Making an emergency whole house generator out of 3rd Gen Tacoma?

The big challenge would be converting the truck’s engine to drive the generator. I’m thinking either a adapter bracket or doubled up pulley to allow an extended serpentine/vee belt to drive a generator sitting on the ground under the block, a bare rim mounted on the back using a belt to drive a generator or an adapter off the rear transfer case output.

 

Sounds like a horrible idea, but I like where you head is at.

 

Ok.

 

There are people who mount four or five alternators to the front of their engines. That seems like the most efficient route, but its no easy modification.

I like the bare wheel idea though...

 

Lets go more stone age.


Construct a large tower. Find a suitably heavy weight, perhaps a tacoma, and a heavy rope. Hook the rope to tacoma #1 and use it to hoist tacoma #2 up the tower. While an assistant holds the rope, disconnect the free end of it from Tacoma #1 and wrap it around a wheel attached to a generator. As gravity pulls Tacoma #2 back to Earth, the rope spins the generator. Repeat as necessary.*


* May require fine tuning.


EDIT: It might make sense now.

 

Ah yea. That would be sweet to have the front drive shaft hooked up to a generator. If you could setup the t-case to only power the front DS then you would pretty much have a tractor PTO.

 

Just get some splitters and extension cords and plug everything into the bed outlet. Space heaters, fridge, microwave, toaster, curling iron...No problem!

 

How about a 2wd tacoma, swap on a 4wd transfer case and rear driveshaft and use the front diff output and diff mount location to mount the generator. Then the 4wd switch basically becomes the on switch for your PTO and generator.

Edit: You’d just have to jack up the back end or disconnect the rear driveshaft at the transfer case to use the generator.

 

Get a flashlight, some food and a few candles.

 

you’d have to lift the rear wheels off the ground.

 

What is this?

Well, you could always pull the engine out of your Tacoma to drive a generator. What about this would be cheap? Did this make sense when you typed it?

OP, just buy a generator.

http://www.generac.com/all-products/generators/portable-generators/gp-series/gp3500io

 

Maybe add a second tcase, front output drives the generator, and then disconnect the rear driveshaft at the output.

 

For a dude driving a truck named “Tonka” with that many lights, you sure are being a bit too practical.

 

Stop being so serious. Just because you have no creative vision doesn’t mean we can’t brainstorm hair-brained ideas.

 

I lack creative vision in turning my truck into an AC generator for a house, damn...

Edit: .

 

A generator, manual transfer switch, and some Romex wire!

 

That 1000w power inverter isnt much. And it cost slot for a 1000w inverter that's like 8 or 9 amp. To figure out how many watts you need, take all the stuff you want to run and add up the amps. your fridge is probably 8 or more, but everything should have a tag on it where it says the amps and all that.
Say you find out you need 25 amps or whatever.
Divide the watts by the voltage so 1000w/110=9
And I think that 1000w inverter(car generator) is way overpriced and looks like an as seen on tv deal.
I bought one a while back that's 400w and it was $35 on Amazon.

But if you were wanting to rig up your truck either a tractor pto generator or a 1500 w inverter or bigger.
Maybe you could look into getting a welder/generator and then you'd have a welder also.

 

Creative vision will never outmatch physics, thermodynamics Ohms law or common sense.

 

I think a car alternator is just a 3-phase AC generator (there are extra electronics to rectify the output to DC). I bet you could wind one to output 120v at pretty high power output.