Time623’s 95 Taco Build and Trails

Also got a set of Wildpeak M/Ts in 285/70/17 mounted up. Had minor rubbing that seems to be gone after hammering pinch weld. Still need to fully cycle the suspension to ensure it’s completely clear.

And got a 5th matching tire from a friend and finally retired the old factory spare tire.

 

Great job man! Sorry i didnt get back to you about the rear shocks sooner. Ive been busy as heck! Im glad you got it figures out though. It looks great in my opinion and while it may not settle a whole bunch more than .5" the springs will loosen up a bit and not be as harsh a couple months into use. There are speed bumps i can hit at 45 and the front coilovers and rear OME leaf pack EAT IT UP!!!!!!!! I know its not a trophy truck but im happy especially for the price you can get them compared to other springs available for our trucks currently. Good stuff man!

Edit:gotta get me a set of wildpeak mt's

 

Took a week off work and went on a road trip around northern AZ and southern Utah over the last week. Mainly was crossing national parks off the bucket list, but hit a couple trails while we were out as well.

Haven't got all my pictures uploaded from our camera yet, so posts will be updated as time goes on and better pictures will get posted.

Day 1.
Got the truck loaded up. Sits pretty close to level when fully loaded with gear which is great.


Mostly just a travel day, getting out of the valley and up north. Stopped at Horseshoe Bend on the way though. This was my first time at Horseshoe Bend, it is beautiful.



Originally we had planned on heading out to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon to camp. However, we lost about 3 hours stuck in traffic heading north and decided not to. We have both been to the Grand Canyon multiple times anyway, though never to the North Rim.

There were some great views as we kept on moving as well.



We camped outside Jacob Lake, and found this spot off some forest roads.

 

Day 2.
2nd day we left Jacob Lake to head north up to Sand Hollow Utah.
We did this to position ourselves for a full day in Zion, and to have some fun in Sand Hollow.
While we were here we were lucky enough to meet up with @unstpible as well.

In no time we were in Utah.



And soon Hurricane



We followed a trail guide for Sand Hollow which hit most of the most popular spots. These trails kept it fairly light, didn't want to break something on the 2nd day of our trip.
The route took us by the Kissing Turtles, Flintstone House, some Dunes, Top of the World, Competition Hill, Hobbit House, Toll Booths, and The Funnel.

Started by picking up an extremely overpriced flag from a local UTV rental shop and zip tied it to the truck, and then hit the trails.

I have very little experience with sand, and tend to take things pretty slow at first. This unfortunately led me to getting stuck pretty quickly.
Coming up a deep sandy hill out of a wash, took it too slow and just started digging in.
Heres Derek going right up no problem:
And then me stuck



Thankfully @unstpible had some traction boards which got me moving again in no time, and we kept on goin.

During these trails I quickly realized I had not hammered the pinch weld enough, as the tires rub quite bad at full lock + compressed springs.









Flintstone House:





Just outside Flintstone House, found this side trail to have some fun on.







Then we were heading into the dunes.
Truck did pretty well, though with my new bigger tires it was a bit difficult to keep it in the power band, and keep the momentum.
@unstpible and his turbo did not seem to have this problem


Competition Hill:


Top of the World:



On the way toward the next stop, Derek found this side route to take. Since it was the beginning of our trip, I opted out of this one. He made it look easy though.



Hobbit House:



Heading into the Toll Booths:

And driving through them:



Next up was the Funnel:





Scrapped the bumper a little bit on the way down, but I am pretty proud of my bumper design keeping the jerry can an tire clear off the wall.

After The Funnel it was a pretty quick drive out past the reservoir.

We aired up, unfortunately I still don't have one of those nice 4-tire inflation systems and had to do it one tire at a time.. and then we headed for some dinner with our new friends before retiring for the night.

 

Day 3.
Very little truck stuff in Day 3. We dedicated this day to exploring Zion. Absolutely beautiful national park, and probably my favorite that we went to. Definitely want to return again soon, as one day was not nearly enough to fully explore the park.








After the day in Zion, we went on the search for a place to camp.
We found this spot on an old trail off Kolob Terrace Rd. Fairly rough old road to get up to this spot, but you can't ask for a better view.
On the way we found this little deer family as well.

 

Day 4.
After spending the night outside Zion, we headed for Bryce Canyon.
Again, no truck stuff, but what an absolutely stunning place to be.











We saw a lot of wildlife in Bryce Canyon as well.


Our favorite was definitely this Fox hanging out just off the road.


Neither of us had ever seen a fox in person before.

These chipmunks were also everywhere and adorable.



And as we drove slowly past where we had seen the Fox earlier in the day, we stumbled on another family of deer.


And then we headed into our campground for the night.

 

Day 5.
This day got a little bit screwed up thanks to my own short-sightedness.
I've had a wheel bearing that has been humming for some time. I have always kind of known it was an issue, but I had ignored it and convinced myself the sound was due to other things because I don't have the tools to do the job myself. Before the trip I had replaced my tires and just about every other front suspension component, except the wheel bearings. With everything else replaced, there was nothing else I could really blame the noise and funky steering on, and since I had delayed the work until the last week before we left, I had no time left to deal with the wheel bearing. During the first couple days, the wheel bearing noise was getting louder and louder, and I could feel the truck wandering left/right due to the movement in the bearing.

After leaving the camp site outside Zion on the morning of Day 4, I noticed my alignment was becoming unaligned. I had gotten the truck aligned the day before we left, and they apparently didn't know how to torque the tie rod lock nut. It had backed off about 1/2" from the ITRE, and naturally screwed up the alignment.
We found a shop in Bryce Canyon City to get the alignment fixed, and decided to just replace the bad wheel bearing while we were at it. Figured it was a safer bet to pay for an overpriced mechanic than be stuck in the middle of no where with a seized bearing.

We lost about half the day due to this, dropped the truck off at 8am and didn't leave until around 2pm.
Bryce Canyon isn't the worst place to be stuck though.

After that was all sorted, we headed for Goblin Valley State Park.

As we drove into the middle of nowhere between Bryce and Goblin Valley, we ran into more wildlife. This time, Pronghorns. Again, neither of us had ever seen Pronghorns before.

This time, the drive was much quieter without the constant hum of a bad wheel bearing.

It was a beautiful drive, mostly 2 lane country roads.






And we found some more Pronghorns on the way in.






After Goblin Valley, we headed to our hotel in Green River for the night. On the way out we were lucky enough to run back into a group of pronghorns.

 

Day 6.

We started off heading out of Green River, towards Moab.

First stop was Dead Horse Point State Park.





And then we headed into Arches National Park:






After Arches, I had to explore a bit of Moab.

Originally the plan was to do Top of the World, however after further research in the couple days before we hit Moab, it was pretty apparent the trail had gotten much rougher than it used to be. I'm sure the truck could still do it, however since we were riding solo we went for something a little easier.

We started off doing the Fins and Things.


My open diffs were not helping me out here, as I threw sand through my open window into the cab.



A little bit of momentum was needed here.







However, after completing the first half, we decided to call it a day. The truck was doing great, however since we were alone we decided to play it safe. I was pretty worried about getting stuck somewhere out there alone with no reception.


Cutting the day short in Moab left us some time to get closer to our next stops for the following day, so we headed south and stopped in Monticello for the night.
Exploring a back road between Monticello and Manti La Sal national forest, we saw probably 20 deer along the road. Still curious if there's any reason for that other than just a very healthy population, because they were absolutely everywhere on both sides of that road.

 

Day 7.
Started off Day 7 by going through the Valley of the Gods. This was a dirt road loop, the washboard made it pretty slow going.










After Valley of the Gods, we stopped by Goosenecks State Park.



Absolutely beautiful spot, wish the water wasn't so brown though.

And then on to Monument Valley.












We went on to the campground.



As we set up camp in the campground, we saw this wild horse running up the hill. He was making quite the ruckus, neighing loudly all the way up.


It seemed he was clearing the way for his herd, as a few minutes later this group followed him up.





After our live entertainment, it was time for bed.

 

Day 8.
We woke up early to see the sunrise over Monument Valley.







This was our last day, and we had a lot of distance to travel to get back home.
Our only stop on the way was the Petrified Forest and Painted Desert.



In this park there were also a ton of petroglyphs, ranging from hundreds to thousands of years old.



The petrified forest is an almost eerie place to be. The wood there is said to be 200 million years old, and yet it is just strewn across the badlands randomly.

Nearly every 'rock' in this image is a piece of petrified wood:


And some of it was sticking only partially exposed out of the ground:




Some of it was clearly one large log which has broken apart:










And then we got back in for the few hours home, not ready to return to reality

 

After we parted ways the wife and I were both seriously considering catching up with you guys later on in the week tocontinue exploring but our other recent trip left the bank account and our bodies drained. Looks like we missed out on some fun times. We'll definitely have to catch up again sometime soon. Nobody should have to wheel alone while visiting my home state. We've been talking about making it out to the north rim so maybe we can coordinate a trip


That white truck definitely stands out better, mixed in with at that red my truck seems to almost disappear at times.


You threw yourself under the buss mentioning the traction boards, I was gonna let that slide but mostly because I forgot to take a picture while you were stuck.

Great shots in monument valley, I look forward to seeing the rest of the photos

 

That could've been fun! We've definitely got to coordinate something. Also got that LT trip potentially next year.
I had to include getting stuck, the truck looks too good in that picture

 

Either I missed a few photos the first time or you definitely uploaded a few more great shots

 

Looked like a great trip and awesome photos!

 

Had some fun rebuilding my accessory electrical system this week
Started by building a mount plate for a fuse block and breaker.



Got it all wired up.


Took a break after this, and came back to address the rest of my very shitty wiring. It was being held together by wire nuts and wire half the appropriate thickness..

While rewiring, I also replaced the gauge bezel I had cracked. And moved the switches from the oem switch blanks to a new switch panel. Planning to get some new blanks and leave them stock, having the switches in this old brittle plastic has only caused me issues.



Yes eventually I will replace one of the switches so the colors match..

Last two switches are planned for rear locker, and either fog lights or ditch lights. Haven't decided which yet.

 

Would any of this be useful to you? Whole front diff you could regear and add a locker too. Rear axle with locker...

 

I wish that looks like a great deal, wont fit my truck though

 

Oh duh. I knew both model years have a 5 in them.....

 

Spent the last weekend fixing the single biggest limitation my truck faces offroad; open diffs.
Drove down to Tucson and picked up a stock E-Locker axle out of another 1st gen from a friend.

Forgot to bring any ratchet straps, so I had to hit harbor freight before hopping on the highway home. Unfortunately I didn't make it there before the axle rolled in the bed, and naturally it dumped a gallon of oil out the breather. I don't think I'm ever going to get that gear oil smell out of the bedliner.

Used a hoist to get it into the bed, and had to call in backup from a couple friends to get it back out. So it sat in the bed for a couple days before I could get to work.

Once it was out, I did some quick clean up with a wire wheel and hit it with some fresh paint.

The logistics of the swap were slightly difficult due to having only 1 jack, and 4 medium sized jack stands. The short-ish jack stands meant I couldn't roll the axles in or out from under the leafs with the wheels on. And the single jack meant they had to be lifted and lowered from the leafs balanced perfectly on the diff.

I picked up a couple furniture dollys from Harbor freight to help, and I couldn't have done this without them.

After disconnecting the driveshaft, brake lines, e-brake cable, shocks and ubolts the old axle was ready to be lowered onto the dollys and moved out of the way. It only had to drop about a foot onto the dollys, but it had to cover that foot balanced on my single jack. I threw a ratchet strap around the pinion to keep the axle from spinning forward, and another strap around the body of the axle to try and keep it balanced on the jack. It was a slow process loosening each strap, dropping the jack slightly, and loosening the straps again. Almost made it all the way down, until I failed to loosen the pinion strap enough. This caused the axle to slip backwards and fall onto the body of my jack. Really was the best case failure mode though. It was easy to move since it was sitting on the jack, and the dollys were ready to take the load. Took some finagling to get the jack out and the axle to sit on the dollies, but all in all wasn't too bad.


From here I took a break for dinner, and originally planned to call it for the night. But after sitting on the couch for a while I got bored and went back out to get some more done.
Started by getting the old axle onto some stands and out of the way, and started moving over some parts to the e-locker. Moved the brake hardlines and started playing around with the e-brake cable to test fitment. It seemed at this point my e-brake cable would work. I had hoped to use it since I had just replaced it a few months ago. The hardlines fit about 90%, a couple mounting points were just a millimeter off, and the T connection has no solid mount. Not too worried about it though.


Next I had to move it from the spare tires onto the dollies to move it under the truck. Once under the truck, I had to do the ratchet strap and jack dance again to get the axle up to the leafs. Definitely easier when you're tightening the straps as you go instead of trying to loosen them inch by inch. Only dropped the axle once during this process and the jack/dollies caught it. Otherwise it went right up, threw another strap around everything to line up the leafs and threw the ubolts on to hold it in.


With the axle secure, I took those old drums off and replaced them with my new ones. I just did my rear brakes like 6 months ago, I swore to myself I never would deal with drum brakes again. Still haven't decided if I'm going to go back in and swap in my almost new shoes and hardware, at this point I'm leaning towards no. I hate drum brakes, and the shoes on this have enough life for years to come. Just not brand new like mine were.

Spent a while screwing around with the e-brake cables, and came to the conclusion that using my old (new) one wasn't worth the effort, and to just use the one that came with the axle. Toyota decided at some point after 1997 to change the cable from over-axle over-leafs to behind-axle under-leafs, seems like an entirely inferior location to me. It almost worked using my old cable, but due to the cable being forced to go under the leafs, it would interfere with the stock rear drivers shock. You could probably fab a guide to move it out of the way, but you'd also likely have to extend the cable an inch or so to make it work. So I just went with the right cable, despite mine being brand new.

Next up was the locker wiring harness. Picked it up from Low Range Offroad as a plug n play kit, and it was incredibly easy. Hardest part was just getting the harness through the plug under the drivers seat into the cab.

With that all done, I spent the next day screwing around with the rear brakes. Trying to get my e-brake tight again, and bleeding the system. I hate bleeding. I decided to torture myself some more by also throwing in a new clutch master and slave cylinder, so I had to bleed that too. There is nothing worse than dealing with drum brakes, and bleeding hydraulic systems I swear.



But in the end, got everything working, checked the function of the locker before dropping it off the stands, and took it for a quick spin around the block to make sure I didn't screw anything too important up. If I did, I haven't figured it out yet. Time will tell.

This has been on my to-do list for a looong time, and hopefully will vastly improve the capability of this truck. It already impresses me, but sometimes would just get caught up on a simple rut due to the open diffs. No longer.

 

Yes! Time to party on the trails