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

Very good post.

I've often wondered why people go to such lengths to make their trucks more vulnerable.

Spending all that money to increase clearance and traction and whatever only to have the truck break the first time out. Come on people, lets be reasonable in how far these trucks can be modded.

Sure, mod the fuck out of these trucks as long as you can afford it. This is a rabbit hole that will suck you down with little chance of gain. Mod one thing only to have to build up some other part of the truck. This is great, but you just made daily driving a pain in the ass. Besides being a money suck, it will be a time suck as well...and I really hate bumming a ride until I can get my truck fixed.

I've never been on 35's doing 80, I can't see it being a very assuring ride. My stock 1G handles like a turd on ice skates as it is. I like driving my 1G on the hiway for hours on end and not have to shake out my arms because I've had to fight the truck for 200 miles. Numb hands and arms suck.

You give up one aspect of the trucks ability to gain another. It most likely won't be worth it.

Don't get me started on the sound of boggers on the xway, not to mention that mud tires wear very fast on hard surfaces. 20k miles on $1000 tires just does not make a huge amount of financial sense. I like paying $500 and getting 60k miles.

Like I said, mod if you can afford it. The above cat gets it. Have a rig for playing and have a rig you can use to get you from point A to point B in a reliable manner.

I like to think that us 1G owners are a pretty savvy bunch when it comes to saving money. After all we all agree that the 1G's are the most reliable of the 3 generations, right? We wouldn't have bought these trucks if we didn't intend to drive them, well, forever.

Why fall to the hype that bigger tires, taller suspensions and different gears are going to make these trucks better. I guarantee that non of us have the money or time to research what works the best on these trucks. Toyota already did this and I think they did a pretty good job.

If your intention is to obtain the look of a more robust vehicle, by all means go ahead and find the look you want and do it, just be aware there is a pretty good chance you didn't make it more reliable.

I think I read here, that a 3" lift is the best bang for the buck without removing the built in reliability of our Tacoma's. It looks great, too.

 

I agree with the majority for 33s... they can get you in enough trouble

35s are a PITA for first gens but they do look good if you wheel and actually use them. I do too much highway driving and prefer my steering components etc to last longer. Just couldn't justify the jump to 35s as of now even though I wheel... well sometimes

 

Now you guys got me wondering what I got on my truck. All I know is they are tall and thin and they are not wearing out at all. 30k miles and they still look like they did when new 2 years ago.

Did Toyo make a taller street tire? I dunno. I hate shopping for tires. I just usually look at the tires and say to the salesman "this has a cool looking tread, put 'em on"

 

Went shooting last weekend and had a drone taking videos and photos. Thought this was a pretty cool shot. Excuse the Jeep...he's the one with the drone.

 

I didn't know you knew Sam until I saw his instagram pics of the trip lol. We went to high school together.

 

Oh really? Ha that's funny. I actually just met him a few weeks ago while shooting.

 

Thank you buddy. You know I always keep your opinion in mind since I joined this site!

 

I also have a DD vehicle

 

OEM manual hub cv

Reman Napa cv

With how much smaller the manual cv is I'm wondering if that is often the breaking point instead of the joint.


@ToyRyd04 apparently my extra hub ran away. I can't seem to find it anywhere in the garage so I didn't bother pulling things apart last night.

 

That's crazy, Ryan. The difference in diameter between the ADD and manual at the hub is not insignificant.

Also, not to make light of your breakage, but it's kinda cool to see that classic helical break in a torsional failure of a shaft. But then I'm a big nerd, so there's that.

 

The one thing I learned was that I needed a replacement C clip as well. I brought both seals, bearings, and c clip to the local machine shop. They took it from there, but they are a really reputable shop. Really like working with the guy there. Toyota quoted me like $320 to do it, and the shop did it for $250. There is only one seal you can remove beforehand, the outer one, but if you don't I doubt it's a big deal.

All of this. The actual process of "tubbing" wasn't bad. My buddy and I did it in 17 hours which was insane. And that was just the cutting bashing and welding. That didn't include hours of extra work like cutting the fenders, seam sealing all the holes (twice), etc.

And someone mentioned about shit breaking the first time out, they weren't lying. I was running 35's on stock wheels, needed 2" wheel spacers to clear the frame. I've been running 1.25" for a long time, never any issues. Threw on 2" and 35's and I blow a rear wheel bearing after my first trip out, and now my fronts are making noise too. I went back to 1.25" and am just accepting the frame rub for now. Granted I have 210k on these bearings so they are undoubtedly due, but the 35's sent them over the edge I'm sure.

And let's not even go into drivetrain. My brakes laugh at me when trying to stop quickly. So add the tundra upgrade to that list of mods. Next is gears. The 4.10's are straight sluggish but manageable. I was okay with this, didn't think anything of it. Well first trip out on some serious shit and I blew the spiders in the front diff. So now add a locker to that list as well as gears since the front locker will hopefully keep those spiders in check since it encloses them in a cage. Also for 35's I need 5.29's which is the biggest you can get for a Taco. Well the bigger you go, the weaker the ring gear is. So even with gears I have risk of blowing a diff. Thankfully ECGS has warranties for this (in b4 ECGS hate from the west coast guys lol) but there is downtime involved in that, not to mention tow costs to get you home if you can't figure out how to limp home.

So on top of your 4wd conversion you are looking at around $2400 for gears locker, $1200 for tires, $300 for brakes, and that's not counting the risk of your steering rack going bad faster, your tie rods, etc. You can make your rig a beast LT pre runner for that lol

All of this. I wheeled on 32's for a longggg time and beat the piss out of my rig doing it while learning a ton. Learn your rigs capabilities and limits, and when you finally hit that limit, then decide where you want to go.

Good luck, and congrats on the baby.

 

Thats real talk right there.

 

How did you describe driving on 35's? I'm too lazy to look and probably skipped over it

 

I actually really like the way my truck rides on the highway. No problems in that regard. I've driven it back home to Utah for hours on the interstate and the only problem I had was overfilling the front diff before the trip and discovering that the breather puked diff oil everywhere.

 

That's nasty

 

I've been in/to a lot of places that a lot don't ever experience on my 31" tires.

Just sayin.

Also, correct me if I'm wrong...but the difference in ground clearance between a 33" tire and 35" tire is 1". Assuming both tires are true to size.

 

One inch can mean a lot

 

I am prepared to break stuff. I push my truck beyond its limits so it's to be expected. As long as I can make it off the trail I can't be mad about it haha.

 

Hey guys I could really use your help with something. I found this simple kick ass factory alarm mod ( everybody should check this out who was not aware of that) http://www.customtacos.com/tech.old/index.php?article=12 but when I went to go disconnect the plug I realized previous owner tapped into it and cut the plug for a aftermarket alarm that they also removed before I bought the truck. So I need to know what colors are on that's specific plug that your supposed to disconnect so I can cut that wire. You can't really tell from the picture how many wires go to that plug to disconnect. You don't need to drop the panel to view the plug . If someone can take a picture of the plug for me or let me know what color wires are going to that plug I would really appreciate it. I'm wanting to do this mod but I can't because I'm not sure what wires are on that plug that has been removed .