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

Ya, I'm sure the diff stayed the same as the Tacoma in the 1st Gen Tundra because it's what they already had available. The fact that a lot of the parts were similar kind of tells me they were testing the waters, so to speak, when they first introduced the Tundra. After it started competing with others in sales, they started developing more appropriate parts.

Speaking of those more appropriate parts. I've wondered for a few years whether a 2007+ "9 inch" - 8.75 IFS diff could be stuffed in to a Tacoma. I'm really considering diving in to that rabbit hole. 5.29 gears are available for it, and so is the Harrop, so it checks those boxes for me. I can't remember how tight it really is in there, and I've never seen that Tundra diff in person. But now that the Tundra clamshell has been out there for over 15 years, they should be eas(ier) to find in the salvage market.

I've also been wondering how hard it would be to modify Solo fully fabbed spindles to take the snouts from an IFS Toyota Truck, so I can run Aisin (manual) hubs instead of the Dana 44 hubs, like he has them set up. Truck IFS snouts would still get rid of the unit bearing and give me serviceable bearings. Aisin hubs being stronger than anything you're going to find for Dana 44. Not sure why Bobby went with the Dana 44 hubs. Haven't asked him.

 

There's a guy on here that did it, forgetting the username but the oil pan and rack are really in need of help with the clearance portion.

 

The rack is another thing. There's a dude in some of the Toyota pages on Face book that got rid of his rack and went to a steering box/hydro assist. That's also interesting.

 

I really should have saved the money and solid axle swapped my truck.


But IFS is so much cooler

 

Everything g hurts and I wanna go home

 

Hell, these things are cheaper than I thought now. (+99 shipping on this one)




I'll have to call ToyAuto Mart here local and see if they have one / how much.
Nothing like buying a $300 core just so you can ship it to ECGS and pay $2500 for locker and re-gear


But, at that kind of price it could be worth grabbing one to see if it can be made to fit.

 

@JTFisherman is trying to fit one of those 2nd gen Tundra front diffs in. Sure looks like it'll cause all sorts of other clearance problems to me.

I feel like you'd be better off with an 8" out of a 2nd+ gen Taco, being that's been done and has proven to hold up to 37s on those fat trucks.

 

^^^ this

The 9'' will fit. Someone has done it but too a lot of work. Plus his truck is a buggy now. JT is trying it as well.

The 8'' 2nd gen would also fit I think but much easier. Front Range Offroad did it to their 4runner and had said they would release a kit for it but never did. I think for the effort it would work just fine with 37s. 5.29s also availble for it.

Mounts are very close to the same as well, ADD will need made smaller and possibly custom stub shaft as well.

 

IIRC, FROR did not release a kit because the price point and selling point does not add up to be profitable. The price is near identical to a basic leaf spring solid axle setup and they’re 99% sure folks will rather go that route.

 

Yeah I can believe it. I never heard anything about it. Even inquired about it directly and got nothing.

 

If I remember correctly, he was talking about it on Pirate (or somewhere) while he was working on it. When he got it done, he got it in an off road magazine (can't remember which one)... and then he just stopped talking about it.

Quite a few people have asked him about how he did it, and for advice... he's too much of a douche to answer any of those questions. Which doesn't surprise me, because he's pretty much too much of a douche to answer most questions about anything... including questions that would help him sell his own products.

As far as cost goes. Yes, the cost of an 8 inch diff, and new CVs would be expensive. But the parts he would be selling wouldn't be much more than replacement brackets to make the 8 bolt up where the 7.5 was. I just don't believe that swap would be anywhere near the cost of a leaf sprung SAS. Maybe I'm wrong, but it just doesn't pencil out.

 

The spendy part isn't the mounting brackets, they make that shit all the time themselves. The spendy part is the stub/jack shaft machining and the stub shaft housing manufacturing, they have to sub that out and that kinda work is costly.

 

yeah what Zane said.

Its the adapter tube that needs to be cut down almost 3'' and then a new stub shaft machined to work. That's the spendy part.

In that magazine article it talked about how he had machined possibly a custom adaptor for the 1st gen ADD tube even. Was a bit unclear.

 

100% get that. But with SAS you're looking at:
New front cross member
Shackle mounts
Shackles
Leaf mount
Reinforcement plates
Steering links
Steering link mounts
Shock hoops
Steering box mount
Steering box
Shocks
Leafs
Crossmember for t-case
Oil pan
Axle /drum to drum however you're doing that
And a bunch of other shit I know I'm forgetting.


I'm still just not seeing how that penciles out.

 

Oh i 100% think that it would cost less than a SAS setup. Maybe. Leaf spring SAS can be done pretty affordably. But it would still probably have run 2500-3500 for the kit is my guess.

 

Lotta people do a leafpring SAS cheap... guess that's redundant... no one does an expensive leafspring SAS haha. You know what I mean, anyway, they're often found as a bundle. We did one on my buddy's 91 pickup for less than $1500 with the Skys kit, some used TG springs, and a used trussed mini axle. I suppose if you're spending money for new "built" everything on a leaf SAS then yeah it'll be expensive... but like just link it then, why go whole hog just to put leafs on. I'd rather have IFS though, I'm with ya. Probably wouldn't be the same cost, I'm sure that was an exaggeration, but it might be getting close to the lower bound for a SAS after the machine work is accounted for.

 

I see what you're sayin

Agree 100% = Why spend all the money on SAS with leafs?
Agree 100% = IFS is cooler than SAS.

If I wanted SA it would be a linked, coilover FJ40

 

In terms of the machining involved for the rear mount on an 8 inch diff. I just don't see how it would be that much.

If you look at the Drotor brake backers from FROR. The backing plates themselves are milled out of what is probably a 3/4 inch chunk of billet. The pictures don't do them justice. They aren't sheet metal. They are thick assed solid steel, milled. Each backer probably weighs 8 pounds.

The Drotor set is $500... and there is A LOT more milling involved in them than anything that rear mount for the diff would involve.
https://frontrangeoffroadfab.com/drotor-backing-plate-kit/


That being said, I'm not sure what it would involve to shorten the intermediate shaft properly.

 

Spend all that money just to worry about the LBJ failure? I’ll pass on a built IFS