Building the "BEAST"

Has anyone heard of Staun bead locks? http://www.staunproducts.com/ They look like they work great, cheaper, lighter, and from there ads work better!

 

I am running beadlocks. I just haven't gotten to that yet in the build, but since you asked....

I got some 39.5" Super Swmper Iroks Bias ply and since I got those I knew I needed some beadlocks so I took my wheels to Champion beablocks and they hooked me up with their contersunk beadlocks. The beadlock ring is extra thick so that when you bolt it to the wheel the bolts are counter sunk and therefore won't get rpped of on the trail.

Five brand new Super Swamper Iroks.



Here are the champon beadlocks. I put the tires on myself. Not that hard really. Cool thing is, they didn't need to be balanced. Ride down the freeway at 70+ mph and no problems.

 

Not a real fan of the staun beadlocks. They are a major pain to get in he wheel and you have to drill another hole in it. But I understand they work well.

 

Trying to turn thse big whees in the rocks is almost impossible without some help, so I put on a hydro-assist system.

PSC has probaly the best system out there for our toyota trucks. It comes with a new pump, hose's, fittings, ram, and mounting parts.



First step was to take the old pump off and get a new box the had the ports for the hydro-assist.

Here is the stock pump next to the new TC high pressure pump.



Here is the new steering box with the hydro-assist hose's attatched.


We also needed a bigger resevior and PSC supplied me with a really nice one. First I had to take the old one out and then make a bracket for the new one. I just used the old bracket and extended it to fit the new tank.

Old fluid tank.


New mounting bracket.


New power steering resevior. I think it's cool.


New power steering pump all mounted up in the stock location. It even use's the stock bolts.




Then we put the ram on. We had to build a mounting point for it on the axle and then we built a skid plate to protect it from the rocks.



Now this thing steers with just two fingers in the rocks. I love it.

 

17" rims??

 

What material did you use for this panel? Is it just plastic? And how did you mount it? I was thinking about a very similar mod for auxilary switches.

What kind of switches are these? I really like how you used this empty space...

 

x3... A lot bigger than I would have thought...

 

Those are Carling Contura II switches.

You can get them in single or double pole.

http://www.ig4x4.com/cat23_1.htm

 

Five brand new Super Swamper Iroks.

 

Yep!

 

word. Ive thought about turning my 18s into beadlocks, but i think i want to jump down to 17". what do you think? if I get say 37s, will I be ok with 18s?

 

Thanks!

Stupid question, but what is single and double pole?

 

I just used plastic from and old door panal from an older Taco and just mounted some of those toyota clips o the backeside, created some holes for them to snap in and it was finished.

The switches actually come from minute man electronics. They are marine single throw rocker swithes that are illuminated.
http://www.minute-man.com/acatalog/Auto_Marine_Rocker_Switch.html

 

Thanks Wyatt! If you get a chance, I'd love another picture of the backside of that panel and what you created to make them snap in...

 

Double pole can control 2 circuits, single pole can control 1 circuit.

 

Depends on what kind of terain your running in. I personally wouldn't go any bigger than a 17" because when you do you shorten the side wall of the tire and thats not what you want to do with an off road truck. If I was running 37" tires, I wouldn't go any smaller than 16" or no bigger than 17's. I run 17's with my 40" MTR's.

Sell the 18's and get a set of 17's so you don't have to worry about hitting your calipers.

 

yeah thats what I was thinking, so the .5" on either side makes that much of a difference eh?

 

Thank you, and yes, Toyota is still spelled Toyota. Remember, the only things on that truck that are not Toyota are the axles, rear springs and shocks. Everything else is a Toyota product. With of course the custom built tube stuff. Even the new steering box is a Toyota unit.

 

Hey wyatt, I am thinking of getting one of your bed bars, but looking at the only pic I can find online (the one on your site) I cannot tell how the thing mounts to the rails, it looks really cheesy in the pic like it is clamped onto the stock contraption jawns. Can you provide any additional pictures of this ? Thanks

 

I had some other pics of it somewhere, but I can't find them. The one that I had on my truck before we tubed the bed was connected to those bed clamps but I know we made another version of it at one time. Call Jack at the shop at about 9:30 pst. and he can help you better.
Here is the number951-735-4417.

Since people were going with more serious builds, we didn't have alot of those sell lately and I haven't been in the shop for awhile beause I messed up my shoulder so I'm not sure if we have any in stock.

When the Fj cruiser came around, the desire to build the Tacoma started to fall off, but when I found this site, I'm hoping that the desire will grow again once people start to see that these trucks, 1st gen and 2nd gens are great wheelers and in alot of situations are better than the FJ.