My Rough n Ready Taco excruciatingly slow build

Looks great man! I want these style headlights and grill so bad...

 

I really like it myself, have to adjust the headlights a bit, but the Hella H4s are awesome. Ends up that you can remove a bunch of the plastic headlight bucket and fit the metal buckets and retaining rings in pretty close to where they should be.
I have yet to aim the headlights- don’t do a lot of night driving lately- may have to get longer adjustment screws, I will look at the OEM kit for those, I have an aftermarket set I got from a place in Thailand, so there is still some tweaking on the fit.

FYI, I just put in an inexpensive aftermarket grill, insert tabs stick out too far on the upper corners of the grill, so I had to use zip ties to get a better fit. Might just be an issue with the brand of grill, I was price driven and wanted a black grill, this one has a gray inside and I just went with it, I may end up painting it semi gloss black later, might even try some other minor adjustments for fit. Luckily with the ARB and the moose lights, it isn’t too noticeable.

 

copy that, I’ll keep that in mind when I’m searching for parts, I think I’m going to do the front end swap on my 2003. Prob gonna go chrome grill and chrome bumper. The hunt for parts begins!

 

I think St Larry has a write up where he replaced the entire core support, which made it a lot easier-less trimming and tweaking but very likely more extensive work.

 

I saw your looking at regear. I have 4.30 with 31" tires and am happy with it. If you think there is a chance you might go up in tire size I'd definitely go with the 4.56 gears you have mentioned. I'm on the the road 95% of the time and still feel 4.56 would be OK for me.... even on 31's.

 

Thanks for the response, if I were spending more time on Hwy driving I would have likely gone with either 4.10 or 4.30 as well.
I am running 235/85 16s = just under 32” and may even go up to 255/85s so I think with the 4.56 and projected use I should be good, I run about 50% off road- mountainous backroads gravel and wheeling, and also seem to be towing and quite a bit out here in the west and up and down the AlCan. That and I’m not in a big hurry so it ought to be good, now to save up the $ for the axle bearings and seals to do the install.

 

Well I am going to pipe in on this debate, I am running 4:88 gears with 255/85R16's and it bogs down a little on the hills. On the flats I am running 2800 RPMs @ 70 MPH. I drive 40 miles one way to work. Outside of work, I spend about 50% of the time on dirt or back roads exploring.
I feel that 4:56 gears would be to high, just my 2 cents.

 

4.30 came original on the truck and am happy with it on 31's(I do wish I had 32's). I'd listen to Phessor.

I'm certainly not going to argue with that. I suggested 4.56 over the alternative 4.30 that was mentioned.

 

That’s some good info, thanks. Very interesting, I had really debated which to choose.
Well I guess I will see, I pondered it for quite awhile. As I currently have 3.91 gears, it should be an improvement over the stock gearing.
Since I had already ordered a set of diffs with the 4.56 and they are over at a friend’s place in Mt(saves a lot of sales tax - Washington is over the top that way) and will pick them up in a few weeks.

I always kind of wondered where the sweet spot is rpm wise on the 22R and the 3.4L. More used to my diesel -1750 -2000 = best power/economy.
I have the same basic split use wise, but mileage wise it trends to more Hwy miles so maybe it will balance out ok.
Now to decide whether to go ahead and install these or switch the diffs to 4.88, always something. Gives me something to chew on for the next few months. Up side, I will have an extra set of diffs that I could set up with 4.88 or lower if I feel it’s to high still.

 

2800 RPMs @ 70 MPH in 5th gear with 4:88 gears.

 

With 4.88s? That’s not bad at all
The calculator on Nitro gear site says about 2500 @ 65mph -5th so that may not be too bad.
What do you figure the sweet RPM is for power torque and economy?
Getting hot - 80F -up here in E Washington, food coma= siesta looms...

 

Power curve on my truck is around 3200 RPMs and up.
Fuel economy is around 55 MPH, but everyone honks and flips you off at that speed.

 

I should add that I replaced my speedometer gear with another one to get it to read correctly. I would have to pull it and count the teeth to tell you what it is though. When I come upon speed sensors it reads about 1 to 2 MPH slower than my gauge. So I feel it is as close as I can get it to correct speeds.

 

Yeah, my speedo is off by about 4-5mph. For some reason a 32 tooth gear sticks as the corrected size. Well the good news is, if I decide to change to 4.88, I can still do it before I install the new diffs, easier that way. Thanks again for the info.

I suspect that 80F is about the norm down your way this time of year. I haven’t summered in the desert since the mid 80’s, I spent the 3 yrs in Death Valley, and a few years prior to that spent 3 years at Muroc Dry Lake west of Barstow, Edwards AFB. It wasn’t that bad once you got used to it. But after spending the last 20+ summers in Ak and austral summers on Ross Island, I am kinda over it. It gets hotter I get sleepier. Definitely ready for a pilgrimage to the San Rafael swell in a couple years.
Thanks again for the info, be well and have fun down in Az!

 

It has been in the high 80's and low 90's here lately. But then the lows drop down into the 30's overnight, makes growing a garden fun.
I spent two years at Ft Irwin with the highs in the 130's, that was miserable. But your right, you do get used to it.
But the worst was the middle east, highs in the 140's, that I did not get used to.

 

That would be difficult to be sure, especially the long duration of the heat, and minimal greenery.

Living in DV at least there were only a couple weeks a summer when it never dropped under 115 at night. Averaged around 90-100+ days where the temps would drop below 100 at all, in the summer.

Great sunrises, fascinating wildlife and incredible vistas.

A favorite thing was drive up to Dante’s view elevation about 5500ft spend the night in watching meteor showers in Aug, temps were pleasant around 85-95F and wake up to an epic sunrise.

Another nice thing was that there were many places where it was absolutely dark at night, and the desert comes to life.

That and amazing flower shows and spectacular floods, really helped to balance one’s perspective.

 

The emptiest the Taco has been since I the day after I got it.

Just got back from a dump run.

 

That will change, need to fab a bigger mount for the fuse panel next summer, and clean up some of the wiring- final termination, left a lot of the stuff a bit long, while I was routing the wiring. I guess this is version 1.0:



Still need to install some of the switched loads, but they are big ticket items that have been delayed/ corona-d.
I did move the driving light relays over by the battery- too busy on the firewall, and then they keep company with the new headlight relays.

 

I need to do this, my Blue Sea dual battery isolator acts up every now and then and I loose power to my auxiliary battery and fuse box.

 

Well it’s been awhile, and not much going on besides getting evacuated from the Oregon coast. That was entertaining, actually got out early-already packed- so it wasn’t a lot of drama, but plenty of knuckleheads en route.
After getting back and resettled, knocked out some farm projects and a few items off the honey-do list

Then I had a little time on my hands, and washed the seat covers, pulled the seats and traded the driver’s seat base for the passenger side, cleaned the carpet and scrounged up the bits and pieces to make a hill country pressure washer to try to wash the sand and silt out of the frame that I have been carrying around for the last few years.
Not much to look at but functional:

I took a uni-bit and enlarged the drain holes in the frame to about 3/4”, and hooked up the irrigation pump to a hose and set to it. Took about 3-4hrs of flushing but I finally washed out the 2-3” of sand and silt that came with the truck- a gift from the PO, no extra charge...
From the passenger side:

got better with practice- driver’s side:


Now to wait till it dries and prime & paint the enlarged openings as well as some touch up on the slider welds and a few other spots after a naval jelly party and see how that looks.