What have you done to your Tacoma today? 1st Gen Edition

Since completing the conversion, I've been searching for a solution to the 4WD 1st Gen mud flaps since they are now next to impossible to find 'new'. Discontinued and essentially gone forever.

Asked the wife and her cricut machine to cut some replacement 4WD decals for my PreRunner mudflaps. Just needed the exact dimensions. I had picked up the 4WD mud flaps from @drr's partout truck with the intention of scanning them and working the image to come up with a solid template. Problem was that 20 year old paint didn't like being cleaned up and there were enough imperfections to muck up the scan I attempted. Cue a quick search of TW and I come across @CrustyTaco and his work a couple of years back trying to come up with a 3D template for painting. I reached out to him and he was very cool to send over what he came up with. The scans he made were really close. A little tweaking and some permanent reflective vinyl and the wife churned out replacements.

4WD flaps from a 2002 after cleaning -



Gave them a quick rattle-can cover of trim/bumper paint along with new reflective perm vinyl decals.











Also gave my PreRunner mud flaps a fresh retouch with the rattle can and applied the decals to them. Came out better since they didn't have the indentation around the letters like the 4WD stock flaps have.

Really pleased with the results.

 

Nice! I came across some decals on eBay and went that route as well. A good move for others out there trying to get a newer looking mudflap. It's really difficult to tell that it's actually a decal and not paint.

 

Awesome. Yeah I definitely like the idea of vinyl. Reflective and easily replaced if needed.

Before this little project, I did find a single seller on ebay claiming to have the original 4WD mudflap part numbers in stock, not the current iteration which is blank. Seller is 'partscontainer'. I did place an order but they play games with holding shipment and cash while claiming to have shipped and blame the carrier. Thankfully eBay stepped in and refunded my purchase price in full. Anyone looking at their auction listing, stay away.

 

Turned out awesome! Way cooler than what I would have come up with.

 

Very nice, I could use a set of those for mine.

 

The rack looks killer compared to others I’ve seen installed. What modifications did that entail?

 

Yup looks good from here.

 

Imagine not having to fight rust. I could actually modify my trucks lol

 

Oh, I'll still get as much paint on it as I can... but definately know what you're sayin. You'd have to pull the engine to do this stuff, so you could paint it, if you're in the rust belt.

 

If im going LT im just doing it to the wrecked truck. Less stuff will be in the way. Lol. Cheaper to build it into an or truck than buy a side by side for silver lake out here.

 

good call on using the tube spacers for welding in the UCA double shear. I had to tweak mine a little bit after burning mine in despite my efforts.

 

I don't know why but all I'm seeing is this in that 2nd pic... lol

 

Ya, I spaced it out about 1/16th wider than the combination of misalignment spacers I'm going to need to use on the heims. Figure when I tighten it up, it'll squish it to where it needs to be.

 

Brother stopped by with a busted thermostat. Drained and rinsed out the old antifreeze, new thermostat, new antifreeze. The old 96’ runs like a champ.

 

Looks like the kit you got is for an aftermarket coil bucket for a 10" shock likely.

And I would be worried about that tall hat you out on there as it's an increase of leverage on the stock cool bucket. But send it.

 

It's actually, apperantly, made for an extended coil bucket but for an 8 inch shock still. He said his coil bucket is raised up so you can pre load more without coil bind.

The attachment on top of the coil bucket is pretty much the same attachment as JD Fab used to do, and Total Chaos still does (except this hoop has another attachment to the frame)

 

How so though? I always felt like a solution like this would prevent coil bucket failures we have seen far more than reinforcing the bucket itself. You now have another point of rigidity that would have the effects of something like a crossover, but with much less interference IMO. But I'm no engineer.

Did you basically just modify what you had? I had no idea someone had a prefabbed solution similar to TC.

 

(The benefit of this design over Total Chaos is as far as I know TC does not have the second leg that attaches to the frame... the one that comes down right near the upper bypass shock mount)


Yes, I modified the JD Fab version https://jdfabrication.com/collectio...ta-tacoma-95-to-04-weld-on-bypass-shock-mount the actual part is just no longer what is pictured (as I found out).

Dirt King and others make various bypass hoops as well.



I trimmed the bracket plate and then tacked it to 2.5 inch 3/16 wall DOM. The DOM was just the right size to bevel and then it nested in the OE hole on the top of the coil bucket. That way we were to use it as a kind of self centering/locating piece. Once the hoop was tacked where we wanted it (on to that DOM piece) we full welded it on the table. That way when we went to fit it up, it went right where we wanted it.

The DOM piece on top of the coil bucket is welded from the top, skipping where the three bolts are. I didn't want the bead to interfere with the top plate bolts. But it is full welded around the inside of the OE hole in the top plate (under side of the top plate).

There is also a top plate reinforcement from @eimkeith in there (that was done last year). We also fully reinforced the sides of the coil bucket with 3/16 plate.

As far as the fit of a future bypass shock. The distance we have between the closest (to the coil bucket) bypass tab to the coil bucket it's self is just about 1/8 to 1/4 more than @Robmonster117 has on his, with bypasses installed. So I know I'll have room for them. (Thank you for the measurement Rob BTW)

 

Here is the Total Chaos version. https://www.polyperformance.com/tot...6Xllx6DbTdSeXSI7WdxcDXe8yvjhqVL8aApAqEALw_wcB

As you can see, it doesn't have the additional support leg. It also doesn't have a plate at the attachment to the frame, and the top mounts with those spacers between those weld plate and the coil bucket. (spacers are to account for where the hole in the top plate is "dimpled" up)