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

I dig it. Looks a lot like how I built mine, which looks a lot like the Elite bumpers I was trying to copy.

 

What year is your Tacoma. My 2003 has it under my intake manifold, which will be a pain to change out.
I have the OEM but am sitting on the job...

 

He likely has the V6. The 4 cylinders have it under the manifold. That's a job I will likely pay someone else to do when the time comes.

 

I've got two 1995s. One has the 2.7L which is what you are describing, so I feel your pain. I have changed it once. Best to remove tire and fender seal and get to it through there. Loosen the lines before you loosen the bracket holding it to the block.

The picture is of my 3.4L truck. The filters are located along the left driver side frame rail, next to the transfer case. Pretty easy to get at it there.

 

Does anyone else’s shifter freeze up when driving in snow a lot? Like the tranny tunnel fills up with snow and clogs everything?

Normal or nah?

 

I haven't had a problem with that. Have you checked your shifter bushings (trans and t-case) to see if they need replaced? Might just be worn bushings causing you problems.

 

nice work!

 

I've had the under side of my truck packed full of snow many times and never had that problem. And I'm not talking just a little bit of snow. When it's real cold, like -10 F or lower it's hard to shift until the transmission warms up a bit. After driving five minutes it's normal no matter how cold it is outside.

We are talking manual transmission aren't we? If you're talking automatic, I've got no answers.

 

You are saying the shifting linkage is jamming?
In subzero temps my manual always shifts with much much more resistance but never locked up.
It might be old fluid in the tranny or a worn syncro. The latter is a common problem in cold.
If yours is automatic I plead ignorance.

 

It’s only ever happened twice, just felt like Park was blocked but wasn’t hasn’t really hard to break whatever it was.

 

I had it happen snow wheeling the other day. Just couldn’t get it into park. After driving for a few mins after it froze up, the linkage unfroze and worked again.

 

I think mine was a combination of slamming puddles and then drifts. I don’t think anything’s wrong with it, was just curious if anyone else had it happen

 

Sounds like yet another good reason not to have one of those fancy automatic thingys.

 

Burned the front hoop in after some humming and hawing to determine the angle and setback. Not ready to do the side hoops since I still need to figure out the best way to fishmouth the ends that meet the main hoop.



And a view of the inner structure. The wings will be strengthened by the outer hoops once they are installed. If I wasn't added hoops, then I would probably add some internal bracing for the wings.



The 1" x 2" tube for the center bracing at the bottom is what I used since the pieces provided were too short because of the additional 1/4" plate on my frame. That's also why I have a larger bumper to grill/fender gap than this bumper would normally have. I made the mistake of not addressing that before tacking and welding the top pieces in place. I might be able to add some material later to address that but not a big enough deal for right now.

 

I'd skip the head light hoops. Wish I had. I like the center hope with side posts better. That and it's much easier to get under the hood without the head light hoops. Chances are if you hit a deer on the highway anyways the tube will just fold over into the truck .

 

It's not as bad as everyone makes it out to be. I've done it plenty of times with everything in place. Just have one wobble socket extension to reach the upper bolt an make sure you loosen the bracket before you remove assembly from the engine block.

 

I agree with Monte, my headlight hoops broke off and cane into my headlight and hood. They're just huge levers to tweak the bumper

 

So is it better to just hit the deer with no hoops at all? Or just a center hoop? I still haven't decided on a bumper yet but probably will this summer for a winch.

 

I think it's probably better to go without them and let the bumper have a better chance of survival. The wings don't have enough support to handle all that leverage.

 

Not my truck so take it for what it’s worth but...

I prefer the look of the single center hoop from what I saw of other completed bumpers online but those headlight hoops would help a ton for the low branches we are always dragging our fenders against. Not much deer here to hit, and the ones we’ve seen are so small they wouldn’t damage your truck anyway, so I wouldn’t worry much about that factor.

The point about being easier to get inder the hood, I X2. Although your truck is pretty much set for the next 200K miles after all the maintenance you’ve completed.

Great looking work btw!