Southern01Taco's build

Oh ok. I didn't know all of that. I guess now that you say it, that makes sense. I don't know how people are running lunchbox lockers in the front unless I've never paid attention and they all have manual hubs. Oh well, that just gives me more of a reason to save my money and not put a locker up front lol.

Oh ok. Yea I plan on running atleast 40's. And they make kits to shave the bottom of the 14 bolt to give you better clearance, so I'll probably do that also. If I ever make it that far in the build, it will more than likely be a trailer queen except for around the house, so the rear will either be welded or have a spool. I figure if I do go as far as sasing my truck then I might as well go decently big on the axles for room to improve. For what I want to do, a d44 with 37's would probably be more than I need but I know that I'll get out there and try to do something that requires bigger tires and wish I had the d60 to be able to handle the bigger tires.

 

If yer gonna make it a trailer queen, you might as well go all in and put 2.5 ton Rockwells under it. There's even a guy that makes part for them these days: new larger axles, gears (even a choice of a couple different ratios, so you're not stuck with what came in them anymore), the whole smash. I can see if I can find his website for you if you want.

As for me, this here is pretty much where I'd like to end up, only with an SAS (and your bumpers and blower )...



And that's what mine would look like most of the time as well.

Bigger would be nicer, but then I'd start losing utility. For the foreseeable future though, I'm not going to be able to go bigger than 33s.

Anyway, like I said, I may be wrong about the ADD. Of course, those guys running with the front diff locked may not care about spinning the whole front driveline all the time. Honestly, I don't know how an auto-locker would act in that situation with no power going in. Theoretically, it would be unlocked, or at least it would when cornering, but it seems like there would probably be enough resistance there to spin the whole carrier.

 

Nah, that's too extreme for me haha. Once I put the tons under it, then I can build them up a little and then they will be damn near indestructible.

Yea that truck would look awesome with a sas.

 

We can take a little heart in that too. Those a 16x35 Boggers and his front end still seems to be under it--and it appears he plays hard as well. I really don't know anything about the truck. It's just a pic I found on the net, but I'd really like to ask the guy how often he pops CVs.

Do you go through much water? This is the first truck I've ever had with the distrbutorless ignition. I'm wondering, aside form the obvious (breathers), what the water fording concerns are? Is wet ignition a thing of the past? My Fords and my 81 and 83 Toys were bad about wet ignition since the fan sprayed water right on the distributor, but the rubber boot off a Fox body Mustang GT fixed that without having to glue your cap and plug wires on with silicone.

 

Oh ok. For as wide as they are, they look pretty damn good. I would be interested to know that also.

No not really. The highest I've been in, was some flood water and it was up to the bottom of my sliders and I didn't have any problems. But I've never went though anything super deep. I don't want to take the chance on getting water in the intake or in the cab.

 

Bummer. I can't seem to get anyone to talk about water issues with Tacomas, lol. I made a rule for myself after I fried the ECU and came with in a hairs breadth of hydrolocking the motor on my YJ within a week of buying it. If the water gets to the top of the tires, I back out. Check out the really crappy pic of my YJ.



Yes, those are 16x35 Boggers you can just barely see the tops of, makeing that almost 3' of water. I ended up backing out shortly after the pic was taken. Even if I had managed to continue, my back-up wouldn't have been able to follow safely since he was in a '94 Yota on 33s.

I figured being in LA you might have some places around like this.

BTW, I was looking at axle assemblies on Summit. They are amazingly cheap. $60 for yours and $71 for mine. That's not a whole lot more than a u-joint. Definitely cheap enough to justify having a spare set or two in your trail repair kit. Of course, those might be garbage axles. Dunno.

Edit: Autozone Duralast Golds are even cheaper for me ($69.99) and have a lifetime replacement warranty! Just like u-joints! Man, that's awesome! $140 to put two of these in, keep your old ones for trail repairs, and if you pop one, just take it back and get a new one for free. Can't beat that! (Just make sure you put the new one back in and the old one out). I had no idea. I was kinda worried about taking the truck wheeling cause if I popped an axle I might not be able to afford to replace it very quickly. Sheesh, you can't even replace the ball joints for that price (well, maybe if you just did one at a time).

 

Yea I hear that. Yea we have a few places around here that I could loose my entire truck in but I'm not big on the water/mud riding. I do it on occasion but I try to stay away from it as much as possible.

Yea both of the axles in my truck now are autozone axles and so is the spare that I keep in the tool box. I think I paid $100 for my spare after the core charge. When I broke that one, everyone said that it blew their mind how I could have just snapped a cv and got out the truck smiling but its because I knew that if I could figure out how to get it home, it wasn't going to cost me a dime. Now I carry a spare so I can continue to wheel if it ever happens again. I also keep 3 spare u-joints with me because they only cost $10. When I changed the axle, I made a list of every tool that I used. I went to harbor freight and bought every tool on the list and then put it in my tool box. Now I have CO2 with a 1/2" impact, so I should be able to change the axle as fast as I can at home.

 

I'm thinking of just buying two of the brand new ones that don't have a core return for $70 and holding on to my old ones for spares. But yeah, if I bought three, or two of the reman's and one new one for a spare, that would save me from having to take the spare back out once I exchanged the failed one. It'd probably be worth the $70 just to save the headaches of doing the job twice, although the tutorial I saw here about how to remove them looked pretty simple.

Good thinking about the Harbor Freight tool thing. It's funny, when I was young, I was lucky if I had a spare u-joint with me when I went out (usually our group could donate some spares to get each other running and between us, we had enough tools to do a frame off restoration of someone's truck). Now I'm planning on taking spare axles, u-joints, and anything else I think I might wind up needing for trail repairs. I guess I had some screwed up priorities back then. Probably still do with some of my choices that prioritize cost over performance. But at least I have made a little progress over the years.

 

Yea that is what I did. I traded my old ones in on the reman's and bought a brand new one for the spare. So I put the spare in and put the newest one in the toolbox.

If I have all the tools out and the new axle, I can have it tore down and put back together in about 30 mins. But I have changed out a total of about 4 shafts on mine, so I have plenty of practice lol.

Lol I know what you are talking about. When I started out, I was lucky to have as little as a zip tie in my truck. Now, I alone, have enough tools to do some major work out in the middle of the woods, if I have to. And then everybody else that I wheel with has plenty of tools also.

 

Heh...good times.

Depending on how badly I get raped for a paint job, maybe I will go for a set of Billies and springs. Not too sure about the OME stuff. It's pricier and I really don't know enough to make a choice on which spring to get.

I do feel a lot better now that I've discovered how cheap parts for it are at Autozone. Also the F250 got some attention yesterday, so I'm hoping someone might buy it soon so I can get rolling on my build.

At any rate, I'm eagerly awaiting your SAS. It's gonna be great.

 

I love my bilsteins and eibachs up front. They ride great and still have good flex. I think I have the 600lb springs and before I put the bumpers and winch on, they were a little stiff but it wasn't horrible. It also made it alot better after I took my swaybar off.

Yea cheap autozone parts make it nice. That's awesome.

Me too haha.

 

I worked on my skid plates Saturday. I got the crossmember finished and the t-case skid made. I still want to add some bracing to t-case and the trans. skid but it should be fine for right now. Sorry, I didn't realize how bad these pics were until now.

 

I finished beefing up my belly skids and also plated my gas tank skid. I'm ready to beat on this thing now.

 

That tank skid is SOLID!!

Truck is looking great.

 

^^^^Agreed!

Now all you need is a rear diff skid and those rocks will be rolling away from your truck in terror.

 

Thanks. I'm hoping it holds up. I didn't do anything to the sides of it but if it does collapse now, it definitely won't poke a hole in my tank.

Thanks. Honestly, I don't think I'm going to even worry about armoring my diff. I've drug it over a bunch of stuff and have a bunch of scrapes and scratches on the bottom but nothing has came close to the locker motor. If I have a close call or actually hit it then I'll do something about it but until then I'm just going to take my chances.

 

I want to see your truck in person! We should have a meet in Shreveport sometime between the 1st and the 9th

 

Shreveport?! Lol that's 4-1/2 hrs from my house. I literally live on the complete opposite corner of louisiana haha. How about you come wheeling with us? We'll be in Sicily island next weekend, which is about half way in between.

 

Hmm, tempting... Haha It's about 220 miles away for me. Which is about 7-8 hours round trip...

 

Yea that's about the same distance for me. We're planning on staying Friday night and Saturday night then heading home around lunch time on Sunday.