2004 Tacoma SAS

Current status of the truck:



Wanting to keep everything in one place so trying out a build thread this go around for the Tacoma.

Starting out with a bone stock 2004 Toyota Tacoma after selling my Jeep TJ on narrowed one tons/cage/atlas/doubler on 40” stickies. Searched for a while and originally wanted an extra cab truck, but came across a pretty clean double cab that I couldn’t pass up on.

This one is going to be more mild compared to what I just got rid of. I plan to use it as a summer wheeler on 37s and snow wheeler on 38s. Using a Toyota solid front axle, a 90s rear non e locker 8” and dual gear drive transfer cases. Rear is getting Chevy 63 springs and a back half, and the front is getting a 3 link and 14” Fox coilovers. Trying to keep it low from the beginning

Bringing it home Sept 5


Progress so far in no particular order

Built a 4.88 with grizzly rear

Ecgs HP8 front with arb

grooved my winter tires

rear built, still needs anti wrap brackets welded on

Front Toyota solid axle housing widened 3”. Will use ifs hubs to get me to the 61” wms that the fabricated housings come. RCV makes axles for this width.

Dual cases with all Marlin goods. 23 spline comp input, comp 4.7s, adapter to the a340

Installed a 2 way radio under the stereo and the arb switches in the cut outs under.

 

Pulled the truck into the garage December 17 and started on the rear as it’s easier and I figured I would get it done pretty fast

Got right to cutting.

New rear frame section.


Bobbed the box 9”


Onto the front
This is where I finished at today. Cut everything out, but have not decided if I’m going to rebuild the front section with 2x3 or just raise the factory frame on the passenger side to clear. Have to swap out the oil pan before the front goes under for mock up.

 

Easier to do in 2x3. Dont 45 them down under core support til you get the steering gear done.

 

Roger that. Was kind of what I was leaning towards.

Noticed you’re building one as well, I’ll read through your thread.

 

Yeah, 3 month project, turned 6 months and a year in 2 weeks. fml.

 

Cut the front frame off and raise the motor and frame, you will be glad you did. You can get a few more inches of uptravel out of it

 

That’s the plan now. Trying to get it as low as I can, makes more sense.

 

Swapped out the transfer case for my dual case setup. Marlins instructions are pretty trash and inchworm instructions don’t exist, had to delete the bearing from the extension housing on the back of the a340 to get the coupler and extended seal housing to fit. Man handled the cases in to find that one of the bolt holes in the adapter wasn’t fully drilled. Pulled back out, redrilled, cleaned silicone and back in. Also found none of the supplied hardware worked and only half of the factory hardware worked to bolt the adapter to the trans. Ended up running to work and getting allen head cap screw bolts for the top holes and a few flanged bolts for the others. I’ll order a bunch of the proper lengths to make everything match.

Need to do some research and see what I can do to make the 4wd light in the cluster work.

 

Looks good! Just incase you want to validate the crawlbox, I nested these a few years ago, all Inchworm instructions.

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/official-crawlbox-bs-thread.422186/page-27#post-18254802

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/official-crawlbox-bs-thread.422186/page-27#post-18255484

 

Ooof thank you those will be good to have. Everything is together now but I’ll save those for future reference, there’s surprisingly very little information floating around about it.

 

Been waiting on some steel for the front frame and the oil pan so not much has got done this week. Got the shifters in where I wanted them. Had to modify both of them, but was able to save one cup holder and reuse the factory location, just need to round up some boots for the floor seal and shifter handle. Thinking I’ll order one of the bh3dprinting dual cup holders. Front frame gets cut out tomorrow, then assemble the front axle temporarily so I can start mock up.

 

I lost both cup holder with the 3d print cover but end up changing the forward/front bezel to gain 2 factory cup holder from a different year tacoma. But I still don't use the cup holder so it litterily made no difference lol

 

Haha I was going to use that front console but this is just how it worked out. We do some real long days snow wheeling so it’s nice to have a couple cup holders for me and my girlfriend.

 

Yea, the front bezel is a pain to find.

 

Been pretty down with a cold this week so haven’t accomplished much in the garage. Got the front frame sections built, need to weld and fishplate them before installing. Oil pan will be here Tuesday and then axle goes under for mock-up.

 

This is going to be a good thread to watch. A lot of times I wish I would have got a first gen and this thread isn't going to help me feel better about having a 2nd gen. Keep up the good work.

 

You gonna raise the motor? You can get a few more inches of uptravel out of it if you do

 

That's the only benefit of chopping off the frame. If you don't lift the engine, the pan is still your hanger. Some folks do all that and modified the pan to get as much as possible.

 

Yup the plan is to push everything up as high as I can get it. I’d love to avoid cutting out the floor for the cases to clear but I doubt I’ll get that lucky.

 

Been a while since I updated. Was hoping to have a lot more accomplished but I’ve been trying to figure out how to get more uptravel. Raised the engine, trimmed the a/c tensioner bracket/raised pulley and I still wasn’t happy with the amount of uptravel I had. The third was getting too far into the oil pan so I was planning to modify the pan but it was going to make my front driveline impossible to keep out of the trans pan/bellhousing. I ended up grabbing a stock solid axle housing instead of the +3” wide one I had and it seems like it’s going to work way better, I’ll just have to run wheel spacers to achieve my desired width.

On the plus side I’ve got the steering box in place. Tomorrow I will cut off the leaf spring mounts and get this housing ready for link mounts.

Widened housing at full bump, too far into the oil pan

stock housing has 2” more uptravel since the third is 1.5” closer to the passenger side

steering box in place. Still need to cap the bottom of the frame and clean it up