allenfab's 95 Tacoma build

Bored.... replaced the clutch bushings with some bronze bearings, installed a new CORE short throw shifter, and a photo from Kentucky last year on the “lions den” obstacle.

 

Shit, you ran lion’s den?

 

Naw, don’t let me fool you, that pic was about as far as I got on it lol

 

Nah we got you further. I’d have to find the pic. But then the ice and slick mud got to be a stopper.

 

Oh nice. I can’t remember much other than the 4Runner fiasco lol

 

Where did you attach the other side of the traction bar to? I bought a DIY kit from RuffStuff and not really sure that the U joint cross member is the best place.

 

Yea. That wasn’t fun.
I was the one who broke up in windrock. But it was on the last day at least. Then it fixed itself. Who knows.
But now that I’m out west. I gotta find ppl that want to do more than the FSRs.

 

Stock crossmember that holds up the fuel tank (one piece driveshaft here, so I guess it would be the ujoint crossmember would be the same on ext. cab and double cabs). I just used a piece of square tube and coped it to the contour of the crossmember and welded it to it, and then did tabs off of that. It held up with no problems.

 

Ha nice. I’d love to go back and wheel it again, it’s a first gen/mini truck/samurai special that’s a ton of fun past the drop

 

It is. We walked it first, and I was thinking to myself that I’d never make it. Plus, only had two trucks with me, both IFS and 35s, and only one had a winch. I was worried about getting up into the nastier parts and not having enough Backup to winch me out anyway

 

I plan to mount mine on the carrier bearing crossmember if I ever get around to doing it. It's a pretty long lever to there, so I think it will hold up fine on that end. I'm more worried about the other end on the axle where Todd keeps tearing his off. At the same time though, I'm just IFS with manual hubs so I'll break the front end before I have to worry about the traction bar, lol.

 

Probably a wise decision! By the tree squeeze, the rear of my truck needed to be over a couple feet. So we unlocked the passenger front hub and ran my winch line across the tire to a snatch block on a tree next to/behind me, and then to my rear d-ring. Worked great fortunately because recovery options out around the house sized boulders are limited!

 

I’m considering welding this thing closer to the shock rather than mounting closer to the drive shaft. This will reduce the amount of fab work I have to do. Any thoughts on this?

 

I would go closer to the driveshaft for 2 reasons: 1: it would protect your driveshaft from rocks to some extent, and 2: @allenfab said when he had his mounted off more outboard, it lifted up that side of the truck under load. If I do mine, I'm going inboard as I can get away with. If I knew someone that had a tube bender that would bend 2"x.250" tube, I'd have my tubes bent so they were as close to the driveshaft as I could get and probably get some of those rings that keep the driveshaft from flailing around beating the crap out of everything under the truck if a U-joint lets go. I like to overbuild stuff, lol. If it were up to me, every 4WD truck/SUV would come stock with a Dana 60 straight axle with an option for manual hubs...or like Ford does, have backup manual selectors...oh and full floating rear axles.

Another thing to consider is if it's close to the shock, they may hit under articulation. When I was running my shocks at the stock locations, my passenger side shock hit the spring hard enough to break the lower mount off the shock with full articulation.

 

I had mine closer to the passenger frame rail at one point with virtually no issues. I do believe that it hindered the flex more as opposed to it being closer to the driveshaft, but it did tend to lift the passenger side of the truck up more under acceleration. Space is at a premium under there so really, wherever you can get it to fit is probably fine. But I liked it better closer to center for driveshaft protection.

 

The only reason I’m looking to install one is to 100% get rid of wrap. Even with J59s I still get it, especially with WOT then suddenly letting off the gas. Considering I have a bit more power with the supercharger I should probably center it.

 

Well, granted, like I said, even if I had a crawl box to get the gear reduction down there for low speed axle wrap to be an issue, I'd break something in the front end first before I got to anything serious enough for low speed axle wrap to be a concern. I do have Ruff Stuff Anti-wrap perches and the only time I really notice axle wrap is going slow in deep sand. Matting the gas and letting the TSL SXs eat usually takes care of that problem. If they ever start making chromo CV axles for first gens with manual hubs (about as likely as me waking up tomorrow and finding the OGTs be filled with free c-notes until it's sitting on the bumps) or I SAS it, which is slightly more likely but would still requires quite a few of those free C-notes magically appearing in my immediate vicinity, I'm pretty sure the traction bar will be overkill for the OGT.

To be honest, once I get the rear bumper done and get some lighting installed in various places, I think I'm done. I'll just go have fun, fix what I break and maintain what I've got...unless I discover some step by step instructions for swapping in an A340F to replace the 5-speed. I love wheeling an automatic better than a manual. You can be more gentle with it. My T4R was a real pleasure the couple of times I took it out, but it's too nice to be out on the trails.

 

@allenfab I might need your help figuring out how to wire my interior winch control switches. Warn wasn't very helpful when I inquired and I don't want to start cutting apart my wired controller to see what wire does what.

 

Oh god, I hate wiring lol.

I’ll have to look for it, but I found a video on YouTube that explained how to wire them up. But with that said, I still wired it wrong the first time, but had it figured out shortly after. I’ll look for the video

 

Thanks. I could pin it out if I had to, but I hate wiring too. A video would be nice. I was thinking about getting a second controller and gutting that one apart, then just using the wire lead to run to my switches.