Check Your U-Bolts

The first pull of the torque wrench at each nut had little resistance on mine, they would have eventually fallen off over time. I will be crawling under the truck every month for a while to make sure they stay tight.

 

Any good recommendations on a torque wrench that won't break the bank?

 

Husky makes a decent wrench, I tested mine against my friends Snap On digital and it holds its own

 

Do you guys with the torque issues have a Mexican Toyota?

 

Mine is Mexican made, I think they were using inch pounds on my truck...lol
Actually, I have the highest regard for the work ethic of the Mexican people, with that being said, mine had to be built on a Friday at the end of the day

 

I used a 3/8'' matco clicker i bought back around 2000. Its calibration has been checked a couple times. I use it on my sleds all the time. I think you can still find them on eBay for under $100.

 

Don't know about their work ethic now, but if you went down there during the late 80's you'd probably have a different opinion.

 

Mine was a TX build and needed about three full rotations on each bolt to come up to torque. Been fine since.

There was also that miss-installed and squeaking rear door panel . . .

 

I am going to get the torque speck of every nut and bolt under this truck and the bed bolts, then test to see if in spec. I don’t want to get home one day to find I am missing parts, or even have a catastrophic failure. Nowhere on the window sticker or In the manual did it say - Some assembly required

 

Here's the SM that was put together a while ago. It doesn't have the bed bolts, but I found those to be about 60ft-lb when installing my D rings.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1cx5nnlnCzlhI45D1vbBMj1ni983SKdKf/view?usp=sharing

 

I appreciate your help. I am starting to be a lot less enamored with my Tacoma. First I find Toyota decided to stop putting transmission coolers on their truck even with the tow package. (Without mentioning it to anyone), and now I have to check if everything was torqued correctly...

 

I'm coming up on 40k and it has been really solid after the getting-to-know-you phase.

I would not say that you need to check everything, just look for the odd stuff that gets posted around here. For me, there are some threads about loose sparkplugs. It worried me, but all mine were good to go. It gave me something to do one boring day.

 

2020 mexico mfg 9/2019 - Had to tighten 7 of the 8. All were different torque specs... Brought them up to 60lbs.

Didn't check torque of the one over 60.

Checked at 5800 miles. Rear doesn't squeak anymore... Used to when I put weight on the rear.

 

https://www.etrailer.com/question-141013.html?fb=yes

 

Same here when I did mine. One one each side was the right torque and the other three needed just a little bit more (nothing to be concerned about but still).

 

does anyone know if these leafs are keyed to a centerpoint on the axle? im wondering if the axle could "drift" out of center or off caster from hard bumpy trail use?

 

Yes, of course they're "keyed" using the same technique that Moses used when he was still just an engineering intern - the spring pack center pin.

The pin is slightly smaller than the hole in the axle perch, so your axle can walk around a little bit but unless this pin shears or you leave the u-bolts nuts loosened about an inch from touching the axle can only move so far.

But even though it's not necessarily deadly the little of movement with under torqued bolts can cause problems like shaking and clunking. The pin is also not that stout (basically a 3/8" fine thread bolt with a smooth head) so if the u-bolts are loose enough the movement could cause it to shear eventually.

 

yea i was little worried been getting alot of axle hop in sand recently. one side is 0.5 cm off from the frame

 

The dimensions in the frame inspection part of the service manuals is given down to 1/100th of an inch (just whole mm) but the reality of manufacturing is that it's highly unlikely that they can hold *that* level of precision.

So I dunno if +/- 5mm is beyond the limit and I very much doubt they mean to assume 0.01" tolerance. That's just the conversion accuracy they decided to use.

BTW, how are you measuring? Depending on your reference points you could have a lot of errors stacking up.

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/3rd-gen-dcsb-complete-frame-dimension-drawings.567805/

There's going to be a lot of jigs used so I'd have to think the main way to introduce a lot of error would be if the spring packs are drilled backward. The center of the spring arch isn't half way between the two eyes, so it's possible for them to be made wrong or installed reversed. But it should be off by inches and be obvious.

Since the 4wd Tacoma is spring over axle it's hard to say you will never get axle hop so "a lot" is a relative statement.

 

pretty crude method but i take a level/meterstick and i index it up against the frame to the center of the tire.