Old Truck Checklist

Since I've purchased a vehicle that is nearly 20 years old with at least 3 previous owners, I'm going through this truck one thing at a time to make sure its ship shape. There's a whole slew of things that probably need to be inspected and/or replaced, due to age, DPOs, and normal wear before I'm really comfortable with it being reliable. Since I'm probably not the only one, I figured I'd make a handy checklist. It's not meant to be a comprehensive howto of each of these items, just an overarching list of things to check on. Its also a work in progress and certainly incomplete.

The theme of these items is things that any of the following apply:

• could ruin your day if they get ignored and then fail
• could kill your gas mileage
• could get you in trouble with The Law

What else is there? Any Tacoma or Toyota specific gotchas?

- Brakes -
☐ Brake fluid
☐ Front brake pads
☐ Front brake rotor wear
☐ Rear drum shoe wear
☐ Parking brake?

-Cooling System Parts-
☐ Upper radiator hose
☐ Lower radiator hose
☐ Thermostat
☐ Water pump
☐ Heater hoses

- Electrical
☐ Spark plugs
☐ Spark plug wires
☐ Battery terminals
☐ Battery electrolyte level
☐ Headlights
☐ Turn signals front
☐ Turn signals rear
☐ Brake lights
☐ Reverse lights
☐ License plate light
☐ Alternator noises, voltage
☐ Alternator brushes

- Drivetrain -
☐ Rear differential fluid
☐ Transmission fluid
☐ Driveshaft grease points
☐ Clutch fluid
☐ Clutch

- Engine -
☐ Engine Oil
☐ Antifreeze
☐ Fuel Filter
☐ Fuel Lines
☐ Air filter
☐ Vacuum hoses
☐ Timing belt (V6)
☐ Valve clearances ( 4 cylinders only ?)

- Exhaust -
☐ Muffler condition - leaking?
☐ Exhaust manifold(s) - cracked?
☐ Oxygen Sensors

- 4WD -
☐ Manual Locking hubs
☐ ADD
☐ Transfer Case fluid
☐ Front differential fluid

- Frame -
☐ Rust from the inside - Anywhere.
☐ Rusted out crossmembers

- Steering & Suspension -
☐ Power Steering fluid
☐ clean crud from power steering reservoir
☐ Upper ball joints
☐ Lower ball joints
☐ Inner tie rod ends
☐ Outer tie rod ends
☐ Sway bar end links
☐ Upper control arm bushings
☐ Lower control arm bushings
☐ Swaybar bushings
☐ Shocks
☐ Coilovers

- Other -
☐ Windshield wipers
☐ Windshield Washer fluid & pump
☐ Spare tire
☐ Spare tire winch
☐ Jack, lug wrench, tire winch wrench
☐ Tailgate cables
☐ Tailgate stays

 

Dont just look for rust by the spring mounts. It can happen anywhere.

 

This is good work. I'm going into my 20-year-old 3.4L now. I call it a mid-life refresh. I've done this on several other high mileage cars that were all old enough to vote. Once you work through it, good times are ahead.

Basically, you go in and refresh the "rubber and wear and tear components" that will let you enjoy another 20 trouble free years.

If you can DIY, this is much more cost effective than buying a new vehicle.

 

Exactly. The thing that inspired this was looking at my vacuum hoses. They're basically dust at this point and I suspect may be making it idle poorly.

 

Interesting thread boys. I'm three (3) months into this on a 2003 I recently purchased. I started with the Motor Vehicle Inspection Checklist requirements to get her on the road, then started with reliability items, then gas mileage items, then I'll move into the ride quality items. In terms of vehicle registration / safety you'll want to start with items that control your direction and speed (tires, brakes, frame integrity, steering and suspension components), prevent the vehicle exhaust from suffocating you (exhaust & muffler, allow you to see the road and other drivers (glass, wipers, lights & mirrors) and communicate with others (horns & signals). For this I needed to do a bit of repair to the frame rails in some locations, repair a bad leaf spring, replace the inner tire roads, new set of tires, replace a bad brake shoe and a couple of marker lights. One of the biggest risk items here is the frame integrity on an older vehicle. Spend some time with a ball peen hammer running up and down the bottom and sides of the frame rails to ensure you have enough material to work with. After finishing this work, I began on the "go" components of engine reliability. Like many of the older 3.4L 5VZFE's I found mine to have a hairline fracture in the head of number 3 cylinder requiring it to be replaced. I just finished this a couple of weeks ago and it was a fairly big job for me. During the head replacement I replaced the water pump, thermostat, timing belt and alternator which let go the weekend before the planned head replacement. Having completed this work, the truck is running much better. Fuel mileage has improved slightly from about 17.0 to 17.5 MPG, though new tires had a much more significant effect on this (I'm running 285/75/16 BFG KO2 with a 2" lift). Prior to the head replacement, I had replaced the two O2 sensors and exhaust system which helped improve the fuel mileage approximately 15% as it was running "open loop" prior. This past weekend, I've been working on replacing the clutch release bearing as it has a significant whine. As the truck has begun to quite down I've been able to identify other components that are nearing their lifespan, namely the power steering pump.

I'd be interested in the groups feedback on what folks have done to improve ride quality as this truck I have has had a "spacer" lift added to it. Based on my research I believe my truck started life as a DLX with 420 lb/in springs on the front end that have had significant preload added to them for them to stand up the additional 2" of lift. I'm looking to replace these with a ARB Old Man Emu 2882 spring and Pro-Comp shock combo to get a better ride quality with affordable price. I'm not planning on building a rock crawling monster or high speed desert machine so Kings or Fox's are out of the question for this guy. Have to save the moula for the kids education.

 

Some "refresh" stuff I did that's not on the list:

new tailgate stays...

new gasket around driver's door...

wiper blades...

All that stuff on the list about suspension and steering can really
make a difference, expensive but not to be ignored...

-Mike

 

Subbed

 

Having done one or two in my life.

My thing is start at the ground and work up been doing it like this it works for me