Been floating around for a year and figured I'd start a build thread, mostly so I can keep track of what I've done and maybe provide some helpful info to anyone else. I'm from Ventura CA and if you're wondering my screen name comes from a passion for old Yamaha two strokes.
After selling my 1st gen taco I was on the hunt for a LC. Passed on a few too many, then Covid hit and as everyone knows the market went through the roof. Patience paid off though and I got the first call in on a 98 for 6k! The millage was higher than I was looking at 237k, it was in pretty rough shape and the owners were sketchy to say the least. That being said it was an LC, clean carfax, all vins matched except 1 side window, diff lock, and at 6k I figured I could just part it out if it blew up on my way home. After taking my girlfriend on 50+ short notice trips around California she nearly fainted when I told her this beater was the one.
Here's day one with two new members of the family:
I was budgeting 12k so now I had 6k burning a hole in my pocket to give this LC the love it always deserved. First order of business was Timing belt, Water pump and all the other standard maintenance that I had no record of. Coolant was green and pretty sure it was on it's original WP. Didn't take any photos because I was covered in grease but thanks to all the info on this forum it was a pretty straight forward job. Did find a lot of POs tools around the engine bay.
The car was in desperate need of a cleaning, luckily the early white LCs have no clear coat so with a little TLC from the DA polisher I was able to get the car shining like new. I also took out the back seats and did a deep cleaning on the carpets and interior. I was able to peal out the nasty faded fake wood trim and shocked to find perfect black plastic under it, I can't believe they didn't sell it like this. Seats were nasty so I ordered a set of Rides replacement leather covers. I was pretty happy overall with the quality, leather was really nice. Install was harder than the timing belt but I wasn't about the pay the $800+ quotes I was getting. If I was to do it over again I would uninstall the seats, remove the pans, strip the old leather and have an upholstery shop hog tie the new leathers to the pan and install myself. Also, some of the clips they provided didn't match the OEM so I had to have the old clips sewn on.
We decided to drive the car across country two months after buying it so I made a mad scramble to get all this work done as well as update the suspension and stereo
K02 285/75
New OEM shocks
OME 865 springs and reindexed my stock torsion bars
Sony XAV100 (a little out dated but a big fan of the volume knob)
Ordered a Gamiviti rack to be picked up on my way across country
H7 AGM battery
Was able to get a shake down camp run and the LC was running tip top
After selling my 1st gen taco I was on the hunt for a LC. Passed on a few too many, then Covid hit and as everyone knows the market went through the roof. Patience paid off though and I got the first call in on a 98 for 6k! The millage was higher than I was looking at 237k, it was in pretty rough shape and the owners were sketchy to say the least. That being said it was an LC, clean carfax, all vins matched except 1 side window, diff lock, and at 6k I figured I could just part it out if it blew up on my way home. After taking my girlfriend on 50+ short notice trips around California she nearly fainted when I told her this beater was the one.
Here's day one with two new members of the family:
I was budgeting 12k so now I had 6k burning a hole in my pocket to give this LC the love it always deserved. First order of business was Timing belt, Water pump and all the other standard maintenance that I had no record of. Coolant was green and pretty sure it was on it's original WP. Didn't take any photos because I was covered in grease but thanks to all the info on this forum it was a pretty straight forward job. Did find a lot of POs tools around the engine bay.
The car was in desperate need of a cleaning, luckily the early white LCs have no clear coat so with a little TLC from the DA polisher I was able to get the car shining like new. I also took out the back seats and did a deep cleaning on the carpets and interior. I was able to peal out the nasty faded fake wood trim and shocked to find perfect black plastic under it, I can't believe they didn't sell it like this. Seats were nasty so I ordered a set of Rides replacement leather covers. I was pretty happy overall with the quality, leather was really nice. Install was harder than the timing belt but I wasn't about the pay the $800+ quotes I was getting. If I was to do it over again I would uninstall the seats, remove the pans, strip the old leather and have an upholstery shop hog tie the new leathers to the pan and install myself. Also, some of the clips they provided didn't match the OEM so I had to have the old clips sewn on.
We decided to drive the car across country two months after buying it so I made a mad scramble to get all this work done as well as update the suspension and stereo
K02 285/75
New OEM shocks
OME 865 springs and reindexed my stock torsion bars
Sony XAV100 (a little out dated but a big fan of the volume knob)
Ordered a Gamiviti rack to be picked up on my way across country
H7 AGM battery
Was able to get a shake down camp run and the LC was running tip top
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