Building the "BEAST"

And let the drool fest begin

 

Is that one for J.W.?

 

Yes. That one is JW's. It should be at his door step on Tuesday

 

I feel like I'm almost as excited as you and him are.

 

Looks like he'll be getting it tomorrow.

 

better a little later than never

 

Good work is never fast and fast work is never good.

 

Very true.

 

testing

 

Well, i've been wanting to lower the front of this truck a bit more for awhile and this seemed like a good time to do it right before AZRocks. When you have a custom system like this it's hard to lower it when the spring are nearly at the top of the coilover. So I choose to add another rate to my current setup and make it a triple rate system. But really the triple rate is a misnomer because on this application the top spring is there only to hold some tension on the other two springs when you fully extend them out. They are completely compressed when the weight of the vehicle are on them.

So what did I do. I swapped the top 12" 300lb for a 10" 300lb spring and a tender coil. It dropped it down by about 1.5".

Here is where we started. As you can see on a slanted driveway the truck is level from front to rear so it is nose high.


This is the top portion of the new system that is going in. The lower silver spring is a 10" 300lb spring then you have the seperator and then the black spring is the tender spring which is at the very top.



Here you can see the difference between the 12" spring and the 10" spring.


Here you see the springs back on the coilover with the coilover fully extended.


This is a picture if the springs with the weight of the truck on them. As you can see the top spring is fully compressed. It does not provide any spring rate at all.


And here the truck is with it's new springs on. Now is is nose down on this slanted drive way which makes it level on the street.

 

so whats the deal with the spring being compressed all the way if it has the weight back on it ???

 

Thats why it is compressed all the way because it has the weight of the truck on it. That top spring is not designed to support any of the weight of the truck. It's purpose is to keep the other springs from slapping around when the coilover is extended.

 

now i understand thanks for clearing that up for me

 

No problem.

 

Automatic transmissions have been proven to be great tranny's for wheeling. They are easy to use and theres no having no dealing with burnt clutches. However, earlier auto trans's for the Toyota's had a starvation issue when at extreme angles and they would tend to over heat from time time. Heat is not a good thing for automatic Transmissions.

Enter the new generation of auto tranny's from Toyota. The a750f transmission found in the '05+ Tacomas, 4th gen 4Runners, and FJ Cruiser's is one heck of a tranny. Gone are the days of starvation while sitting on that 9 foot waterfall and they are not as prone to over heating like the earlier models are. One other side bennifit to these transmissions is that although they are a fully automatic transmission, they can be shifted manually and they hold the gear you shifted into.

But like any piece of machinery that use's fluid to keep it cool, this transmision is no different and in a 4wd vehicle that sees slow going for long periods of time while in lo gear that situation is not kind to the tranny.

I wanted to see how my transmission was doing so I decided to get a Dakota Digital trans temp gauge that would go along with my volt meters.

Since I changed the transfer case to a fully manual one from an FJ Cruiser I could now get rid of the 4wd switch sitting on the dash. That would also be the perfect place to put this gauge so that I could see it at a glance.
This is the first installment of how I hooked it up.

First, here is the 4wd switch that I took out of the dash.


Then I needed to find the cover plate for that section from a prerunner. You can find them in the junk yard or you can go to Toyota and buy one.


Here is the gauge I will be using. It's a fully digital gauge and they are very accurate when used with Dakota digital's sending unit. You will have to wire it up yourself as these are professional series gauges. Not like the auto meters you get at pepboys.



So here it is all wired up and ready to go into it's new home. I'll have the rest of the install for you next week.

 

Ok I made sure I went through every post before I said this. YOUR TRUCK IS AMAZING!!! I am not afraid to say it, best tacoma I have ever seen. Def a big fan.

 

Thank you very much. That must have been a long read.

 

At some point I'm going to put rear steer in it but I'm not sure when I'm going to do that.

Going to Arizona at the end of the month for AZRocks. Gonna have a great time there.

 

Heck yea!!