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

Ah. Found it kind of weird the ring gears were different sizes.

 

should still be 7.5''. But aren't reverse cut. Whole front diff setup is competely different. Actually, I wish they had kept the earlier design.

 

Would 8.0" or 7.5" be better?

 

well..an 8'' would be better. But there is no 8'' front diff for our trucks.

FROF has made a kit to swap in an 8'' front diff from a 2nd gen. But hasn't released it yet for sale.

 

Hold on a minute, so the ring gear size in the front differential is irrelevant?

 

No.

all pre tacos and 1st gen tacos(an 4runners 1s-3rd gen, and 1st gen tundras) all have 7.5'' front ring gears.

However.

The pretacos and 1st/2nd gen 4runners front diffs are not reverse cut.

As seen here, the diff sits on the passenger side on these trucks:



vs our front diffs which sit on the driver side.

Front Locker-11.jpg by Monte Nickles Photos, on Flickr

This makes our diffs reverse cut gears. Because the rotate the opposite direction.

So no, the ring gears are not compatible.

 

Oh and our diffs are a High pinion design. Also why they aren't compatible.

For all you diff needs, check out this page: http://home.4x4wire.com/erik/diffs/

Lots of great info there.

 

You mentioned all 3rd gen T4R's and 1st gen Tacoma use the 7.5" ring gear, but according to this thread the 'B' code denotes that my Tacoma has 7.5" and the 4Runner has the gear code 'A' which should denote a ring gear of 8", right?

 

still waiting on that +2" lt too.

 

You sure it's a 3rd gen t4r? That gear code may be specific to tacomas, as odd as that would be.

It makes no difference what size the ring and pinion are as long as the ratio is the same. An 8" gear would obviously be stronger than our 7.5" front gear. I would be worried that it doesn't mount the same, as the clamshell would probably be larger to accommodate the bigger gearset.

 

They said they’d have it out soon, but that was in August so

 

Yeah the one I have in the wrong gear ratio came off of a '99 4Runner, exactly the same as the Tacoma front diff from what I could see.

 

ikr. im waiting for them to announce pricing.

 

Same, not that I could afford it atm, but it’d give me a goal.

 

Well that supports the theory that the 4Runner coding is different than tacomas.

 

Yeah! I had a feeling. It has the same code formatting but the codes just don't line up. The 4Runner code is A04A, which according to the tacoma ratio thread would be 4.56 - but looking at threads on line confirm A04A is 4.30 on a 4Runner.

 

Anyone have any good luck with a not so expensive round 4" offroad light. looking for something to throw in my bumper. Amazon has a bunch from about $15-$30.

 

Yes, all 3rd gen 4runners have a 7.5'' front diff. there were i think a very VERY select few that got the 8'' diff that 2nd gen tacomas and all other modern toyota 4x4s use. But it is extremely rare. Also, no 8'' front diff will fit in our trucks.

as for the A vs B part...its classic toyota.

A is supposed to be for 2 pinion and B is supposed to be for 4 pinion.

According to my sheet, A is for 7.5'': https://www.dropbox.com/s/6iidyyk5s3k4k73/All_Toyota_Truck_Axle_Codes.pdf?dl=0

because it was the same.

 

I didn't realize the 4Runner differential codes were different from the Tacoma differential codes. Explains why it's been so hard for me to identify gear ratios.

 

They aren't.

Look at my sheet.

A04A=7.5'' 4.30