What Have You Done To Your 3rd Gen Today?

dual purpose..yes

 

Not too sure about this train of thought regarding vents. They have been putting differential vents in cars, that I have seen, since my early 1960's models and they never were the cause of differential problems. With all the modern technology and better oils I cannot see a vent being any problem. All drive gears run cooler now with less oil breakdown. We put 100,000 miles on those cars and the only gear trouble we had was from welding spider gears to make them cheap posi-trac rear ends. From what pictures I have seen it appears that either the differential covers are over/under torqued and/or the covers are not machined flat enough to seal. Now for off-roading in deep water you need to relocate the vent tube but thats about it.

 

I wouldn’t disagree with you. My line of thinking is just speculating on this problem.

I’ve never seen any problems with rear dif vents or had any problems with any of the many trucks I’ve owned over the last three decades myself and I don’t know whether the Tacoma one way rear dif vent valve contributes to the problem.
It works for not letting water back into the dif, but it also creates negative pressure. Hot air goes out, but no air or water comes back in.
If the one way valve on the dif rusts or gets stuck open or closed from mud or dirt, that might not be good.

If this is the way it’s supposed to work, then there’s no need for a vent relocation with tubing other than to allow two way breathing in high water.

After driving the vehicle several miles on the freeway one day to check if the howling was gone, the next morning I decided to remove the one way breather valve when the truck was cold. You could here a significant amount of air get sucked through the hole upon removal of the valve. A couple of days later, I decided to check the differential oil level. Again while the vehicle was cold, you could hear air pass though the hole when the fill plug was removed.
This would seem normal for a one way valve on a dif that has been heated up from driving, and then cooled down.

I also agree with you about gaskets, machining of surfaces and torquing of nuts and bolts.

In my younger days, during high school and college, I did my own repairs on my old vehicles and never had leaking seals or gasket weeping problems after installing heads, intake manifold, valve covers, water pumps, transmission pans, etc...

So perhaps it’s just the machining on the surfaces, bad gaskets or bad sealing.

I checked for proper torque on the rear end prior to bringing it in for repair of the leaking rear dif gasket, and it was good.

Removed the one way valve:

Installed the new fitting, tubing and relocated the breather up high:

 

Relocated the usb/aux for the radio to the center console
Added a voltage meter in place of the cig/charger port and added a dual usb charger (quick charge 3.0/2.4A) for work phone and passengers in place of the usb/aux in for the radio and added the Dash Multi mount with phone Mount and ran a usb from center console to mount to play phone threw usb so my phone can charge

 

For what it's worth, I did this mod shortly after I bought my 2016 along with changing over to Amsoil gear lube and eliminated my diff noise and have never had a leak. I'm a believer

 

Periodic 4lo/diff lock exercise

 

Softopper

 

Installed a CAI. I know it wont really make a performance difference but it sure does sound and look cool!



I have installed CAIs on many vehicles over the years. Most of them required some wrangling to get everything to line up. This was an absolute perfect fit. Took me maybe 30 minutes.

https://www.sbfilters.com/cold-air-intakes/toyota-tacoma-3-5-intake-75-5096?variant_id=171

 

Added some side lights.

 

***
Fish in that lake?

 

Whole lotta bass.

 

Zero problems with the installation. As a matter of fact, I didn't even remove the grill... long arms let me simply reach down to secure the lock nuts with a small box wrench. I'd say all told it was probably 30 minutes to remove the big ugly and install the best simplest upgrade to the truck yet! I did add Loctite and 1/4" lock washers to the bolts that fasten the licence plate, out of paranoia. It's kind of ridiculous that something like this product wasn't stock from the engineers at Toyota!

 

Behold the Monster Miata (aka Miata with Ford 302 transplants):

 

I still swear it improved my throttle response. Wouldn't say it does anything for horsepower. By adding the CAI and exhaust it is definitely a big improvement over stock.

 

Gave myself an unobstructed windshield view. Going to use rear cam mod for rear sight.
It’s so nice to have a full view.

 

Careful in NC with the lack of rear view mirror - I got a $22 fine a few years back when mine broke off and got too lazy to replace it! Granted, I did get a warning the first time the friendly officer spotted me...

For my 3rd GEN I installed the mirror riser by Bird Dawg - makes a slight difference to increase visibility. Just another option..

 

I am also running the BirdDawg riser. Just don't remove your stock mirror how I did....

Otherwise the riser is great.

 

What's the Bird Dawg mirror riser? any descriptions and pictures of it?

Sounds very functional.

 

http://www.birddawgindustries.com/tacoma-mirror-riser.html

 

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads...-3rd-gen-today.399305/page-2198#post-14230868

I can go take some pics, but this is from when I installed it.