just considering it?
Click to expand...

I actually started looking into replacing the head gasket's on the engine in it. Once I learned the cost of not repeating the past mistake made with this truck. [not using genuine Toyota head gaskets]. I began also to check into the cost of a replacement engine.
The only thing about digging into a head gasket change is very possible chance of finding a cracked head and replacing it. If that happened I would almost be at exactly the same cost of the other engine.
The previous owner was a guy I knew and I remembered him buying the after market head gasket's, even with a number of us Toyota guys telling him the one's he bought usually last 35 to 40k miles and give up again. He put almost exactly 35k miles on the truck when we notice a little steam coming from the tail pipe in the mornings and a slight loss of antifreeze over time..
I bought the truck cheap, as far as I'm concerned. I don't mind working on it either. I've never done any engine work on these Toyota 3.4's though. Looks pretty straight forward though.
 
toyotafan

toyotafan

Toyota Truck Club Founder
Staff member
1000 Posts
Ok, good explanation. Yeah, I think we've all been down the road of repair that ends up being more costly than replacement.
 
upatree64

upatree64

Active Member
Jarred said:
Sounds a very reliable truck for you. Hope all goes smoothly on repair. Welcome
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Thankfully I knew the truck for several years before I ever owned it, so knowing the history helped me decide to buy it. The repairs will be no problem once I decide to do them. These trucks are actually pretty easy to repair compared to some of the other Make's.
 
upatree64

upatree64

Active Member
I thought I'd share my final thought's about this truck of mine. To start with, This is a truck I paid less than 3k dollars for so I feel good about almost anything I would or would not do to it. Secondly I have so many Toyota hounds biting at my heels to buy this thing it's almost hilarious. So I could even sell it if I don't want to work on it. Here is what I'm gonna do.
I'm gonna continue to drive this thing, that's what I'm gonna do. If it show's me it want's to begin missing or use more coolant than 1/2 pint to a pint a week out the tail pipe, I'll get more serious about working on it. My Toyota mechanic friend tells me, if I decide to work on it, park it and tear the heads down and have them checked 1st before I buy the 1st part what so ever. That'll tell me right there if I can get away with just a good head gasket kit or buy the replacement motor. BTW, I have 2 people who want this truck as is right now for almost 1k dollars more than I gave for it.
Am I missing something about this truck that would make it so desirable to these other Toyota truck buyers?? 97 Tacoma 3.4 automatic w/air extra cab 3in body lift.
 
toyotafan

toyotafan

Toyota Truck Club Founder
Staff member
1000 Posts
upatree64 said:
I thought I'd share my final thought's about this truck of mine. To start with, This is a truck I paid less than 3k dollars for so I feel good about almost anything I would or would not do to it. Secondly I have so many Toyota hounds biting at my heels to buy this thing it's almost hilarious. So I could even sell it if I don't want to work on it. Here is what I'm gonna do.
I'm gonna continue to drive this thing, that's what I'm gonna do. If it show's me it want's to begin missing or use more coolant than 1/2 pint to a pint a week out the tail pipe, I'll get more serious about working on it. My Toyota mechanic friend tells me, if I decide to work on it, park it and tear the heads down and have them checked 1st before I buy the 1st part what so ever. That'll tell me right there if I can get away with just a good head gasket kit or buy the replacement motor. BTW, I have 2 people who want this truck as is right now for almost 1k dollars more than I gave for it.
Am I missing something about this truck that would make it so desirable to these other Toyota truck buyers?? 97 Tacoma 3.4 automatic w/air extra cab 3in body lift.
Click to expand...
It's just a good solid truck with a strong history of reliability and many of these trucks are off the road or are so rusted out that you're almost starting over. Plus Toyota produced these engines for decades so there's a vast supply of replacement parts to keep the running. Plus with the cost of a new truck being $30-50k (or more) and that will drop in half over a few years (so you lose $15-25k over lets say 7 years (plus operating costs, ttl, etc) ... you can get into a truck like your for maybe $4k and put in a few k over 7 years and it will still be running, and then you have a truck that you can sell what you paid for it.

That's some of the supply and demand going on right now in the used car and truck market, it's pretty crazy what people are getting for used vehicles.
 
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