Redeemed: rngr's Trail Taco w/side of T4R

I think I’m set up to make some pretty good progress tomorrow. HD detent springs came in. Threw them in. You can see they're longer and I little stiffer than the original. Also got the dowels in. The cases are together the RTV is drying.




Tomorrow’s plan is to throw this big boy on the jack so I can see what needs to be cut and smashed to make it fit. Would be nice to have it installed by the end of the weekend.

 

Can I leave my 4runner with you and get it back with a manual transmission in it?

 

Yes. I’d be happy to set a manual trans in the back hatch of your runner. I’ll even put a towel under it so it doesn’t stain your carpet. You’ll have to provide the trans and towel, of course.

 

Ayyyyy gurrrrrrrl!

 

What all did you have to smash?

 

Just the tunnel. Really no way to describe it to you, but it’ll be very apparent when you have the cases on a jack trying to get them up there. Super easy.

 

Smash some more out around the tunnel and around the top of the case. Everything will torque over alot now because you will have 10,000,000 torques at your disposal. Important around the shifters and rails because they can be knocked out of gear which brings the suck.

Looks like a relatively drama free install so far!

 

Good point. Speaking of that...

Am I wrong to think a secondary crossmember/mount is a necessity? That looks like way too much weight hanging freely behind the trans mount.

I saw FROR makes a mount, or might fab something up myself. What did you do?

 

Marlin said it's not necessary. I think Connor did a new crossmember.

 

I did not add anything extra and ran it like you did for 8+yrs. I added a crossmember only recently due to solid axle swap reasons. If it wasn't for that I would still be running it stock style.

 

Yea... but holy shit those two cases are HEAVY.

 

http://www.lowrangeoffroad.com/rock-defense-tacoma-dual-transfer-case-crossmember.html

I've been told if you make it too solid, the vibrations will be more pronounced. Though I think that was because of poly bushings more so than adding mounts

 

I ran a poly mount for a few years but went back to rubber. The issue is if you run a poly trans mount you should run a poly motor mount which vibes like crazy. Keep rubber all around and learn to drive it without putting excessive torque through everything, which you will need to do anyway unless you enjoy replacing CVs and front diffs on the trail. I have the crossmember thunderdone is showing and still only run one mount.

 

Well, that makes me feel better.


Taking drive shafts to Nashville tomorrow! Woohoo

 

As a dude that’s hoping someday to finally get his crawl box in his fucking truck, I wanted to say thanks for jumping in with the know-how. It’s really good stuff.

Just out of curiosity, what were the solid axle reasons for adding the crossmember?

I know IFS is different, obviously, but I’m just trying to learn something new here. I remember talking to Wyatt about this and I thought for sure that he recommended bringing a mount off the back of the existing crossmember similar to what @Spoonman just did. He also mentioned the same thing you did about the poly versus rubber mounts. He ran poly and hated the vibes between the motor, trans, and crawler mounts and swapped back to rubber.

 

No problem, and its why I love tech forums. I had to figure it out when I built mine a long time ago and was cursing up and down about no instructions, so why not pass it on? The stock crossmember gets in the way of the front driveshaft when the axle moves up and down with a solid axle. Back in the day people use to make these crazy upside down "U" out of flat stock off the stock crossmember to make a channel for the shaft to flex. Now you have all kinds of options. I was always planed on building an extra mount off the back of the crossmember and just never did it. Before I knew it 8yrs passed and no issues so I didn't touch it. I ran the single mount in the stock location even after the sas but was getting some weird vibes caused by tires and the offset 80 rear axle so I modified the trail gear crossmember and now run a single mount off the lefty and that settled things down a bit, but in no way is applicable to what rngr is doing. After this he we will have damn near a clone of my truck, except mines a 6cyl. It's going to be a sleeper/tank once you get it dialed in!!

 

Awesome. That makes perfect sense.

And yeah, I’m stoked as hell to see how Carter’s turns out. I have a TacoBox, but I have a set of RAD triples like the ones he’s using, so it’ll be damn near the same.

Its pretty cool to hear across the board from everyone who does it that it’s a straight up game changing mod. Can’t wait to get mine in soon when I’m not so damn busy with life stuff.

 

Yea way more bang for buck to install one of these than a front locker or even an SAS.

 

Great nna be so slow in lo-lo

 

Just a tad.