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

Dont go hovercraft mode lol! I like wheels that offset the color of the truck. So the silver looks great. See my pic above for reference.

 

Yeah i saw it looks great on your truck, i’ll probably go that route. Easier too.

 

Those are actually powdercoated slightly darker than the stock finish.

 

I am not about to wrestle the other one back into place to take a pic. It's fine, I think it's just a description vagueity due to the text.

Here is where I am now with the one with the square-corner brackets in place....



And here is what I mean by square-corner brackets, on the other one...




The driver's front mount is giving me issues. But then as we know, the crossmember is known to be different, and I am pretty sure you said you had to notch yours when you built these. Entirely not a problem, I expected some finagling to get this to work. Worse comes to it, I will expedite my frame reinforcement project, cut the wraparound mounts off and weld the bugger on hard and permanently.

Bottom line, and lest anyone think I am complaining, I am not. I am quite happy with the build quality of these, and the only complaint is they are heavy and I am old. Neither of these are your fault.

I have been saying I needed some upper body work. Getting it now, trying to wrestle these heavy bitches in! But for them to do what I need (protect the body and act as sliders should) they HAVE to be heavy.

BLUF (bottom line up front, akin to TLDR) as we say at work... WELL DONE!

 

whatever works I guess

 

Better pic, I think this will end up being in the same orientation as your pic above once I get it in...

 

Measure the frame towards the front of the truck, as its wider, or atleast it was on my 04. There is really only one way these go on, widest mount towards the front. They should line up with the door seam like the pic above. But yeah, I get your frustration. It explains why nobody makes bolt on sliders that dont require some sort of drilling for 1st gens. Pretty sure these are the only 100% bolt on sliders for 1st gens so some fitment problems can be expected. Which is also why I filled my scrap bucket with several failed prototype mounts.

Thanks for the compliments though! And I totally dont blame you if you just weld the suckers on.

 

That slider was on my passenger side. The mount towards the front in the pic is a bit taller than the rest, as it went behind the cab on the pass side. That tranny x member may be getting in your way afterall.

This is the angled corner one going around the rear x member on the drivers side. Before It was all together that is.

 

At the risk of seeming like an argumentative cuss (because I am), all the mounts on the one in that pic (under driver's side) are within 1/8" of each other


The other one (in the bed of the truck with angled fore and aft mounts) is about 7/8 longer on what will be the front mount

 

I think Ive confused you and myself lol. Maybe Im remebering one of my prototypes being longer. But the pic I posted of those two mounts in the raw was definelty drivers side. Says so right in the pic lol.

 

We're talkin' PROGRESS!



Decided to sneak the front end up first. It appears to be working. I had to borrow my son's bottle safety jack, and of course he had to be a goofball...

 

Incidentally I know it seems like a complete flunky tool, but these things are the cat's ass...

 

Let me know if you want a tutorial on doing it without massive disassembly, or risk of getting shards in the engine. I have done this many times over the years with aluminum heads.

 

Liking where this is going....

 

Within a half inch of fitting.. this is the driver side and it won't go higher.

I think I had this overthought.. the forward mount should be behind the crossmember, not between it.and the mount....

My shoulders hate me now...

 

Put that one on the other side.
I always did the pass side first to get the easier one done first.

 

That's more like it...

 

Yeah, I'm a dumbass sometimes.

 

Now were getting somewhere!

 

Poked around with the swingout some but didn't feel like really working on it much. Waiting for the new latch to come in so I can cut the current one off and put the new latch on the end of the swingout tube instead of the face where it is now. So, istead I decided to install the ADS coilovers I picked up last Monday. Still the stuck UCA and everything else for now. I really don't feel like tearing the front end apart for a rebuild just yet. I did notice I have 555 LBJs, didn't know they came greasable cause mine are. Anyhow, coilover install went fine with only the drivers side lower bolt fighting me a little bit. Drove to the store since I needed food and all I can say is that damn, my old Bilstein 5100s were way more shot that I realized. The ADS are much, much better so far.