MARYLAND TACOMAS

DUDE. What a blessing that must have been. That's wild. Great finds. I would love to have a low mileage 5VZ. But mine is still running strong at 324K.

 

Sadly, 7’ and above rods don’t lay flat in a short-bed truck. And I don’t use two piece rods, so had to come up with a solution…

Three triple aluminum rod holders, some stainless hardware and some t-slot nuts for the front bed rail… And problem solved!

Also replaced the Hi-Lift handle today. The old one had seen better days and was rusting pretty bad. Went with the zinc plated this time with a handgrip.

 

324k miles ain’t bad!

 

Oh dear.

Well if you Google the long way round, you'll find it. It's like a documentary style series. Its pretty cool.

 

Right? And I'm using a Fram orange can right now... teehee

 

I’ll have to add it to my list!

 

I appreciate it and hell of a find! But I scored a set of 4 from @Mickey65 … He’s local out here in Carroll Country by me. Going to get them this week at some point.

Someone better jump on those quick though, they’ll be gone before you make it to the ATM!

 

Then don’t venture over to that “is a Fram oil filter ok” thread

 

I've participated my fair share in those. I've ran OEM filters for the majority of the time over the last 10 years. Just recently started trying the Fram stuff. My Dad has run them exclusively on his Tacoma since new (2003) and has been working out for him, so i wanted to see what happened if I did the same. Gonna send an analysis off at my next change to see what kind of results I get.

 

Yawn

 

Cool, thank you

 

Or at least equal by now.

 

You still got me...

 

The few people that I know that have used a TW driveshaft all seemed happy with them, the company has a reputation for great service. I called them when I needed a DS built, quickly, so that I could go on my trip. They wanted almost as much for one of their driveshafts as it would have cost me to get a new one from Toyota.

Here's the one thing that I do not like about the aftermarket driveshaft, and they are all the same because they are all using the same Dana/Spicer components. On the rear driveshaft double cardan joint (3rd gen T4R) on the OEM shaft, the grease fitting for the pivot ball is in line with the other 2 zerk fittings for the u-joints. One the aftermarket double cardan joints, there is no zerk fitting. It's a nipple fitting ( think like an air valve on a football) that you have to drop the DS to be able to get at. It's a huge PIA. I hate having to drop that end of the ds just to be able to grease the pivot ball.

I keep waiting for the phone call to come and pick up at least one of them...

I got a question for you 1st gen Taco owners with the 3.4/automatic. Can you hold a gear with your trans? Like, if you downshift into 2nd and start going down a steep hill, will it stay in 2nd gear or will it shift quickly through to 4th gear?

I noticed that in my T4R, it would only hold 1st gear when coating down a steep hill. I was trying to engine brake in Colorado when I figured out that the trans will hold 1st gear, but it would quickly run through the gears if the shifter was in 2nd gear.

By contrast, my Taco is a 2.7, so it uses a variant of the same transmission that the 4runner uses, the A340F. In the Taco, I can move the shift lever into the "sport" mode and manually shift up or down and it will stay in that gear until I shift, or move it back out of sport mode. I would love to be able to figure out how to make the trans in the T4R do that.

 

Ready to tackle the siren noise?

 

You're gonna make me buy another windshield wiper arm puller again aren't you?

 

Another? Whatdya do with the first one?