The Getaway...Crom's build and adventures

Good deal on your Dakars.

I deliberately went overkill on the front end. I'm reasonably confident I won't need to back in there for many years. The only real worn parts were the tie rods. I could have ran everything else as is and replaced as they go out.

And I'll mention this in a future post in more detail, but in the event that I had to ever make a trail repair regarding tie rods, I would have been hosed! I had to use two 3-foot cheater pipes on two wrenches to separate the tie rods. When I assembled the new ones I used anti seize so I'll never have that problem again.

Plus now I have trail spares.

Thanks.

Thank you.

 

How to reset and calibrate your VSC (Vehicle Stability Computer) computer

Quick and easy, straight forward, no technical BS.

This procedure is recommended by Toyota, after front end alignment adjustments are made.

Make sure your truck has VSC before you begin. VSC was optional in 2005-2008 model trucks, and became a standard safety feature in 2009 and later.

• Find a flat place to park your truck, make sure your steering wheel is straight, and then turn it off.
• On the left side of your dash is a coin tray, beneath that is a diagnostic connector, remove the plastic cover to reveal the port.
• Find a skinny piece of wire 2 inches in length it does not matter what kind of wire it is.
• Bend the wire into a u-shape, you will be using the wire to short out two pins on the connector, illustrated in green.
• The first step process is to wipe the mind the VSC computer.
• The second step is to calibrate the computer
• Done.

READY??? GOOD.

1. Turn the ignition to the on position, and then short out the pins, 4 times or more within an eight second period. If you're successful the ABS light, and the slip indicator light will flash simultaneously at a steady interval. Congratulations you just wiped the mind of the VSC computer!
2. Turn ignition off.
3. Short out the pins with your wire, leave the wire in there, turn ignition to on position. Be careful not to disturb the truck, must remain very still for two seconds during calibration. Observe the ABS light and the slip indicator light they will be flashing simultaneously at a steady rapid interval, faster than before. Congratulations you've just calibrated the VSC computer.
4. Turn ignition off, remove wire, and go drive and have fun.

I posted this as a stand alone mod in the second generation section of the forum.

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads...ibrate-your-vsc-computer-the-easy-way.467485/

@Gply
@tyfoon11
@stairgod
@Subway4X4
@HB Taco
@Drainbung
@DVexile

Go ahead and try it. See if sparks shoot out or fire happens.

 

Great write up! Thanks for the detailed instructions!

 

Welcome. I meant to say sorry to hear about the boulder covered in snow incident. So did the alignment fix your front end issue? No bent parts? Flattened out cam tabs? Just curious. Thanks.

 

Alignment tabs look good. I'm getting it realigned again in the morning with the tech that normally does my truck. I'm beginning to think the tech that did it the other day didn't really know what he was doing. I'll keep you posted.

 

Great front suspension rebuild! And I had no idea the VSC was that easy to calibrate. Is it just me, or are the "Crom" write ups getting better? You are a huge asset to the TW community.

 

THanks for this! I slid into a rock on the last run and threw off my alignment. My slip indicator has been on for awhile now.

 

This is great stuff Nick! I'm getting ready to do a major change-out (major, in my world) of my front end: BFF front plate bumpers, B6112's and heavier Eibach coils. I'm keeping this cal procedure in my back pocket just in case.

 

Great write up Nick, thanks!

 

Ain't that a fact! Same as mine that arrived smh

 

Good luck. The hardest part about alignment techs is finding someone who cares. There is one shop that is a little further away than my local shop, and the tech there is superb. He will ask me what I want before hand, and after he has dialed it in, he will come to me with the numbers to get my okay, before locking the cams down. Super excellent tech. I always tip him and make it crystal clear to the the manager how much I appreciate his work.

Thanks Jesse. Appreciated. I was surprised too. It's quite simple! I honestly thought everything had been written up by now. lolz

Welcome. Hope you get it squared up soon.

Exciting indeed! Your '05 will be happy with the refresh. FYI, I amended the procedure to make sure that folks check for VSC before doing the procedure.

Thanks!

Hammer that bitch out, and slap some poly in there with super grease!

 

Bingo just ordered me some super grease (Amazon) and additional poly bushings through wheelers.

 

A little taste of what everyone in the rust belt has to deal with....

Seriously though love the truck and how well thought out everything is.

 

Nailed it. I'll reiterate the need for a good impact to get the axle nut off. I tried my crastman 18v impact and didn't budge it. Broke 2 breaker bars trying to get out off as well. Called a local member with a kick ass Makita cordless and he zipped it off in a few seconds.

I've seen videos of people using the breaker bar, but it was no dice for me. Probably a combo of rust and having 150k on original running gear.

After that getting the hub off is cake. A few box end wrenchs/ratchets and a deadblow hammer and it'll pop right off.

 

Thanks Seth. I have nothing but mad respect and deep sympathy for folks in the North East.

Thanks for confirming.

Wow! That sounds like a bear! What kind of breaker bars were they?

I have two breaker bars, the HF 25" long, 1/2" drive one, and the 17" long 3/8" drive. I have been impressed with them.

The vibration effect from the impact, I think, has a considerable effect on loosening threaded fasteners. The Ridgid I have, owned for over 14 months now has been pretty great. To date, I have only had one fastener that it could not break loose. Of all things, it was a T55 hub flange bolt on my 14 year old car. There are three that hold the hub on to the steering knuckle. My 25" breaker bar took care of it no prob.

As a side note, I really like your avatar / profile. I voted for you and @Shelf Life in the best Avatar popularity contest. lol. The Goonies (1985) was a movie staple when growing up. Great movie to ignite a kids imagination.

 

One was a 36" AutoZone special, the other a 36"husky from Lowe's. Both had my hi lift handle on them. One snapped while my face was right next to it and it just about broke my jaw. Lesson learned

Ha thanks, Goonies is one my favorites too. Wore that VHS out back in the day. I always wonder who actually knows who Sloth is/ the Goonies

 

Send flowers please...

... or penetrating oil.

 

Duralast Tie rods

Before performing the front end rebuild work I did a some research regarding tie rods. Toyota inner tie rods cost $136, they're very expensive! Toyota tie rod ends are around $44. There are few aftermarket alternatives, such as Moog, or the Duralast brand, and a few others that I wouldn't consider.

There are a number of people running the Moog tie rod ends. The Joint appears to be fine with those but they suffer from a boot design error, in which case the boots split shortly after installation on some people's trucks. I found that absolutely unacceptable.

When I looked at the AutoZone Duralast brand it had the exact same part number as Moog. Probably not a good sign. But I decided to check them out in person and I was delighted to find that the boot design on the Duralast tie rod end emulated the stock one very closely. By all outward appearances in the store it looked fine, so I bought them.

They were $32 each, pretty close in price to $44 for the Toyota ones.

I unboxed the inner tie tods and inspected them in the store and they looked fine. They were $24 and change each.

At home I did a side-by-side comparison of the Duralast and the Toyota stock inner tie rod I found very little difference between the two. The Toyota one was stamped with a numeric marking "9320". No other markings could be found. After I installed the Duralast inner, I cleaned out the factory grease and replaced with super Grease.

Also there's a little false advertising in that the Duralast advertises that it includes a new boot. It does not. But I knew this going into it and it wasn't a problem reusing the Toyota stock dust boot. I did the exact same thing on my car last year. No problems.

As mentioned previously, the Toyota tie rods with 71K miles on them were loose, no play in the socket, just loose. For comparison, my daily driver car tie rod inners were in better shape at 120K miles!

Stock is silver, Duralast is black


There is a lot of room on the Tacoma and replacing inner tie rods is a very straightforward job once the outer tie rod has been separated. I rented the inner tie rod removal tool and the 1-7/16" adapter for removal and installation.

The Duralast outer tie rods look great to me they include a proper fitting dust boot and grease zerk. I noted that the castle nut for the stud took a 21mm socket and was stamped class 10 metric hardened fastener. So more beefy than Toyota 19mm stock nut. I'm good with all of that.



Zero issues installing. My six year old kid liked painting the inner tie rod threads with the gold paint (anti seize), she also installed the TRE and castle nut! lol





As previously mentioned, I had to use two cheater pipes on two wrenches to separate the tie rod ends! It was like an explosion when they finally let go! lol


Old hardware



I've got 150 miles on them since rebuild and they are working great. Anything goes wrong with them I'll update this post.

 

Brother Nick! I see you been super busy since I saw you last. Awesome, and Happy New Year to you. I went ahead and deleted the needle bearing when my lift went in. Figured I might as well since everything was mostly pulled apart. I had heard about the design flaw with the needle bearing by Toyota. For the price, the ECGS clamshell bushing is well worth it.

Where did you get your spindle gussets? I got my weld on gussets from Total Chaos. They have 2 types. One that works without the sway bar and another that is made to optionally add in the sway bar, and have an extra gusset/weld point (making those a bit more robust), however option 2 requires wheel spacers. I went with option 1.

This should be a sticky. Well done, bud!

 

Yeah this thread is what my thread would look like if I didn't always say, "to hell with it, i need to get this done - I'll do a nice write-up on the next thing." GOod work