What have you done to your Tacoma today? 1st Gen Edition

Already have

 

So my electrical to-do's moved themselves up the list the past few days... Battery is only outputting 12 volts after a fresh charge and doesn't go to ~14 volts when running. Drops to 11 pretty quickly and then down from there. Was planning on doing an alternator upgrade soon anyway so why not now? Got to digging around and reading some threads and want to do a rewire with better wire while I'm in there. Came across Bamatoy1997 upgrade kits but it seems that it's a struggle to get them from him nowadays. Short of making my own wiring, does anyone know of another source for electrical upgrades? Wires and alternators? Thanks.

Also, did find out on the drive home that my stereo shuts off at 9.50 volts... and headlights are worthless at 7.0 and less made it into driveway though Driving 4Runner now

 

EBC green pads after work. Took all 10 minutes.

 

Flush Mount reverse LED pods

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Up3lvygF29o

Learn something new everyday. I have a basically a shotgun in each seat belt.

 

So if I have pretensioner I should see some wires plugged into the seat belt spool, right? Is so, replacing seat belts should be done the same way as dealing with the airbags - no piwer and wait few minutes after disconnecting the battery. Funny, 95-96 FSM says nothibg about wires going to seat belts.

 

Took my flat deck off and put the box back on. Now for some camping this weekend!

 

Get yourself a hydraulic lug crimper and some wire and go to town. For me it ended up being a fun project. Do the "big 3 wiring upgrade" at a minimum.



Many of us have upgrade the stock alt to a GM alt with higher output, ~140 amps compared to ~80 amps for the stock one.

Here is a link to the information I used to research this project and find the right parts needed. Monte's Frankenstien build thread has a ton of pics and instructions on this mod too.

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads...trail-rig-and-bs.159436/page-141#post-6283584

 

Is increased pinion angle a bad thing?

I did flex it out and noticed my leaves were pretty much flat along the length of the overload and still had an inch until I hit the bump. Guess it's time to pony up for a set of Alcans

 

I'm going to look into that RAAMaudio. Thanks Madjik_Man.

I guess I should pull the K&N filter out of there also. I knew better than to go with anything other than FRAM. Lesson learned.

 

Pics along the way homie, please, mostly curious on the headliner. Also, if you're feeling extra generous, if you can do a noise decibel test before and after on the road/background noise would be awesome. There might even be an app that would test that.

 

Im sure there is plenty of apps..haha but i, being an audio guy, would never trust those as the microphone on anyone phone is not going to be sensitive enough to REALLY tell you what is going on.

But. I may be able to do a real test of noise level this summer with real equipment.







and come on...i always take lots of pictures haha

 

Yeah yeah, you're always good for that. I guess the mics could vary drastically phone to phone. Hopefully at least the difference in the decibels, before to after, could be fairly accurate, even if the actual reading itself is off. Does that even read right? In my head it kinda does, lol

 

Well the problem is that you don't know A) what the mic is in the phone(its specs in terms of freq response/sensitvitiy which its most likely tuned for the human voice so..not good) B) you don't know the level at which its listen C) what the app is really reading in the first place. dB is complex, more then just 1 number. Is it A weight? B weight? C weight? dBu? dBFS? dBv? dBvu?


too many unknowns...haha

that said, you're saying if you measure with a phone and see a difference on the same phone, the test is relevant? I can see that..Maybe i'll do both See how accurate the phone is. Or if the phone even notices a difference at all.

 

Valid points, I guess I'm not too picky as I'm deaf in right ear and have about 70% left in my left ear. So as long as there is a decent amount of background/road noise eliminated, I'll be happy.
And even better if you do have access to the real noise resting equipment. I'd be curious as to what frequencies and strengths of signal the phone misses or picks up.

 

It is not. But as mentioned, it depends on how much extra length over stock is on the shackle.

x2 an the Alcans. Think hard about how you use and will use your truck and then use their online tool to design a custom set of leaf springs for your situation. I am on my second set of Alcans (1st set was from Wheelers back in the day). The custom 2nd set turned out perfect for my needs and I found Bill Ford very good to work with. It did help that I knew exactly what I wanted.

 

I'll be driving by Grand Junction at the end of the month. Going to have to swing by. Hopefully they have a scale. I can only really guess that I have over 500lbs in the bed all the time.

 

My K&N has been in place for 145,000 miles. No problem. I know there is hatred for it, but I think a lot of it is because the internet said so.

Only if it produces driveline vibrations from misalignment.
Installing extra length shackles as a bandaid for flat or sagging springs is never a good idea. They look ridiculous too, I'm sure you have seen a Samurai or two with 6" length rear shackles sitting 3" above the pavement.
Get better springs or re-arch them.
Now installing longer/shorter shackles for a custom spring pack is different, the goal is to have the right shackle length to get the proper angle when they are at ride height.

 

Ya there should be wires plugged into it.

 

Got my LCA skids installed before work.