Tacoma still in the family, I’m on to Something else

Hi all,

My Tacoma came from my father when he stopped driving in 2017. My oldest has been out in the world a couple of years and is now taking on the Tacoma. Kinda neat to have him have his grandfathers truck.

Thanks for all for their contributions of how-to insights on the Tacoma. In many ways the 2nd gen still has many of the ‘easy to work on’ attributes of my favorite personal trucks (a 1962 C10 and a 1969 F100).

The best modification (after +1 size AT tires), hands down, was replacing the worn out factory mechanical LSD with an Eaton Truetrac. Seamless and useful. Great performance and manners in the snow.

Next best was the frame sliders, skids and rear bumper. With the wandering here in CA and Moab i hit every one of them multiple times. I also added a HDPE gas tank skid from Trailtoys. I never hit that, but was glad to have it.

Lifting the truck made it look great, installation was straight forward. The front came in right ~2 inches as I wanted. The OME Medium Dakars sat too high. Pulling the top leaf got the truck level like I wanted. The JBA high caster UCAs gave great alignment numbers.

My most expensive problem was the frame rusting through. Fortunately that was found right near the end of its eligibility for the frame replacement settlement and Toyota paid that one. The most expensive failure I paid for was the steering rack. Everything after that was normal hoses/blower motor/resistor/wiring type stuff.

Here is a picture from today.




I passed on my F150 Lightning reservation ($$$) so I’ll be down a vehicle for the next 6 months. Once my wife gets her Rav4 Prime I’ll drive her minivan until I can pick up something in ~2024. Right now my thought is pick up a Bronco with the Sasquatch package. As easy as the Tacoma is to work on factory triple locked with factory 35’s seems like an easy choice. Removable top is a bonus to get the ‘I still want a convertible’ need filled.

See ya and enjoy your Taco’s