BigMike’s Big Journey: New 2016 Tacoma

I guess 4251 for the 81

And 4201 for the 2016.

 

This isn't the price is right!

 

That would be awesome

 

My guess:
81 - 4103 lbs
16 - 4633 lbs

 

81 - 3750
16 - 4850

 

Excellent guesses you guys

Nickel
1981 4,250 12.4 percent error
2016 4,200 5%

ExplorHer
1981 3,980 5.3%
2016 4,480 1.4%

Mattynokes
1981 4,251 12.5%
2016 4,201 5%

LTacoman
1981 4,103 8.5%
2016 4,633 4.8%

nevadabugle
1981 3,750 0.8%
2016 4,850 9.7%

JimBeam
1981 5,275 39.6%
2016 4,500 1.8%

The correct weights are, drum roll please!
1981 3,780 lbs
2016 4,420 lbs

ExplorHer had the closest average guess accuracy of 3.35% to actual so he gets the Hat! Haha that was pretty fun, I'll have to think of some more ways to do something like this with this build nevadabugle was only 30 lbs off from my Hilux! Nice guess

I was thinking the Tacoma would be 500 pounds heavier. I knew my Hilux is on the light side. I built it to be light and efficient. It turned out to be 640 lbs heavier. According to some quick searches, a stock 1981 4WD weighed in at 2,975 to 3,065 lbs. So if we assume 3,000 lbs, then I've got 800 lbs of Rock Crawling equipment. The Tacoma could potentially become close to 5,250 lbs! Holy moly! From where I come from this is pretty heavy and any weight makes it that much harder to get up a trail. Gonna be fun wheeling this Taco! Seriously can't wait!!

Hilux


Tacoma


I didn't realize I could have parked on two different cement slabs or else I would have gotten individual axle weights. Bummer.

 

Sweet!

 

Wednesday, April 27, 2016: Rock Sliders

First official day back at work and I got All Pro's brand new 2016 "Extreme Duty" APEX Rock Sliders installed. These are built from 1.75" x 0.125" USA-made DOM tubing with four x 2" square legs per side. Not only DOM but also 4% thicker walled than their standard sliders. On my Hilux I am running our old USA-made DOM sliders that are 0.120" and I have come down on them so HARD at times that once the impact killed the engine. Not sure why but it did. Yet they have only sustained small dents. USA-made DOM tubing is the REAL deal. None of this imported Chinese recycled lawn chair CRAP that other companies sell. (See my USA HREW vs Imported DOM tech article. You get what you pay for!)

Knowing the Tacoma is heavier I wouldn't want anything less than these: In my opinion Rock Sliders are the #1 most important piece of body armor so on they go!

The Tacoma enters our back shop for it's first time!!





Had the sliders painted and ready to go on. First time ever installing "bolt-on" body armor and I thought the fit was pretty good. We had to elongate one hole on each side but otherwise it was pretty straight forward.



The plan is to get these mounted and good to go with just spray paint, and then in the near future take them off and get em properly powder coated. You'll never know if some minor grinding is needed so better to just get em on now and worry about long-term paint later.

 

Weight is 73.2 lbs each. Probably 150 combined with hardware. Whew. They are available without the dimpled plate. I'm not a big fan of the plating, but, it adds more strength and as much as I don't like formed bumpers I'm probably not gonna have much of a choice. So might as well match the sliders to whatever bumpers I decide to run. (Currently I don't like any bumper I've seen for the 2016 and have already conceded that tube alone won't pan out.)



Getting them in place and installing...






I am certainly not a fan of this very large gap between the bottom of the door and the top of the slider. Rough measurement has this at a 2-3/8" gap. That is 2.375" of ground clearance... But, more on this later

 

I do like the 2"x2" square legs. Pretty stout.



You can see tapered hardware along the bottom. The hex head bolt is an OEM Toyota bolt. Obviously I'll need to convert that and any others to a low profile / tapered bolt. I think ideally they should be tac welded once I'm satisfied with everything. Don't know if I like the idea of bolts alone. Probably this is just my old ways clouding my thoughts.



There is a stamped steel bracket whose sole purpose is to just hold two plugs. No wonder this truck weighs 4.4 thousand pounds! I'd like to scoure much of the truck for silly uncessary weight like this and get em removed. For now I just zip tied it up and out of the way.



All done!

 

Took it out to the dirt for some pics





I am VERY pleased with these. Very nice work AP!

 

I also like how the kick outs are muted. I was never a fan of the All Pro Hilux sliders because of how far out the kick out is on those but this is much less pronounced and I like it. Nice change.

 

Here is another shot of the gap between the door and the slider. I can stack three fingers between the two. Will discuss more on this later.



The dimpled plate does look great once installed I have to admit.



View from the rear door



View from the driver's seat

 

The sliders look great.

 

Any progress on this Tacoma @BigMike?

 

Hello TW!

Ohhhhhhhhhh man. What. A. Year. Whew. I am sorry to say that I was only able to barely touch the Tacoma last year. The timing from the 261 day delay was horrible and I didn't line things up as quickly as I should have in preparation for the busy season. I took the Tacoma out on two trails and then the wheel'n, marketing, event sponsorship season kicked into high gear and I was too busy to work on it. Many more reasons preventing progress on the Tacoma such as a lot of restructuring here at MC and my wife and I purchasing our very first house!

Over the last month I've been making some good progress preparing for this year's wheel'n season so let's get this thread back up to speed!!

April 28 & 29, 2016: New Grille
My 1987 MR2 has a white-black Panda theme which I like so the Chrome TRD Sport grille has gotta go

I ordered a SR5 grille but when it showed up I discovered it had a grey shade to it...





So I did some quick research and realized I should have ordered the "SR" grill. The next day I picked that up for comparison and was happy with it. Returned the SR5 grille.

SR left -- SR5 right

 

After work I swapped out the grille. Wow that was so easy. It is readily evident compared to my Hilux how things are better designed for mass-production.

Old grille off



New SR grille on



I like this much better



Lastly, not sure if I covered this, but I set-up my background image as a pic from Zion National Park

 

April 30, 2016: TLCA's Annual Bakersfield Land Cruiser Swap Meet

Broke the truck's event cherry at the Toyota Land Cruiser Association's Annual Bakersfield Swap Meet

Leaving Fresno. Love the LED driving lights. They dim quite a lot once the headlights are turned on. I plan to override this feature.





At the Land Cruiser event in Bakersfield:





We had the Tacoma parked next to our booth featuring our newly updated MC11 Tacoma/FJ Cruiser Dual Case Unit



As you can see this one is for the 1GR-FE ("TACO BOX 4.0"). This should be very close to what will be installed in the new Tacoma, minus the nifty cutaway



Here is the Tacoma with Kay Spector, the widow of Marv Spector, who is essentially the Marlin of the Land Cruiser World (see our Marv Spector Tribute Album here).



From left to right: Marlin, Kay, Christine, Myself

 

April 30, 2016 (continued): Road Trip to Los Angeles

After the event my wife and I continued south to Los Angeles to pick up some Supercharger parts for my MR2. We've hit 3,000 miles in only ten days!



Random lunch-stop pic



Near Santa Monica, CA



Finally back home. I have no other 6cyl truck experience but the fuel mileage through two mtn ranges combined with the idiot drivers who make up the notorious LA traffic was decent:




Edit: fixed incorrect picture order