hello all. just a quick intro. I'm Errol from Long Island NY. Life long car enthusiast, former US Marine, former mechanic, full time dad, part time weirdo.. ha. i have a wife, 2 kids, a Mastiff named Samson, and my cat Dora.

first off, this truck is not built to go off-road. i will slightly raise it strictly to cut on and off the highway in inappropriate locations, and steal parking spaces from unsuspecting mall parkers by driving over medians or high curbs. plus the snow does tend to pile up here every once in a while. i am not pretending it will be a rock crawler. in it's stock trim (maybe slight lift to rid of the sag, and aforementioned tomfoolery) it will suffice for my needs.
I picked up, this, my first discovery about 3 months ago after negotiating a local craigslist seller down to $700. the truck is relatively rust free, and had been sitting in his back yard for 3 years ( he'd hoped to export it to the Dominican Republic - or so he says, but taxes were too high so he just wanted to make some quick cash instead). it was title'd in his name 5 years ago, so the story may actually be true.

Purchase:
the truck didn't want to move (gear selector was stuck in park), but started up and purred beautifully. once we freed up the shifter (pb blast in the gear selector mechanism) i took it for a quick test drive, soon realizing it was locked in 4 hi. haha. anyway, got it home cleaned it up, and thus began my love of a vehicle that has eluded my purchasing power each time i was ready to get a new (to me) vehicle. side note: i go thru on average about 4 vehicles a year. i love fixing up low cost, but good deal cars or trucks i've always wanted to own (like weird saabs and vw's and stuff my mechanic friends HATE.. haha), then selling and moving on to the next. But i really love this truck!


first wash and wax. Samson chilling in the front. cleans up pretty good. the paint and clearcoat are in great shape. drivers side is dent free!


Samson likes the roomy cargo area. the kids love the truck.


rear window ECU fix. yay O2 to my children's lungs!


His and Hers Pioneer deh-x6500bt head units. and of course my Lazer Cat, Dora. great head unit btw. hands free phoning and BT streaming audio work perfectly. i had to bypass the factory amp (which was inop) by tapping into the speaker outputs from the amp to the speakers. fairly easy, PM me if you have any questions, but i'm pretty sure there are threads on here that cover this.


old carpet out, and filthy center console too! a quick not so funny story on why i couldn't get the truck into 1st gear, and "park" was where reverse should be.. the shift gate has a gaping hole in it, much like you may have seen in.. well, never mind, but apparently, upon removal of the center console to try to figure out this problem i found girl's hair beads and like $3 in change packed into the sacred shift gate mechanism. the PO must not have figured this out (or was too lazy to pull out the console) so he adjusted the trans linkage at the transmission to allow park to rest in the reverse slot on the shift gate and so forth down the line. henceforth i had no "1" position. i readjusted the cable, cleaned and relubed the shift gate assembly and off i went.



resprayed the center console in sahara beige. it's way lighter than the factory beige dash and door cards, but it matches the A-pillars and my seat beads (hate away! but i love them haha)


the seats (front and rear) are covered because they are either ripped beyond repair, or stained beyond cleaning. until i can find cheap replacements this will have to do. there are no u-pull it parts on long island. and "junk yards" charge insane prices, so, i scour craigslist in hopes of finding someone locally parting out a disco.. I used a vintage Mexican serape to cover the back seats. alot of hot rod guys used to do this, but i just think it looks cool. matches my style, and i'm happy with that.


lil ones down by a dock in Huntington on July the 4th. discovery posted up in the background


custom 5x6.5 to 5x120 wheel adapters from my friends at motorsport tech (adaptec)


mounted.


scored some poor condition 19" HSE wheels from a good friend of mine. tires are in EXCELLENT shape. 255/55/19. if you know me (which you don't), you'd know that chrome is NOT my thing, but for fitment and initial shock value i decided to sport them for a bit.


self explanatory.


ok so enough of the chrome. plastidip here we come..


i used a spray bottle with 70% rubbing alcohol, and a clean old t shirt and just wiped the chrome clean. super easy. then applied about a total of 3 coats of plastidip to get the desired effect. i'm super conservative with my products (i grew up poor!), so all said and done i used 1.5 cans total for all 4 wheels.


while the wheels were drying (curing), i decided to get rid of my buffed looking, and sun-bleached white door mouldings by spraying it with the almighty SEM trim black; AKA black gold, AKA my favoritist spray product ever.. i simply wiped the mouldings down to with some alcohol to clean it from any wax, or old 'back to black' residue, and taped off all the mouldings.. this really pulls the aesthetic of the car together and gives it a fresher look, IMO.


now this is the look i was going for!


has a tough, no-tip kinda stance. the truck handles alot better too! (obviously- with the big *** spacers and 255/55 tires)


i modified this ol' Allen hitch mounted bike rack to fully fold out. when i got it from my bud, it would only open like 15 degrees. so i cut off the inside bottom corner of the verticle square tubed frame, and welded on a flat square cap to finish it off, so now it will fully extend if needed for access to the cargo area!



so that's about it. there's a ton of other stuff i've done, but without pics. but i'll save this space and update with any upgrades, improvements, or ramblings. enjoy