02 Tacoma doublecab 3-Link on FJ80 axles

I was never a big fan of the design and how far they stuck out, the previous owner had them installed. They weigh a ton as well, they are definitely built really well. The pic from the first post from the back has the truck high centered on the passenger side rockslider. Moving them up was just one part of it. There are a couple spots on the frame where it looks like some had welded something before so im thinking that will have to be fixed with some fish plates or something. Also the lower link mounts will have to be welded on the frame. Less clutter in the way. The way im going to modify them will actually get me over an inch of clearance at the body. The body lift was totally worth it. Hardly took any time and I gained alot of space in the tunnel, and made a little extra room for the coilover towers inside the engine bay. I'm on my phone right now. I'll post some more pictures up when I get home.

 

See....I knew you would like the 1" body lift Seriously, it is one of the best mods I've done to my truck. It was cheap, super easy to install and that extra 1" of space between the frame and the body makes a huge difference when you are doing work under the truck - especially around the transmission area. As I mentioned before, it certainly made the installation of my Atlas easier.

What body lift kit did you end up going with? The roger brown one?

Also...I understand now why you wanted to cut off the sliders. I remember back in the day when bolt-on sliders were super popular and guys argued that bolt-on is always better because of these types of situations. YOu might want to consider that option, especially after going through this experience.

 

I ended up with 4crawlers(AKA rodger brown) body lift.



I don't know If you can see it too well but in the picture below, just to the left of where the first slider was mounted there's a gouge in the frame. Almost looks like someone welded a slider bracket on and didn't like the placement. I'm guessing a fish plate or something will take care of that.


old slider design

 

Today I drilled out all of the holes I needed in the adapter. I chamfered the backside of the holes very lightly, and test fitted it on both the transmission and on the face of the crawl box. Everything lines up just fine, I might have to slightly open up one hole. That part was pretty uneventful.


Test fitted on the trans


I then pulled the rear output seal on the trans and installed the seal housing with some ultra grey on the side that presses into the trans, and used a bearing race installer and a dead blow to hammer it in. I like how inchworm engineered a lip into the housing so that you can pull it out if you had to.

Problem I ran into is that the Outside diameter of the coupler is 40mm, it would not fit through the bearing and onto the transmission ouput shaft. I need to call @James at Lowrange to find out what the fix will be. I need to find the part number so I can find out the ID of that bearing.

 

Instructions want me to remove the bearing but that seems like a horrible design flaw to me, why would you want that unsupported? Why wouldn't you just want the coupler to press through the ID of the bearing and onto the output shaft. No wonder everyone's crawlbox's leak. I've had alot of beers tonight so this is liquid engineering but it makes sense to me. It's just 4 bolts but it seems like a really crappy compromise.

 

Factory coupler is 37.4mm at the bearing surface and the inchworm coupler is 39.9mm. Anybody seeing a problem with having it turned down?

 

Today was also locking hub rebuilding day, bought some hubs off pirate4x4 a long time ago that needed some loving. Got new o-rings and detents from marlin, took them completely apart, cleaned them and re-greased them. Also painted them the retro colors. I have 3 complete hubs now, and a complete body that's just missing a cap and dial. the goal is to have the set on the front axle and then a set of trail spares. I wheel with 3-4 guys that have hubs so you can never have enough. Having chromo axles and the diff with the arb and 29 spline pinion, Im hoping that one of the hub gears will be the weak link, Eric from yotamasters was telling me he was running chromo inner hub gears and the stock outer gear, to more or less make it the sacrificial piece. I've never had any problems with the manual hubs on my truck so I don't forsee any problems here either.
Before:


After:

 

I've heard the same thing, running just about the same configuration. Outer hub gears are cheap and plentiful, not to mention can be picked from common ifs hubs. Leaving it to be a cheap "fuse" and easy to replace.

 

Not a design flaw.. old style fit in. New Does not and is better.. Thicker/ stronger coupler.
Than manual transmissions don't even have a bearing there. Lot's have other rigs out there not having an issue...

Also the old style sealed on the coupler and leaked.. the new "flawed" design doesn't leak unless installed wrong.

I just installed a Trans adapter plate and Lefty into bosses truck. It was one a customer said leaked..

I removed bearing . Followed instructions We ran the "leaky" lefty hundreds of miles a couple local wheeling trips and a Moab trip. No issues

Now I pulled it out to install and test a new and improved lefty

Pull the bearing make sure you install the seal into the extension housing flush and straight.



In my buggy i'm running the Inchworm early v6 transmission adapter to my gear driven t cases..
Uses same coupler , seal housing, seal everything as your Tacoma adapter.. 4 years old? No leaks.. Even after pulling my t cases to add a 30 spline front output and not changing the seal when I put them back in still no leaks

 

You can turn it down but you are more likely to break the coupler ( doesn't happen often but can happen..

And you will be more likely to have more noise and a worse experience.

We used to do it that way and learned that this way is better.

 

Thanks for the clarification, I'll run it per instructions. That's what I get for overthinking things (& having a few beers). @James at Lowrange any other suggestions for the install. For the allen head set screws I was going to thread them in with some red locktight then rtv the holes after that dries.

 

Haha overthinking is a good thing. The first one I installed I did the same as you . Called the man who designed it and had him explain it to me lol.

I've never tried red threadlock on the plug I just just RTV but it probably wouldn't be bad to do thread lock then rtv over those holes.

Sorry If I sounded like a pecker last night it had been a long day. I guess thats why I work in the shop not in sales i'm not the greatest at wording things.

Just make sure you have the alignment pins!!

Also I'm sure the pic is just test fitting but remember to bolt adapter to the t case first. I've had multiple people bolt to trans first and then be mad at me lol..

Are you clocking it?

 

Toyota made a few different castings for the gear driven t cases.. If you are clocking and using a case like the one on top ( across from the 4wd switch hole they made another hole but only like 1 or 2 years did the hole go all the way through and get tapped for a hi/ lo switch.) It makes it a big ol pain in the butt!

I ground mine down and ended up swapping the allen head bolt for a stud and nut ( still sucks )

Here is my case showing it ground down a little. Right in front of the shifter on front case. And you can see it not ground down on rear case.
( I did it before I worked here and knew anything.. Knowing what I do now I would have ground a lot more.)
Also its not as much of an issue on your set up because the A340 Trans uses 8mm bolts and my R150 uses 10mm bolts

 

Last thing and I didn't realize it until installing the shifter last night. On most vehicles it is probably easier to get those top allen head bolts from the top inside the cab.


Also make sure the tcase is in 4hi when you bolt it up. It will make getting the shifter on in the right holes much easier.

 

Sounds little but I did this when I pulled my driveline this winter. Spent entirely too much time trying to get the shifter in the right spot in the forks and making a mess of RTV everywhere....

 

It's so frustrating huh!

 

Fuck those allen head bolts BTW!! Anytime i have to mess with those i curse whomever designed those up and down, takes FOREVER to get the bolts in, and its fun tightening them down using my finger tips. This is going in from the top and with me getting pissed and cutting the hole bigger with a cut off wheel! Thank god the last time i had to dick with those the trans was out of the truck and i bolted the whole drivetrain together before bolting it to the engine.

 

Im not clocking it, the triple sticks are already going to be a pain in the ass to cram into the stock location with the automatic transmission. Im running a high pinion front 3rd and moving the axle slightly forward so I don't think pinion angle will be a problem and I should have plenty of ground clearance.

 

Got my hellfire knuckles back from ruffstuff, Ryan and Dan made it a super painless experience. Ryan went out of his way to fix some of the issues with the old generation knuckles, they warrantied my old knucks and sent me a new pair. I bought all of my steering heims from them, they definitely earned my repeat business. Need to buy some gussets when i rebuild my sliders, some diff armor and some other knick knacks. Come hell or high water I will have the duals in tomorrow, to at least check clearances.

 

Maybe I will get with Ryan about mine. I have some OG Hellfires on my buggy .