AdventureTaco - turbodb's build and adventures

Very nice trip report enjoyed Thanks

 

Soooo, any new tire/wheel combo to show us?

 

Sure thing! Which trip?

I have no idea what you're talking about...
(stay tuned for a few minutes)

 

New Wheels and Tires, Again! (Stealth6 and ST Maxx)
January 12, 2018.

The day has arrived, finally. For three months, I've had a set of SCS Stealth6 wheels stacked, in the boxes they arrived in, in the living room.

@mrs.turbodb has not been happy.

In that time, I've been trying to decide what tires I want to run on those wheels. I knew I wanted 33's, and I knew that I wanted as little rubbing as possible, but that left me with three options:

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• BFG KM2's or KM3's @ 255/85R16 - these have the right profile (tall and skinny) for less rubbing, and a nice aggressive tread pattern, but I didn't love that they were a pure mud terrain (I prefer an AT/MT hybrid) since I do a lot of freeway driving. The one time I hit some snow, they also lacked traction compared to the Goodyear Wrangler Duratrac's that I previously had installed.
• Cooper Discoverer ST Maxx's @ 255/85R16 - these too have the right profile, and they are an AT/MT hybrid, which I like. The downside is that they don't look quite as "grr" as the KM2's.
• Goodyear Wrangler Duratrac's @ 285/75R16 - I knew I'd love the "grr" and AT/MT traction profile of these tires, since I was coming from a 31" version of the same tire. However, these tires are a full inch wider than the other two, and I knew that'd lead to a lot of rubbing - which I really wanted to avoid.

For the last several months, I've been running a set of KM2's, and I'd decided that while I wasn't a huge fan of the KM2's on a daily driver, I'd wait for the KM3's to see if they'd have better snow performance before making the final decision. But then, my hand was forced when we decided that we'd make a January run to Death Valley.

For that trip I'd need a spare - something I'd been running without on the KM2's - which immediately eliminated "waiting" for KM3's. I also convinced myself that the "grr" look of a tire isn't as important as the overall fit and performance, which ruled out the Duratracs.

So I ordered up a set of ST Maxx's and scheduled an installation appointment.

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During the appointment, I was flagged down by three different people asking about the truck. The UPS driver wanted to know how I liked the RTT (he'd just gotten a SmittyBuilt, that could "only open backwards"). The store manager remarked, "I knew that was your truck - that's a nice looking rig." And another customer asked, "What's that black tube on the back?" (the shower)

An hour later, they were done.

Someday soon, I'll need to go get some better pictures on a sunny day. For now, I can say that

• the tire/wheel combo looks great - the "lack-of-grr" from the ST Maxx's is definitely offset by the additional width provided by the Stealth6's,
• I love that these things are way quieter on the freeway than the KM2's,
• the 3.5" backspacing is going to mean a lot more dirt on the sides of the truck in muddy conditions,
• I've got some more work to do with rubbing - the 3.5" backspacing means that the outer edge of the tire contacts the fender liner on inside turns a bit more than the steelies I was running previously.

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Looks good!

Just had to have that 3.5 backspacing..

 

That dude mounting your tires looks thrilled to be photographed. Setup looks great.

 

Thanks! I agree, looks pretty hot. And the wider stance looks good too... just not looking so forward to the result of that on the trail ; I'm sure I'll manage though.

Wish I could have gotten a bit more backspacing - 4.5 would have been perfect for me, I think. But hey, at least I'm nowhere near Frank or Sluggo, where it's constantly

I know, I thought that was a great look too, hahahahaha!

his buddy said "$5 a picture" as I was clicking a few, and my retort was, "I'd charge way more if you wanted any of these."

 

True, will not be as big an issue outside of the mud - and looks great all the time vs. pain a minority of the time. But like you, I'm not shying away from the muddy trips!

 

Really? I'd still be in for 100% - as long as we make safe choices on trails, like this year. I don't love it, but at the end of the day, adventure wins for me. You can always wash off the mud (well, most of it).

 

Looks awesome!

 

hahaha, good point and fair enough. I usually don't either and the weather would have been trying for her last year; I was probably lucky that we couldn't both be away for two weeks...

 

Damn straight. Hell I was mad we turned around as much as we had too.

Well..worked for me..haha

 

Ahh....but she didn't

 

I'll admit..it was almost too much. And if I didn't have a second truck things would not have turned out as they did..ha

Was a lot for sure. But Im glad she came. Just means she is more experienced with shit storms.

 

Ha, like I care. You guys are welcome in here any time. Says so, right in the rules.

 

Fixing the IFS Skid Mounts
January 14, 2018.

"That's strange." I thought as the guys at JT's Parts and Accessories took my IFS Front Skid off to replace the gears in my front diff. "I don't remember the guys from @RelentlessFab putting any clips behind the middle bolts. I wonder how those help hold the skid on?"

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A couple hours later, the three of us realized that in fact, there were no clips installed by Relentless - rather, the OEM mounts had broken off! I probably shouldn't have been surprised - the skid is beefy at 3/16" thick, surely stronger than the mounts were on closer inspection.

Luckily, none of this caused any worry when we reinstalled the skid after the new gears - Relentless IFS skids have 4 different attachment points when paired with the mid-skid - so everything was secure even without the two OEM "LCA tab" mounts.

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When I got home, I noodled for a while on whether I wanted to just run the skid with the remaining 8 mounts, or if I wanted to try to fix the LCA tab mounts. In the end, I figured I might as well see if I could get those reattached. If I could, great; if not, no loss from the current situation.

The first step was to make a bit more room under the truck using the floor jack, and drop the IFS skid.

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With access to the OEM mounting points, I was able to spend some time figuring out the exact positioning of the tabs on the LCA brackets (by lining up the broken tack-welds on each side), and come up with a plan of attack for reattaching them. Naturally, that plan started with grinding down both the tabs and mount point to bare metal - not only on the ends of the tabs where they were tack-welded from the factory, but also along one entire edge - ~3½" in length - for a much stronger weld.

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Metal prepped, it was time to position the tabs in place and weld them on. Working by myself, positioning was achieved with the clamp of champions - blue tape as I slithered under the truck with the welder. I don't do a lot of overhead welding, but with a bit of extra juice to ensure that everything was hot enough, I started by tacking, and then welding along three sides, for about 4½" of welded surface, vs. the two tack welds that I started with.

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Happy with the results, I cleaned the area and primed and painted everything - hopefully to keep the rust at bay. And then, the moment of truth - did I have the mounts in the right place to line up with the holes in the skid?

Yes. I did.

And now, we'll see - do the mounts hold better now, or are these mounts just in a tough spot for bumps? Only time will tell.

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UPDATE January 2019: the mounts are holding up great, after 10,000 trail miles on the truck last year - success!

 

I need to do the same thing for one of my mounts. Probably follow the same idea

 

Ah you just re-used the existing straps? I went a little overboard with my fix. But I like this way too!

Here's my version, literally just fixed it two weeks ago:

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads...-01-build-thread.290011/page-58#post-16839201

I can't believe those straps are only held in by two tacks. But I don't think Toyota had a lot of the stuff we do or the skids we use in mind.

 

Lookin' good, those are some beefy points you've got now.

I just re-used the OEM straps. My hope is that it isn't the strap that is the failure point, but the welds - we'll see. If they come off again, then I'll be moving on to your method, hahahahaha!