Betterbuckleup's 2000 taco build & BS

Yeah something like that or a blank from felpro. I had the idea briefly when I swapped out my old transmission pan and filter and the new set came with a gasket instead of FIPG, then sort of forgot about it until today when I saw @betterbuckleup ’s updates. I think 1/16th would be about right, should give it some good squish for imperfections. Who knows, hopefully all these new crawlbox builds will be leak free, but if mine isn’t I think I’ll experiment.

 

Been messing with the shifters and sealing up the floor as I'm waiting for my driveshafts to be finished. Should get them back on Wednesday or Thursday this week and then I can start driving it.



Everything clears in every gear now.
I made a small panel out of aluminum sheet to cover the hole for the rear case. I covered both sides with sound deadening to increase the stiffness and help with insulation. I'll use rivnuts to fasten it to the tunnel.




I'm not going to fasten it to the tunnel quite yet though until I have my driveshafts because I don't know how much the whole unit will be twisting around so I wanna make sure I have enough clearance for that.

I've been toying with the idea with doing a completely custom console out of stainless or aluminum paneling to make everything look better. That way I could also completely seal off the shifters from the cab completely. The plate I made has two small cutouts for the shift linkage to run through, so those are just open to the bottom of the truck. Once I get everything running like it should and finish all the little things, I'll come back to that and start thinking of designs maybe.

Ran the breather for the rear case up to the engine bay. Used a 6mm push-lock air muffler as a breather vent at the end because I couldn't find a breather end with a small enough barb for the hose I used, but I'm sure that'll do just fine. Just needs to keep dirt out of the line is all. Should have enough air flow.



Extended the speedo gear sensor wire. I used these solder seal connectors that I've always wanted to try. They worked great and were much easier than trying to solder wires together upside-down in a tight spot under the truck.

$8 Kuject 160PCS Solder Seal Wire Connectors Kit, Waterproof Solderless Heat Shrink Butt Terminal Insulated Electrical Butt Splice for Automotive Marine Boat Wire Joint

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07T1HYJ9G/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1


The "bombproof" T-case mount I got from TG doesn't fit on my case for whatever reason. I mean it does, but part of the casting on the case interferes so it's not able to sit flush with both sides of the bolt holes. I ordered one from Marlin hoping to have better luck. Also ordered a HD detent spring for my stock case for the Hi-Lo shift rail.

Also put some torque-check on all the case bolts

 

Made a mount for the crawlbox off the existing crossmember. Used the marlin crawler mount which works great.

Just need to get some shorter hardware for the bolts to the case and some hex head bolts for the bottom so they don't stick down as far.

Should hopefully be picking up the driveshafts today and be driving it tonight.

 

Like the progress and doing it the right way. Building it up so you know what to ever repair or change/diagnose. And good call on the upgraded detent shifter springs.

 

Yea it's been a lot of fun building it up and doing all the work myself (aside from the wrong parts confusion). So far I have no leaks too which I hope continues to be the case.

Interestingly, the MC chain case detent spring doesn't replace the factory one. It goes inside of it. Confused me at first since it's much smaller in diameter.

 

Did you put a HD spring in the crawlbox?

 

Yes. HD springs in both crawlbox and chain case hi-lo shift rail

 

Nuff said


Does slow standing burnouts too








Replaced the mounting hardware with some better stuff that's the right length.


Also replaced the breather elbow with a low profile one I got off mcmaster. The other one I had was too tall and was riding on the cover I made for that area.



Next up: big ass skid plate & crossmember

 

Still need to bolt some stuff down, but got some shifter boots made up

 

Also added a bunch of sound deadener matting to the tunnel area when buttoning up the cover I made.
Thought about pulling up all the carpet and doing the whole floor of the cab, but it was glued down pretty good and didn't feel like messing with it. I'd need to get some spray adhesive to get it to stick back down after anyways.



I do have a kind of rattle in the driver rear panel around the rear side window somewhere whenmore at low RPM's. Need to pull off that panel and put some deadener around there and try to pinpoint where it's coming from. The crawlbox mount I added transmits a good amount of more vibrations to the cab. But I think it's worth it for how little the drivetrain moves around now.

My tires have also gotten a lot louder as they've worn in so that's pretty much the loudest part of my truck now when on the highway or driving at higher speeds.

 

Couple things, your carpet is glued down? Haven’t seen that before. There’s some cheesy hard sound deadener under the carpet that I removed with a plastic chisel which wasn’t fun, but was good to remove before sound deadening the cab. Second, you might want to check to see if that sound is the seat panel in the back - those things rattle easily and can just be mounted with some deadener or rubber between them and the outer cab skin.

 

Yea if you haven't noticed, the entire interior of my truck is black. Which is a color that never came in first gen tacoma's.
Discovered this after I had purchased the truck, but someone had re-upholstered the entire interior and painted all the plastics black.
The black is fading in some areas and chips off relatively easily in others (see the console shifter surround piece where it shows through). And in the right light, you can see some bad paint drips on the pillar trim pieces. Maybe one day I'll pull the entire dash and all the panels and re-coat them, but for now I don't care enough to do that.

I assume that someone cut out a new carpet and glued all the OEM cloth matting stuff to the bottom side and then glued it to the floor. So it's a nasty sticky mess under there and I'd rather not deal with that right now.

And yea i'll have to start digging into the rear some more. But I know that it's not that rear cover lid because the seat is folded down with my sub woofer attached to it so I would think all that weight would keep it planted.

Edit: Just realized you were talking about that whole rear seat panel. Yea I should take that thing out and cover it. Does it just bolt in? I always assumed it was spot welded into the cab metal back there.

 

Fun trip this last weekend up to south cow mountain. Fuck it was cold. I need a warmer sleeping bag.
Dual cases worked awesome. So much more control, I'm obsessed. I'm itching to take it on a more demanding trail though.

No issues so far. Just a small leak out of the adapter fill hole. I'll address that when I go to change the fluid at 1000 miles.
Also a small leak out of what looks to be the speedo gear hole in the rear case. At least I hope it's coming from there and not the output extension housing.







Only casualty was Chris' radiator. Random stick came out of nowhere and went through the one small unprotected opening between his bumper and skid. Fortunately town was 30 min away and there was one in stock, so we had it changed back out that night.

 

Picked up some Rago Fab bed stiffeners on the black friday sale for a good price.

I was going to make my own, but it was hard to beat the price and features of these.
One piece of bent stainless steel & powder coated with proper hardware.

I can now close my tailgate and have it latch on it's own. Before, I would have to lift the handle as I closed it in order to get it to latch closed. The bedsides are way more rigid now. They had a good amount of play to them before.

Overall quality product and I'm happy with the outcome.



One thing to mention though, is that they are labeled backwards as to which is left and right.

If I were to install them how they have them labeled, the drilled holes would be going into the contour of the bedside and the tie-down points would be blocked by the edge of the tailgate lip

 

So went to do the first fluid change on the crawlbox after putting 1400 miles on it.
There was a lot of metal in the oil which had me concerned. Although after talking with some folks who's fluid looked sorta similar, I'm not as worried as before.
The magnets on the fill & drain plug were covered, but there wasn't as much material there as I would have thought. So I believe all the metal suspended in the fluid is aluminum.
It hasn't been making any concerning noises when driving it other than the typical gear noise.

I put new fluid in it and I'm gonna run it for another couple hundred miles and check it again. If it's got some more glitter to it, then I'll be pulling it all back apart to see what in the holy hell is going on.
Whatever it is that created all that liquid metal, has likely already self-clearanced (hopefully just the housing)
I probably should have changed the fluid a bit sooner, but I got mixed responses from different companies when I initially asked how long I should run it for before a change. Oh well.



Anyone need any liquid glitter?

 

This last weekend I went snow wheeling with some buddies up in the Sierra's off of hwy 80. It was a good time and we made it a good ways down the trail until we hit the last uphill climb & where it got decently deep. 18.3 total miles out and back and 1570 ft elevation gain.

Sunk my buddies Bronco on 38's a few times. Other buddy was on borderline bald 35's which didn't help things, but he made do.

The crawlbox came in handy a few times, but I found that just the typical snow bashing technique was the most effective this time around. I need more ground clearance/bigger tires.

 

If that's the smittybuilt, waterproof the controller box and put in a wireless controller so you don't have to have the wire'd controller laying on the hood and the window open. I had to replace the controller box because the relay failed due to water getting in. There are also tons of cheap wireless remote controllers out there that you can wire into the controller box. Badass rig BTW.

 

Yea it's an XRC gen 3 one. I like the load indicator on the new corded remote.
Haven't really looked into it, but can you use a wireless remote with the XRC? I thought it was only the X2O's that you could do wireless with. I'll have to do some research because that would definitely be nice.

It's been dunked a few times and haven't had any problems with the control box so far, but waterproofing it is probably a good idea

Thanks man!

 

Went to Reno and screwed around in Moonrocks for New Years. Fun terrain there to use the crawlbox on. Always a good time there.

Threw together some phone and gopro shots I got

 

Got some new H4 bulbs to replace mine since one of them burnt out.

These are OSRAM high wattage ones 90watt low beams and 100 watt high beams. The high beams are way better than the stock wattage 55/60 ones. More spread and seems to throw much further.

The cutoff is pretty solid imo considering the ebay anzo style housings I have. The upgraded headlight wiring harness I have is a must with these higher wattage ones too.

Shipped from the UK from this website: https://www.powerbulbs.com/product/osram-super-bright-premium-h4

High beams

Low beams