justfoxyprojects

[justfoxyprojects]

As I said before I started a couple weeks ago-first things first I removed the front grille and skid plates, drained the oil, and drained the radiator as I'll need to remove the radiator to give me extra room to work:

skids plates and grille removed, the grille was held on with plastic clips that broke way too easily, I suppose 26 years of exposure makes plastic pretty brittle so I'll have to replace those

Here's the oil drained out into a pan, I ended up putting the drain plug and filter back in just to keep any contaminants from getting in the engine while I'm working on this. I also put down an absorbant mat to make sure any spilled oil or antifreeze didn't escape into the wild... or rather the suburbs I guess

Ah yes, the forbidden fruit punch gatorade. Antifreeze. It's very toxic, so that gets drained into a clearly marked bucket, and I put a lid on it immediately after I finished draining it from the radiator-to be disposed of later. There's a hazardous waste facility not too far away so that won't be hard to take care of.

The final thing I did on my first day of work was removing the upper radiator hose, and used some blue shop towels to stuff up the engine and radiator's now open connections, both to keep contaminants from getting into the cooling system and to soak up any remaining antifreeze.

And that's day one. I've actually gotten quite a bit more work done since then, but I don't feel like documenting that now so I'll do that later. I'll be playing a little catchup on here.

Me vs 1998 toyota tacoma

It has begun. Actually, I started a couple weeks ago. I'm been chipping away at it slowly, taking my time and making sure to keep track of everything because I'm pulling a lot of parts out.

This is my dad's old work truck. He unfortunately passed away of Alzheimer's a few months ago after several years of living with it. We spent a lot of time together in this vehicle and I have many fond memories with him in it, and just generally I feel a connection with him when I drive it, so I'd like to keep it around if possible.

It's not in the greatest shape. Because of my dad's condition, maintenance often just didn't happen. No one else drove it except me because it's a manual and I'm the only one in my family who learned to drive it from him. It leaks oil, the ABS and Airbag lights have been on for a while now (and shortly before I started this the check engine light decided to pop up! JOY! Luckily I borrowed one of those diag tools from a local shop and its a pretty simple fix), and it's in need of a new timing belt-which is an expensive repair... and probably everything else is too. So, why not save some money and do it myself?

I know some stuff about cars, I usually do most of the routine maintenance for my daily driver, a honda civic (which incidentally also belonged to my dad) and I know generally how they work, but this is beyond any kind of repair or maintenance I've done before. But, I have done my research, I found a couple of pretty comprehensive guides, and I've been consulting with a friend who knows quite a bit more about cars then I do, and I think its doable. I'm taking my time, keeping organized, and I think with some time and hard work I can do this timing belt replacement, and fix a few of the other problems it has along the way.

#diy #toyota tacoma #forbidden gatorade #i meant to put the first post on my foxyprojects blog and instead posted it to my personal one oops oh well

[justfoxyprojects]

So I started gathering the tools and parts to replace the timing belt on my truck (there's several parts besides the timing belt that are usually replaced at the same time while you're there) and should have everything I need by next week. All I need after that is good weather. I'm thinking that I should look into replacing the valve cover gaskets as well since the engine is leaking oil and that's where it appears to be coming from:

That doesn't seem to terribly difficult or expensive to do but I'll need to remove part of the intake and probably the throttle body. Probably add a few hours to the job. While I'm doing the timing belt I think I'll replace the radiator and heater hoses as well as they're getting rather cracked. It's very old

Once I actually start I'll post up lots of pictures and maybe a couple videos as I'll be taking lots anyway to keep track of everything.

I'm following a guide I found online as well as a repair manual my dad bought years ago when he was working on the truck:

I've done some work on cars before but nothing like this so this should be... Fun!(Scary) I've done my research so I think it's doable, and as far as timing belt replacements go it seems like this is a pretty easy vehicle to do it on. The best way to learn is to jump right in, right?

#project time #truck #tacoma #toyota #im very nervous but also excited to get started

[justfoxyprojects]

What is this?

This is my brand new sideblog, my main blog is @justafoxytwink. I've been wanted to document some of my coding and other projects that I do because I've been having trouble motivating myself and I'm hoping that having a public space to talk about them will help with that. So here's a couple things I'm planning on for the next few months:

Making a simple digital clock - this is a very simple arduino project, but I've gotten a bit out of practice and want something easy to start with

customizing a model for vrchat/vtubing - I've gotten the julia winterpaw canine model and would like to recolor it to my own fursona, and I'll need to get the software to do so running on linux since I don't use windows. I'll have to try getting vtuber plus running, hopefully I can use either wine or proton to do that.

replacing the timing belt in my truck - this is a bit of an odd one out. I have this old truck that belonged to my dad that I'd like to fix up, and this is where I'll start.

general programming practice - I've had to put my cs degree on hold for the last couple years due to a lot of personal issues, so I've got some catching up and relearning to do. I'm hoping to get back to school this coming fall tho

I'll put more stuff up here as I come up with more and have updates, I'll try to post at least once a week with some kind of update.

#technology #computer science #personal improvement