allenfab's 95 Tacoma build

Awesome. Ya know, you could probably run it without the bed sides and it would look tough as hell.

 

I figured if I ever get into some sketchy trails (out of state of course) and there are a lot of protruding rocks or trees or whatever, I can unbolt the sides and not run the risk of damaging them. It does look decent without them. If I get some extra time, I might rig up some tail lights that can be mounted quickly without the bedsides.

 

Moved the Jerry can to the driver side so I could easily fill it up without having to go around to the passenger side or having to take it out of the mount completely. The "lid" of the mount unlocks and opens down onto the fender and the cap can be taken loose and filled no problem. Little things like this will make life a little easier.

That frees up the space on the passenger side next to the toolbox where it was, and it's looking like a good location for an auxiliary battery.

 

I was thinking the same thing about that space. You could actually put two batteries in there. Or you could put a water jug on that side (for washing the mud off windows and mirrors or in case you blow a radiator hose or something). Could also put a CO2 tank there.

 

Water jug is a good idea, I could probably put a battery there and build a little shelf type thing for a water jug to sit on top or above it.

 

Bling bling

 

Decided to pull the driver side axle shaft out to measure for a new chromoly one and upon removal, I realized that the 3k mile old bearings were completely trashed. Both spindle nuts had backed off to the point where I could take them off with with my fingers.... Not good. This gave the bearings a little bit of play which didn't help matters.

Pulled the shaft out and realized that what I thought was a failing yoke on the inner shaft just turned out to be a bad snap ring, so I measured the ears/yokes to see if that had in fact stretched and both the inner and outer shafts both measured fine. So I threw on a new snap ring and tossed it back in for now, until I order and receive my new inner shaft.

As I was putting everything back together, one of the spindle studs stripped out along with the nut, so that leaves me at a stand-still for a few days. I ordered 14 new studs and nuts (6 for each knuckle, and 2 extras) and a Stage 8 Dana 44 locking spindle nut kit from ECGS. It will be a few days before they arrive.

 

Dayum, when it rains it pours. Don't'cha just hate that?

 

ehh, I've been use to it lol.

But on a brighter note, I can hold off on having to buy that inner chromo shaft now since the stock ones are still good. I think I'd rather risk breaking stock shafts than risking my tire falling off while going to, from, or during wheeling

 

I hear that. At least your wheel bearings are cheap. I had to replace one of mine after the October Camp & Ride. That sucker was 80 bucks and then I had to pay the machine shop to install it.

 

This is true. $27 for inner and outer bearing (didn't need new races), one wheel seal, and a roll of Scott's shop towels. I cannot complain about that

 

Still sitting on jack stands in the garage. Had to order another bundle of spindle studs because I over-torqued the ones that I just received. While I wait, I installed the new Stage 8 x-lock spindle nuts on the passenger side and picked up some diff fluid for the front. The fluid was very clean, but I needed to change it after he 500 mile break-in period of the new gears.

Decided this was the perfect time to whip up some front diff armor too!

 

Time to dust off the torque wrench. Like I was saying over at your place, if it's going to fail catastrophically, potentially injuring myself or someone else, I use the torque wrench on it. That covers most suspension parts since losing a wheel doing 70 on the interstate would definitely count as a catastrophic failure.

Of course, that could just be my background. We pretty much torqued everything on an aircraft...even the screws that held on access panels. That's also why I tend to safety everything (lock-tite on everything that doesn't have a mechanical safety and all mechanical safeties in place).

Diggin' the diff armor though.

 

The bad thing is, I stripped them using the torque wrench

The torque spec I had was 65 lb/ft. I could only manage to get 3 or 4 of the studs torqued down to that but the others would stretch and/or strip out. Come to find out, proper torque spec is anywhere from 44-50 lb/ft., dry (3/8", Grade 8, 24 tpi stud). Partially my fault for not double checking the specs, but I was also just going by what I was told. Oh well, learned my lesson.

 

Oops. Still, it happens. With my old ubolts I stripped the first set out trying to get the torque they called for (90 ft-lbs) and I was only able to torque the next set to about 75 ft-lbs without stripping them. Never really had any problems with them undertorqued, but I'm glad the new set-up let me get the full 90 ft-lbs on them with no issues.

 

Diff guard and cover back on. The guard is made from 1/4" plate and 1/2" solid round rod. Also upgraded the hardware to grade 8 bolts that are 3/4" long on the top 5 bolts and 1" long on the bottom 5 bolts that go through the 1/4" guard flange. The old bolts were just 1/2" long stainless bolts.

 

Got bored today after work

 

I'm not a big fan of headlight hoops generally, but these look very not bad.

 

I was skeptical at first. But then I tacked them on and sent a few pics to a couple of people and they both approved, so I went with it. I'm happy with them.... for now

 

Gotta love it when fabricators get bored...