My Big Can of Worms Build

That hood scoop looks great man. Your making some good progress.

 

Thanks brother - I scored on that hood - it's just sitting on there - I have to do some fiberglass work to make it fit right, but it should work out. McNeil Fiberglass makes a louvered one I was going to get until this one came up on CL.

What's up with your build page - I checked it the other day and didn't see any new posts. Truck going through any changes lately?

 

Straight copy and paste from the first gen bs page aka what I did to my Tacoma, slacking because I'm studying for the final test to get my credential.

"I forgot from yesterday before I could hook up my coolant hoses, I had to partake in some damage control on my heater core. Apparently channel locks are only good for main radiator hoses and there are better tools for the others such as picks, razor blades for hoses that will be replaced, and these:



So to make my heater core exit tube more rounder again I made a special service tool out of a 1/2" drive extension and some grease:



It worked well enough to make the tube 99% round again after it was more of a thick pancake.

Not much today other than continuing the undercarriage makeover to the rear axle. Mostly what I wanted to do when the driveshaft and exhaust were off.



Gave my truck the worst wash in the time that vehicles have been getting washed since there was wet paint on the bottom - but something had to be done since I'm out of town for a week and it's becoming an eyesore. It's in my neighbor's carport and I was getting uncomfortable about how dirty it was after a five inch streak of bird poop ran down the back window of my camper shell. I don't know if I made it better or worse lol. Hopefully at least a little better."

 

I think I'll look into getting one of those scoops. I really like it. Builds going good I'll have some updates on my page tomorrow just got some work done lately on it since I'm out of school for a bit. I'll throw some pictures up tomorrow too.

 

Same here (school meaning college and the school I work for lol). Gives a whole new meaning to the Christmas rush, eh?

 

Happy New Year Anthony!!!

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Likewise Chad!

 

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Got some extra vacation time thanks to Mother Nature's east coast blizzard that kept me at my parent's place in Maine for a few extra days. Even after 3 days it took me 25 hours to get back out here - including a 2.5 hour bus ride and a 10 hour layover at SFO that was only supposed to be 3-4. Gave me plenty of time to study and read about synthetic winch lines lol.



Here's a pic from the bus ride to Boston. I always liked driving by this place as a kid.



Got my steering rack from being rebuilt. Has all the same seal upgrades Solo Motorsports uses on their Tundra retrofit racks

 

Can't believe I've only stumbled across your build thread now. Great work man, I read through all 11 pages.

Do you plan on making it SAS? Or Long Travel?

 

Got a couple things done today. Learned a little more about non-add diffs thanks to @BartMaster1234 so I'm going to be looking for either a non-add jack shaft and tube or a complete non-add diff. That delayed my plan for the front diff to get torn down today - don't want to mess with a complete diff until I figure out which route I'm going to take.

I got a ton of extra parts photographed and put up for sale.



Then I finished my transmission jig so the transmission doesn't want to rotate on the jack anymore. It's held in place well with the transfer case held against the jig and the ratchet strap holding it.

 

Thanks Tyler! You've been a big help so far! You got the fast version of this thread - it's been a year so far since I've been working on this truck - hard to believe lol.

SAS would be sweet, but the amount of fabrication is prohibitive for me right now. Even long travel is turning out to be adding a lot of ins and outs and what-have-yous because the kit that's on order isn't completely bolt on and requires some significant fabrication.

How's your 4x4 conversion coming? Got the rear driveshaft back in?

 

Flexplate completely shit itself when I was driving home doing about 40. I started hearing grinding in 4th, then I keep losing gears - 3rd, 2nd, then after I lost 1st the truck wouldn't move anymore. Just barely limped into a parking lot. I tried to start the truck to somehow drive it onto the tow truck, but all you would hear is grinding from the starter.

Transmission shop said it's the Flexplate. HUGE crack. It basically exploded. I must have installed it wrong because a flexplate shouldn't fail at 95,285 miles. $1,300 to fix at but at this point I don't have any time or patience to fix it myself so I'm having the transmission shop do it. That was more than a week ago I'm waiting on the new flexplate.

Hey, you live you learn. All the shops I called thought I was absolutely crazy when I was describing a "Modified 2WD Truck that's actually 4WD"

 

Man sorry to hear that Tyler. Had you removed the flex plate at all when you had the transmission out? It sounds like there may have been some component loaded unevenly once the trans was back in. You're a smart guy so I'm guessing it seemed legit when you reinstalled the trans.

Did you get the bell housing to butt up to the block on the dowel pins flush? One thing I've heard over and over again is to not draw the transmission onto the dowel pins using the bell housing bolts. I assume you didn't do this. It's the reason why I made my jig though; getting the thing off of block was a pain and I'll most likely be putting it back in on my own. I don't want to be fighting with it unnecessarily and take a chance at having something be cockeyed.

So when you get it back it will be hunky dory? I am curious, were you driving in front wheel drive or did you have the rear driveshaft installed? Hopefully this is the last of your conversion set backs. Good job still also your truck looks so good with those wheels! Even on a flatbed!

 

I used the bellhousing bolts to draw it into the dowel pins. That was the only way it was going on pushing the tranny jack wouldn't do anything.

I was driving in 4HI FWD since I didn't have a rear driveshaft. They're pulling the transmission off Monday to tell me if anything else is damaged.

I made sure the torque converter wasn't binding against the flex plate and vice versa, I even rotated the crankshaft a couple times before I started it to make sure.

 

Had a few hours to do some stuff. Got my new non-ADD axle tube thanks to @Faster_n_you98 as I was getting my spare diff ready to send out to ECGS:



Here's the clamshell ready to be sent this week!



Fixed the tailgate. It felt like the handle was going to snap when I opened it, but looking inside, it just looked like the friction points were too rough and needed some lube - including the metal lever that the handle presses on. That looked like the rhinoliner or whatever the bed is covered in got on it and made it rough so I sanded it down and greased it. Opens like new again!




Cleaned out my bed, reorganized some things. One of my parts stashes - drive shaft and axle city!



Finally did a "real" wash - just don't look at the roof lol.

 

Solo is one of the best companies I've interacted with - they have said it's their way or the highway if I didn't want to pay the full price they were asking to install my front kit (there's welding involved, so that leaves me without many options for mounting the coilovers myself).

Instead they said they'd weld on some temporary shock tabs and let me drive over to their shop with my stock coilovers after I do all the bolt on part of the install. They didn't have a stock lca on hand to figure out how far out to put the shock tabs so they asked me to measure for them - just how far out from the cam bolt, I think they can keep it in line with the coil bucket since their jig would have that measurement anyway. I included the space between the tabs in case the ones they install are different.

I love that they don't talk down to me at all even though I'm cutting costs wherever I can and they install $10k + worth of parts at a time on some customers' vehicles and build luxury prerunners. \m/ Solo rules!

 

Getting parts for the bean this week. Found a good deal on a way to mount a jack in the back when I get the cage put in the bed and a compressor.

Solo's having a sale on these for a little while, figure I'd save $30 and get one now.




https://www.solomotorsports.com/shop/parts/general-parts/harbor-freight-jack-mount-skid-plate/

And thanks to @Final Lap I got a good deal on a dual compressor for the lockers.



I recommend anyone in the area go to him for ARB products:

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/fs-new-arb-on-board-air-twin-compressor-12v-ckmta12.348130/

I also bought this:



https://goldplug.com/

Unfortunately the hex head is so big it doesn't fit in the housing between the fins next to the drain hole. It seems like a great product, but it just doesn't fit.

 

Sub'd, Dam late to the party.

 

Sent this packin':