Which rear end for an upgrade?

Currie has the Toyota outers that allow you to keep all of the electronics and factory brakes. You can get a 9" third member with an 05+ Tacoma flange on it, but the pinion length is different than the factory axle making your driveshaft too long. The 4x4 tacoma has a splined slip joint that might be able to compensate, but I doubt it. Tom Woods makes excellent drive shafts for a reasonable amount of money, at least if you live stateside. http://www.currieenterprises.com/cestore/products4x4.aspx?id=3109

 

This.
I plan to get a new double cardan style one piece drive shaft built anyway, the factory carrier bearing setup is a POS!

 

Thanks. Now I know what to ask for when I call Currie. I'm moving the rear axle back a bunch so I need driveshaft mods anyway, but I wish to keep the Toyota U-joints, as their reliabillity is second to none.
Now I guess its time to decide if I'm going to stick with the drums or find myself a FJ-style disks (same as Land Cruiser 120).
Why go double cardan? You have a lot of lift?

 

Pinion angle. The correct pinion angle for a normal two U-joint shaft is the same as the output of the trans, ie level. You can rotate the pinion up out of harms way and point the pinion directly at the output of the transmission with a double cardan. I set mine up to be level, and I only use two U-joints in my driveshaft, but I don't play in the rocks much.

 

It showed up Thursday, now I need to make some time to get it mocked up and figure out how I want to mount the shocks and run the brake lines. I might go with a disc brake upgrade too, not sure yet. I sure wish I was skilled at fabricating, would make this a little easier. I need to figure out a traction bar of some sort, to control the twisting better and think that's what was killing my gears to begin with. I want to get that squared away so I can get any brackets associated with that welded on before I put oil in the housing. I've seen a bolt on bar that parallels the driveline that looks good, might add a little protection for the driveline too?

Anyway, enough BS, here is the awesomeness from Currie.

 

Huge thank you to Tracy and John at All Pro! I told him the basics of what I needed and discussed the many options for which style of locker and housings and he made the order with all the measurements I needed to fit my truck, all taking in the future plans I have for the build. It really saved me a lot of time and hassle. Tracy was great at communicating the time frame of shipping and delays at Currie. I'll be spending more cash with All Pro in the future for and apex front bumper and possibly sliders.

 

Sweet! Ruffstuff has all the brackets for a DIY traction bar and shock tabs if you have a welder. Have you considered a spring under axle set up? I know it's a lot more coin, but I can bounce my motor off the rev limiter and drop the clutch on dry pavement no problemo. SUA the springs do a much better job of supporting the torque, and the other benefit is more anti-squat. This means you get better traction, especially when hill climbing. Also nearly 20" (I have mine strapped at 18") of travel is nice everywhere, even in rock gardens and out in the woods, not just when you are hauling the mail. http://www.ruffstuffspecialties.com/catalog/Antiwrap.html

 

Droool...

 

Thanks for the link, I ordered the ruffstuff kit today.
I like the idea of sping under, just didn't think about it before hand and the spring pads are already welded on at the appropriate angle. I also don't want to buy new springs, so I'll stick with the spring over and anti wrap bar and hope that does the trick.

 

It will. If you use the code "DEARWIFE" at checkout you get 22.5% off your order on ruffstuff, good till Dec first. Just got the email today.

 

I have a suggestion for you for cleaner brake line routing. I pulled every hard brake line off of my truck from the two junctions on the inside of the frame rail under the drivers door all the way back to the wheels and replaced it with Kevlar dot4 braided lines. I ran them via the same path as the e-brake cables, result is a clean axle housing ( I have an 06' so no Trac bs ) cleaner look etc. Sorry I can only upload one pic at a time from my iPad, I will upload a pic of the fittings at the brakes in a minite.

 

Just a low angle banjo fitting at the drum

 

This is the spot on the frame where I removed all the hard lines and started the soft lines. I believe it was an 8ft line for the drivers side and an 12 ft line for pass side. For the pass side line I crossed over via the the same cross member where the your carrier bearing is. I also cut the rear wheel speed sensor wires and re routed them down the same path as the e-brake lines, used some 10/2 wire and wire loom.

 

Not that this would be for you but there is a relatively cheap fix for the elocker's weakness. I used to go through elockers on a semi-regular basis and as much as some might say that does not happen, I can point to a number of members here that have had the same problem. I decided to replace the e-locker with an 8.4. They are the base rear so they are plentiful. I put in an ARB 2 pc - stay away from the obsolete 3 pc if you can. The down side is that you still end up with the same shitty brakes but it's a quick swap. The 8.4, with it's cast iron truss, has a much better ability to keep the backlash constant where the e-locker on such a heavy truck, does not. If you want the e-locker do the Landcruiser deal.

I am going on 2 or 3 years with the ARB 8.4 with zero issues.

Anyway OP, that is a very nice rear you have there.

 

What was the shipping weight of this thing?

Nobody out there in the states have issues with the e-locker actuator failing? They are famous up here for not working more than 2-3 years. Which is why its very common to swap them out for an air-actuator (also much cheaper, faster, and works all the time).

 

Shipping weight was 330lbs.
As stated above, a lot people have problems with the E-locker. My has always worked without issue, even with the locker anytime relay mod, but my truck only has 35K miles on it.

 

Thanks. Its lighter than I expected.

As to the E-locker, I was just talking about the actuator itself (the electric gismo bolted to the third member), not the locker itself or the ring and pinnion, which are simply to small for serious use on these trucks, as others have stated above.

The common way up here is to swap the center section of the housing out for a 9.5" unit from a Land Cruiser (60 or 80 series), and use the stock axles.

 

Now that the Hollidays are over, I finally carved out some time today to work on the truck. I got the rearend tore apart and the housing out and bolted up the Currie housing with the center all assembled. I'm going to have to cut the muffler and exhaust out to make room to weld up the RuffStuff anti wrap bar, not really excited about that, but the center section is so huge it doesn't leave enough room to fit the brackets on the housing to place the bar right next to the driveline. It will end up a few inches to the passenger side, right where the muffler is.

 

Maybe you could get the exhaust offset enough to run between the anti wrap bar and the frame and just dump the exhaust before the axle? Are you going to hang the anti-wrap bar off a custom crossmember or the stock one?

 

Not sure yet where to hang the front from, I didn't even hold the top bar up for reference. I was cold and gave up as it was getting dark. Just eyeballing it though, I think I'd rather use a smaller muffler and keep the bar as close to the center as possible. I Didn't want the added cost, but a new exhaust would be nice to have anyway as I still have the low hanging pipe on the drivers side. Would be a good time to change that Y pipe piece. I'm also looking into the BAMF shock relocate brackets too, need to figure out something there.