Baka's 1998 Build

Bumper pics, plus a little mall crawling. I managed to fully flex out the rear suspension. Looks like I might be able to go to 11" shocks if I wanted to.

 

The new bumper off road...















The above images courtesy of @LMarshall73






Anyway, she suffered some damage that trip. In addition to the busted CV, she also developed a radiator leak due to the fan contacting the radiator while I was in the water hole.

After giving it a lot of thought, I think I'm going to go a new direction with the OGT. I still want to regear her to 4.88s, but I think when I do that, I'm going to lose the front Lincoln locker and have a Truetrac LSD unit put in. I'll lose a lot of capability, but, I also want to go up to 35s. I'm hoping the CVs with an LSD will hold up well with 35s and the 35s will give me a lot of the lost capability back I lost from having the front diff locked.

Since I'm a cheap bastard and @allenfab politely declined to weld sheetmetal for me to tub my firewall to clear the 35s, I plan to make the clearance with a BFH, a 12 lb sledge to be exact. I've heard of some 3rd Gen T4R guys doing that, so I figure it's worth a shot. After all, I only have to move the sheet metal an inch and if I go with 35x12.50-15 LTBs, it should make it easier, especially if I get wheels with 4.25" BS. Dunno if I can do that though. I like the wide stance it has now and I don't want to give up too much side hill stability.

 

Of course there's a lot of other things I need to take care of first.

1. I need to get a Trail Gear transmission crossmember/skid plate since my stock crossmemeber looks like a crushed beer can.

1A. I'd like to investigate the possibility of adapting a 6 speed trans from a 2nd Gen to my 3.4L. If the 1st gear is lower and the 6th gear is higher than my current 5 speed it would be ideal with the 4.88s since a higher overdrive would be useful in bringing my RPMs down at interstate speeds. If either of those two conditions aren't met though, there wouldn't be any point.

(edit: Looks like the 6th gear on the 6-speed is actually lower than the 5th on a 5-speed, although it does have a much lower 1st gear. Wouldn't do what I wanted though so I guess I stick with 5 speeds. )

2. A high clearance rear bumper. I need better recovery points and I'm tired of dragging my arse over obstacles.

After those two things are accomplished, then I can worry about regearing and going to 35s.

 

#goals

 

I noticed installing a lift on a friends 3rd gen sport 4x4 he had a traditional vacuum booster, only reasoning I could deduce that the O/R's have the electronic booster is related to A-Trac?

Either way I like the auto bleed function, especially with my speed bleeders. I have those on everything.

I also built my own home depot plumbing section pressure bleeder, it ain't as pretty as yours though @Taco No Baka

 

Yeah makes sense to have it for the A-trac system. OR ftw

 

Might have a spare cross member from the parts basket 4Runner. It would be for an auto but I believe the cross piece is the same it's just a matter of where on the frame it is mounted.

Also if you want to tub your firewall allen ain't the only one with a welder.

Not saying I'm as good as he is but I'd give it a go.

Same goes for a rear high clear, been planning on starting one soon and I now have a good basis thanks to @TacoTRD78


As for the 6th speed, the 3rd gen's 6 speed has some improvements over the 2nd gen's and I know 5th and 6th are both OD gears in them. I do not know what ratios.

I do know (well at least I have read) the 2nd and 3rd gens do no use a pilot bearing but rather the input shaft is supported only on the transmission side.

Not ideal...

 

3rd Gen 6 speeds might be hard to come by, but I'd definitely like to know what the 1st and 6th ratio was.

As for the crossmember, I'm going with the TG one as an upgrade, more so than a replacement. It's basically a 3/8" steel skid pate with stand-off to bolt your trans mount on.

Thanks! I may just take you up on the welding thing. it'll be a while though. I still need to buy your engine, and get that crossmember. I may make clearance for 35s before I do the rear HC, but then I would need to regear before I did the 35s since my current engine can barely cope with 33s and a Detroit with 3.90s. Thank god for 2Lo or I'd be screwed, haha.

It'd sure be nice though to be able to lock my hubs when I hit the trails and not have to worry about them until I was headed home.

 

I'd also like to add that I sure wish I had an automatic. It'd be a heck of a lot easier to properly use that truetrac if I could apply the brakes and throttle at the same time. Unfortunately, I don't have very big feet and I lack the coordination to heel/toe the throttle and brakes while operating the clutch all at the same tie.

Just thinking about it makes my . I guess that's why I've seen some people with a hand throttle on their shifter.

 

Don't say such things!!! Save the manuals!!!

I considered doing a throttle lever in mine, there's a good how to writeup on here for the 2nd gens. That said it's a lot easier to make a hand throttle when your TB is electronic me thinks. Heel toeing works for me for now.

A buddy had an old dodge that didn't have cruise control and we had to take it on a thousand mile hike, we tied some 550 cord to the TB used a couple of little pulleys and a key ring on the far end passed it through a hole in the firewall, put a screw in the dash to hook the keyring on, it cruised at about 67mph.

Cheap re-gear, though maybe not the best for 35's is to get the diffs from a 3rd gen T4R they're all geared 4.30 and would drop right in, course you'll loose your lockers unless you get them resetup in the new members.

Who lashed and assembled your current diffs?

 

I like automatics. I was raised on manuals so I'm not afraid of them and I don't mind shifting, but it's easier to be gentle with an automatic when crawling, IMHO. Manuals have their place though...in sports cars, haha.

I thought all T4Rs were 8" rears and wouldn't work with an 8.4 (yeah I know the 8.4 is really just an 8" ring gear, but it had the carrier bearing truss which makes it stronger and not able to fit in an 8" axle housing)? I've also heard the IFS has smaller axles. In addition, when I was looking at the TrueTracs on Low Range OffRoad they were saying the Tacoma 7.5 carrier has 50mm journals while the T4R 7.5 carrier had 45mm journals so that does give some credence to the smaller axle thing I heard.

As far as my setup now, I put the Detroit in myself. On the advice of ECGS, they said to just used the same shims it had with the open carrier, check the lash and if it wasn't in spec to swap the shims side to side and recheck it. Turned out they were right. It was just barely in spec on the tight side, but I figured that was the new bearings I had to put on the Detroit so it would probably loosen up with wear. The front, I just dropped the IFS, cracked the clamshell, took the carrier to a welding shop and had them weld up the spiders (to each other and the carrier) then I dropped the carrier back in the clamshell and put everything back together.

I don't even wanna think about setting up a clamshell diff. It looks like a nightmare.

 

Adding to the list:

I think I've come up with a radiator protector to keep the fan out of the radiator. Also, I think part of the problem is I believe I'm missing a piece from the bottom of my fan shroud that would probably make a difference on how much water the fan was moving, thus how much it was deflecting. Unfortunately, I won't be able to implement it by Richloam next weekend so we'll just have to hope I don't do any more damage. The hack JB weld repair seems to be holding though.

The other issue was what I was going to do about a windshield washer reservoir if I go to 35s. Well, I've long had plans for turning an old out of date 5lb NOS bottle I have into a washer fluid reservoir, but they've involved cutting the tapered end off and having a flat end welded to it so I could mount it on my bumper hoop. I decided that it just be easier to use the bottle as is, drill and tap a hole in the bottom of it for a hose nipple, remove the valve at the top and just get some PVC fittings to thread in to use as a filler cap and move the whole thing, pump and all (maybe) to the bed of the truck between the side corner of the tool box and the inner side of the bed. I'll probably have to drill and tap the top end as well to mount a nipple for a breather hose, but that shouldn't be a big deal.

On second thought, I might just move the pump to the firewall and maybe get some effin' pressure out of it for a change, haha.

 

Well, after dealing with front only braking for a few years now, I finally got sick of it and began investigating WTF was going on. Turns out it was the frakking LSPV. I safety wired the arm up to the bottom of the bed and test drove it, and whaddya know, I have rear brakes now. The OGT's brakes still aren't terribly impressive next to the T4R, but I guess she's more than a little heavier than her younger sister.

I could just make a longer bracket to mount the arm to, but I figure the whole system is just about useless on a trail rig that does a lot of articulation. Stuff one side and you have rear brakes. Stuff the other and you don't. So until I have a reason to need to adjust the bias, I'm rolling with it as is. If I do need to adjust the bias, I'll either get a manual valve or I'll mount the bracket to the bottom of the bed and adjust it with the threaded rod that was on the axle mount.

 

Ya gotta admit, she pulls waaaaaay above her weight class...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZARkpc51G_4

 

Cockpit view of the above video...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2kzBWJZftZs&feature=youtu.be

 

Whenever I get aggressive with a recovery like in the above videos, I always end up tweaking my bumper so my tailgate won't open properly. I usually end up running a strap under the truck to the big oak tree in my front yard and after loosening the bolts, I yank it back down. Kinda tired of doing that honestly, but I'm not too far away from having an HC rear bumper with proper recovery points built.

However, in the meantime, I've been thinking of alternatives. The problem is that whoever put my hitch on left out the aft set of frame spacers (about .50" thick) and I don't really believe that even if I put a stack of washers in there that the corner of the open "C" of the frame would be sufficient to keep the bumper from moving. So...I think I'm going to maybe try my hand at a little welding. I'm thinking of trying to find a piece of 3" x .25 angle iron, fitting it to the frame and vise versa and welding it in. Seems fairly simple and I can stick weld, though I'm very rusty at it, but I have access to a mig as well, though I've never used one.

Anyway, I feel like this would solve the problem and stiffen the rear of the frame for when I eventually do get my HC bumper built.

 

Well, after poking another hole in my radiator at Richloam a couple weekends ago and discovering my factory temp gauge is unreliable, I finally got around to putting in the Scan Gauge II Todd gave me. Didn't like their mounting system...seemed like it would be too wobbly to me, so I fabbed a holder for it.



Figured I'd stick with the velcro methode they used just with a wider base to make it more stable. I'm still not happy with its stability so I'm probably going to end up screwing it down. And it really doesn't block the instrument cluster as much as it appears to in the pictures. The camera angle was a lot lower than my eye height.



Also it confirmed my suspicion that my Autometer Tach reads about 100 RPMs high, but no big deal, so i may move the RPMs off the screen and put MPGs or something there. Too bad it doesn't read oil pressure.

 

Ya know, I might take the instrument cluster out and see if I can remove the factory temp gauge and then cut a hole in it and install my mechanical Autometer Oil Pressure gauge in the cluster. I think that would look pretty slick. Only thing would be the factory idiot light would be on all the time and I'd have to take the bulb out of it...or come up with some weird conglomeration of fittings that let me run both the idiot light sensor and the oil pressure line to the gauge.

 

If there is a will there is a way. I’m sure you will have it looking pretty before the fall camp n ride