1999 Tacoma SR5 TRD Imperial Jade Build, Sweat and Tears

Welp here we go again... Went to put the seals and other CV's in today.

Passenger side old and new seal. Seals are OEM Toyota for the record.


Greased the spring so it doesn't come out and the outer edge so it slides in the tight hole.


Used this non sense to drive the seal in. What a pain in the ass. You legit only have a hair thickness of tolerance. Its pretty close but at this rate I wouldn't be surprised if the shit leaked.


Also as a side note, I don't have a 35mm socket. I used the 36mm and it worked fine. The nut is hardened so damn hard that it didn't even mark it up.
So if you're in a pinch 36mm works just fine. Taking off or putting it on.


Passenger side is done (fingers crossed). New seal and 4Runner CV shaft.


Then I fucked myself. I didn't know the driver side is a different seal. Its a completely different size. So now Im stuck and the dealer here is already closed. Seeing its such a common part,
they even use it up until now in the 2020 trucks, they should have one. Guess Ill find out tomorrow. Below is the new (wrong one) and old one.

 

CV seals cont....

Had to wait a day for the dealer to get it in.


This side went in pretty easy. This is about as much as I removed to put the seals in.


I didn't have anyone to step on the brake so I could torque the nut down so I put the wheel back on with 2 lugs.




After I got it all together I took it for a drive in FWD mode to see if the 4Runner shafts helped and it did. It feels way better. The front vibes are gone. And for some reason the front end just feels better all around.



Then I put the driveshaft back in to see how bad that is. I also took a washer out of each side of the center support. So from 4 to 3. The vibes are still there. I called a driveshaft place to
see how much it would cost to balance the drive shaft and they said $175. Fuck that, guess its gonna have to keep vibrating.



Drove about 30 miles today and so far no leaks. Ill update again in couple days.

 

Well. Took the driveshaft off like 8-10 more times trying to fix this dumb vibration before a road trip. Still no success.



Put about 400 miles it since the CV seals and no leaks so I put my skids back on.

 

PA to NYC




New Jersey




Lincoln Tunnel




Went to the Arcteryx in Soho to get their patch at a photo infront of the store. The street ended up being blocked off which sucks. This was the best I got. Its the back building, lol.


Super happy to at least get the patch.

 

On the way back







Stopped at a random junk yard on the way back and picked up some tweeters, sails and door wiring for powered mirrors off a 4Runner. No luck on finding a Tacoma for the driveline.







The truck did great on the trip other than the beyond annoying and unfixable at this point driveline vibration. All leaks seem to be fixed.

 

why the tunnel and not the bridge!?! do they have cashless tolls there?

 

They have Ez pass for the tunnel. IDK it was closest to where I was going. I wasn't really in the mood for taking photos so it didn't matter.

 

Installed the tweeters and sails I got from the junkyard out of a 4Runner.

The plug thing that holds the sail on sits higher on the 4Runner so I had to make a new hole and I moved the white insert up to the new hole. The hole below the white insert in the original hole.


Since there is no slot to hold the one side of the tweeter, I bet that part over so it would lock into the hole that was there, then made a new hole for the screw.




Ill post photos with the sails later but they fit just fine.

I wired them into the door speakers. They seem to be okay. Kinda seem on the quiet side. IDK if aftermarket ones would be louder.
Hopefully it'll at least help fill some of the sound on the freeway with all the road noise.

 

Then I pulled the electric adjustable mirrors and door wiring out of my other truck and plugged it into this one to see if the
wiring that passes to the passenger side is there. It was. Its all plug and play.

When I was at the junk yard coming back form NYC I pulled the wiring harness out of the doors of a 4Runner.
Just to let everyone know thats is interested in this, the 4Runner is completely different wiring. Don't do it, its a waste of time. You need to find a Tacoma.
Even the controller for the mirrors is a different plug even though its the same switch.





The doors are still apart. Im going to by some sound deadener. Then Im gonna fix the messed up plastic on the door from the previous owner.

 

One of my favorite threads to read! If you ever figure out how to get rid of the driveline vibrations I would love to know how... I have 3 degree axle shims and

This drop bracket. My driveline is almost level and straight, still vibrates around 75mph... freaking annoying!

 

Thanks.

I guess lets touch on the vibration shit. First of all Toyota really fucked this up. All I read about is endless problems and rarely any solutions that work.

I have never seen 2 trucks that have the driveline put together the same and all are considered out of phase. Which makes no sense because their diagram says to put it in phase.

Even when Ive been going to the junk yard Ive been checking the 4Runners and they aren't in phase and they aren put together the same as the next one.


Heres where Ive landed which makes everything even more confusing.

Mine has ended up being put together in phase like Toyotas diagram suggest.



My vibration is now intermittent. This is how it changes.

If I'm going around a long bend on the highway, the amount of vibration changes from bad to almost gone.

If I'm going around the bend and if the bend straightens out when the vibration is almost gone, its stays that way until I turn again.

If I'm going around the bend and if the bend straightens out when the vibration is really bad, it continues to say bad until I turn again.

Its dead consistent and repeatable.




The only logical answer to my mind is, its the alignment of the rear tires with one another. Or it something in the diff. Thats the only thing that changes when going around curves.
Buts its not the tires because if I take the driveshaft out it goes away.

So now I have no idea other than I need to go get the driveshaft balanced just to rule that out.

This whole thing is a joke. Its honestly Toyotas bad. The problem shouldn't be this wide spread and unsolvable. I was even reading people with 2nd gens vibrated off the show room floor.
Ive never dealt with anything like this and Ive worked on a lot of different stuff.

 

I think one piece balanced driveshaft would take care of the vibration issue, but that's not cheap...lol

 

Im gonna have to look into seeing what I can do. Driving all over the country with it vibrating is kinda annoying. Theres no Tacomas in any junk yards so I haven't had any luck there in just buying another one.

 

Been driving around with about 350lbs of cement in the bed to try and sag the darkars. Still really unhappy with the way over the rated lift.
With 350lbs in there it lowered a lot. Its now lower than the front and its still not getting picked up by the over loads.

I honestly don't really like these springs. Theres way to much travel. I had a lot more weight in the bed with the stock leafs and it didn't drop down as much as the dakars.

I need to fit all the threads that hold the bed on. Then Im going to find a cap/shell and see where it levels out at. Will probably end up putting the stocks back with a helper leaf.

 

Put Dynamat on the doors. Finished changing the door harnesses over, hooked up the mirrors and hooked up the tweeters.







Thanks to all the idiots that put flyers on cars.


The camera died so I forgot to take a pick of the mat on the driver side. I also fixed all the door clips and the stripped out arm rest clip on the drivers side.




With the extra weight the doors now close like an old european car.

A quick drive showed that it did help a good amount. Now I can hear most of the noise coming from the floor and the back of the cab, engine and exhaust. Also it seemed to kill what little bass I had from the door speakers.
Maybe ill get an under the seat sub it the future.

 

Bought some walkies for the truck in case I drive with anyone. Of course it took almost 2 months for the guy to ship them and they didn't even work.
It seems I always get stuck with broken shit.



Fixed em. Probably should of gotten a set of used motorola's but I had these when I was a kid and the scramble function is cool.

 

Add front diff drop ?

 

The never ending vibration. So fed up. Spent most of the day trying to fix it and got no where.

Jammed a ton more washers in to see if it would help. Nope.


Took em all out. Nope


Added 2 back in. Nope. Added 2 more. Nope

Shimmed the back of leaf. No washers. Nope. 2 washers. Nope. 4 washers. Nope. Also noticing the weld looks broken at the bottom of the leaf mount.




The honeymoon period is definitely over. FUCK these trucks. I seriously can't believe they are that in demand and command the prices they do.

The metal melts like cotton candy gets wet. I bet 1 winter would destroy this thing. Near impossible to fix the damn driveline vibration issues. Seats are probably the worst Ive sat in and then you have the front diff that runs all the time just wearing out CVs, wastes gas and causes other vibrations issues.

I really regretting not buying an early 2000 Montero. I might end up selling this thing and getting one. Im over all this bullshit. This shit needs as much attention as my BMW (maybe more) which is ridiculous. No wonder they run for every, you have to replace everything.

 

Taco, how's it going . Based on your last post you appear to have reached your limit