04 Extra Cab SAS

Update time.

Life is throwing more curve balls, but I'm still pushing forward. With our trip to Moab quickly approaching, I've been slowly wrapping up little things.

The week before last, I got my rack modified for our current tent, and awning. I wanted to see how it rode with the weight, and how things would nest in the bed for such a long trip. I since have removed the awning because it makes getting into the tool box a pain in the ass.





This weekend I wrapped up the rear bump stops. I cut off the square tube, and formed some 3/16 flat bar to be welded on and painted.



Next I made a skid plate to protect the bottom of the radiator/power steering hoses. I don't have the ability to form this width of material, so I just made it out of a few pieced of 1/4" flat bar. It shouldn't see the abuse a skid plate or rock slider will, so it doesn't need to be as bulletproof.




Lastly, I got my new fairlead installed, and license plate put on better. I need to re-tie the rope, but currently don't have much time to mess with it. So this will work fine for now.

Fortunately I'm pretty close to the end of my prep for our trip, so there won't be many updates that often, for a while.

 

Life's been hectic, so here are some overdue updates. This will come in 2 posts.

About a week before we were supposed to leave for Moab, my co worker noticed a coolant leak while we were chatting after work. I was pretty frustrated, but I was thankful that we noticed it when we did, and not on the road to Moab. I was able to get parts coming from Toyota pretty quick, and get it sorted.


It ended up being the intake seal. I had the same problem with my wife's old 3rd gen 4runner. So I replaced the knock sensor harness, valve cover seals, plenum seals, PCV, and had the injectors serviced. I was a little nervous that it was something else based on my luck lately, but it seems to be happy all the way to Moab and back, which is about 3000 miles.



With that sorted, I moved onto some last minute things. I got a basic plastic reservoir for the windshield wash fluid, and mounted the stock pump in it. The bracket is made of some leftover stainless and tied into the bracket for the ABS module. It's a tight fit, but does the job nicely.




I needed to install a GMRS radio too, so I did a real simple, temp setup to get me through this trip.



And the last little thing I wrapped up, was straightening out the damage on the pass side radius arm mount and trimming the low hanging fruit off both sides.

 

Now its time for the unfortunate details from our Moab trip.

We left Oregon early in the morning on Oct 2nd. We took the trip in 2 days, and on Friday the 4th, we started into one of our favorite trails, Lockhart Basin. It's a perfect mixture of challenging obstacles and scenery, with a little bit of an "overlandy" vibe. We usually take 2 days to run it, with a stop midway to campout. Most of the challenging stuff is towards the beginning.

We got through the majority of the hard stuff, and I just dropped through an obstacle we chose to bypass last time in my wife's Land Cruiser and noticed a leak. After spotting my buddy through it, I discovered that the input shaft seal on the steering box developed a pinhole and was losing fluid pretty fast. I topped it off but it eventually started sucking air. So I pulled the power steering belt and finished the day without power steering.

We got to camp at our favorite spot so it wasn't a complete fail.




The following day, we finished the remaining aprox 40 miles of trail, and 60ish miles on the highway into town. The slow crawling wasn't so bad with the dual cases, to steer. But the easier section of trail that we were able to travel faster on, was more sketch due to the small stones wanting to jerk the wheel.

Once we got into town and had cell service again, I started calling everywhere in town to see about getting parts to fix this issue. Unfortunately no one could get anything until the following Tuesday, and we were fixin' to move onto the San Rafael Swell on Monday. I eventually found a reman box 3.5 hours north in Lehi.

The following morning the wife and I headed north to Lehi. We popped into a hobo-freight for a couple small items, and over to the O'Rileys to buy the box and swap it in the parking lot. I'm really glad I brought all the tools I did, otherwise this would have been a pain.

After getting the box on, I started to bleed the system. I noticed the box would bind with any drivers steering, but I figured the box was adjusted too tight when it was rebuilt and didn't thing anything of it. During the drive back to Moab, it was a little sketchy. It would bind a little while steering to the drivers side, and was a bit challenging to get back straight. The following morning I tried to adjust the screw for the sector shaft to loosen it up some, before running the next trail.





With that I assumed was a viable repair, we set out to run the Top of the World trail. It had been a long time since we ran this one, so we wanted to run it again. Unfortunately, we didn't get far. We were just getting into the good stuff, when the reman box totally shit the bed, and broke on the trail. Something internally broke while driving straight. I went to make a turn to the drivers side, everything bound up and then it failed.

My buddy ran back to town to get the steering box I pulled off, and rent a pitman arm puller for me to swap back on, to get us off the trail. Start to finish, we sat there 8 hours before having it moving again and turning around. I was so mad it was unreal. But after I cooled off, I realized how much worse it could have been. If that box failed on the highway, we could have been in big trouble.





A little silver lining however, was the wife noticing the northern lights!



The following day, we returned the junk reman box to the O'Rileys in Moab(never buy Master Pro brand). While sitting on the trail waiting for my buddy, we were lucky enough to have cell phone service. I made some calls and had a parts truck lined up to pull a steering box off of.

That was a bit of a nightmare unfortunately. It took over an hour to get the damn steering shaft off, just to make sure the box was smooth. Then the rental pitman arm puller broke while attempting to pull the stock pitman arm. At that point I decided it was the universe telling me to throw in the towel and move on. So I buttoned the truck back up, texted the owner, and headed back to camp so my wife could use the bathroom.



While sitting in my camp chair deciding whether to pack up and leave then, or in the morning, I got a call from a local I reached out to earlier. He had a good box for me. We ran into town, purchased another pitman arm puller, and met the dude to pick up the box he had. At this point I was just trying to get power steering back on the truck to safely get back home. We got everything back to camp and I started to work on preparing it.

Unfortunately, the cheap pitman arm puller I bought from Napa ALSO broke. I was super nice to it and didn't even use my impact on it. That was beyond annoying. My buddy ran me into town, to buy a 3rd puller. This time I bought a much nicer one, and was able to get the arm off. From there, the swap went smoothly.




I was beyond disappointed with how everything went down. 1 simple seal failing was the Achilles heal to this whole trip. However, I was very thankful that that junk reman box didn't kill us on the highway, and we got home safely. The truck performed so amazingly on the rocks, and I'm looking forward to seeing how it works in the future.

We managed to salvage the rest of the trip, taking 4 days/3 nights camping out and slowly working our way back home without issue. It wasn't all bad, but the sole reason for the trip was a fail.

We've been back for a little more than a week, and the truck still seems to have no issues, besides something in the steering column. Now its time for little prep, and getting ready for snow wheelin' season.

 

Damn sorry to hear it. That sucks.
Nightmare scenario out on the trail.

 

Glad I stopped back in to see this truck completed. Not without some hardships but at least it’s running and driving now.

Looks amazing! The proportions and ride height make it a real sleeper. Not sure if I missed it but it looks like you’re running 1.5” spacers on the rear to match the fj80 front correct?

does the column have a bit of play in it? I imagine all the now power steering driving out some extra stress on it. It’s retry common to have play in the “slip joint” of the factory colimn. I had to tack weld mine on my stock truck.

 

I believe the rear spacers are 1.25" actually. I need to measure the difference in trac width front to back, because I want to try and outboard the shocks, but don't think they will fit currently.

There really isn't any slop in the steering. I made a custom shaft that goes from the box to the column. It doesn't use a slip. It just relies on the length of the splines on the steering column to allow enough movement to remove the steering shaft. Page 8, post # 141 goes over what I did for the steering shaft

 

My mistake. I was referring to the column between the firewall and the wheel. Like in this thread… Most Tacomas I come across need this addressed. Not sure if that’s yours issue though.

Thanks for the spacer info. How is the steering angle with the FJ80 axle? Can you get the tires to rub the frame?

 

Ohhhh! After skimming that post, I bet I have that issue. The wheel "rattles" on rough roads. I don't really feel slop in the steering, but nasty gravel roads I hear rattling in the column. Thanks for the info!

No rubbing on the frame at all!

 

Oh yeah that’s a big tell tale. Mine never felt sloppy but made the rattle and just felt a little off driving down the highway.

hope that sorts you out.

 

I didn't realize how long its been since I've posted any updates, so I will post some updates across the next couple posts.

A couple month back, I started a conversation with Accutune about having some shocks custom tuned to help the ride. In mid December, I decided to pull the trigger anticipating some price hikes/inflation. They came in different shipments, due to their availability.

I got the rear shocks first just before Christmas, and installed them ASAP. Then the fronts showed up a little after Christmas. I had to make adapter tabs on the axle for the different style end.

Overall, the ride is a huge improvement!! There is some fine tuning needed in the valving. The rear has a little hop, so hopefully they can tune that out. The front is nearly perfect, but could use a teeny bit of fine tuning also.

They gave me some homework to do, so I can take a bunch of notes before sending them back in for a re-valve. I'm not in a huge rush for that, but hopefully can make some time soon to get that taken care of.

 

This past weekend, we took a trip out to Central Oregon to play in the woods with some friends. We decided to hit Cline Buttes OHV park. It was a shorter day, but it certainly didn't lack any excitement! There were a couple firsts for this truck.




I've wheeled here a few times before, but I haven't done all the hardest stuff. The first bit of excitement for the day was getting stuck in this truck! I was lining up on a relatively easy obstacle. There was a tall "mow hawk" I was wanting to line my passenger tire up on. I would have walked up it without spinning a tire. Instead, I missed it and slid onto my pinion haha.

There was a large boulder in front of the axle that we were able to roll under the passenger tire, and with a little winch action to keep pressure on the rock, the truck climbed up on top of it and got up without more problems.




Unfortunately, it did cause the tie rod to bend some. I'm looking into getting tooling to make a 7075 link to replace it. It will probably get ran through my friends tubing roller to get it straight in the meantime, to hold me over.




From there, we ran more trail then stopped for lunch. Just before hand, I decided to rip around at some higher speeds to test out the shocks. I ended up catching a little air unexpectedly. My wife pointed out a wobbly wheel on our way out later in the day, and it ended up being a bent axle shaft on the passenger side. I believe it was due to this haha. According to my buddy at Toyota, this isn't uncommon since they're made by Dana and aren't as strong as the old school Toyota stuff.

After lunch, I saw a fun line to get back onto the trail we were running, so I wanted to try it. It didn't look especially hard, but I was concerned about the breakover with my low belly clearance. It was pretty fun, but I did get hung up. The belly of the truck got the crap beaten out of. I actually made it after a couple attempts, but at the cost of my carrier bearing. There was a sharp point that stuck up and caught the housing. Here's a shot of said obstacle





We pulled the rear drive shaft and ran into town in front wheel drive for a cheap replacement carrier bearing from O'Rileys. The mount for the carrier bearing was beat up and bent too, so we went back to our friends place, and used their welder to make it work well enough to mount and get home.




With the truck band aided up, we checked out of our hotel the following morning, and popped by a hardware store for some gorilla tape. I lost, yet again, another drive flange cap on the drivers side. I think the flange was machined weird, so I need to figure out a solution. In the meantime, a nitrile glove and gorilla tape was enough to make it the 4 hour drive over the mountain, to get home. With the exception of a little wobble coming from the bent rear axle shaft at certain speeds, we made it home with no stress.

 

Once we got home last Sunday, I gave the truck a bath to get all the road de-icer grime off it. Then, I parked it while figuring out what to do next.

Looking over the damage underneath, I see gouges and dents in the most unlikely places. The fuel tank got clobbered! It also started to rip the mount away from the frame some.

The carrier bearing is functioning fine, but its not aligned properly. So for now, I will run it. However, I already have an OEM replacement in hand, and plan to make stronger mounts along with a skid to protect it in the future.




This weekend I wanted to tackle the axle shaft so I can drive it again. I had some issues with parts, but that got sorted that out AFTER, I decided to run what I have.

I happen to have a spare Tacoma, E-locker/ABS rear housing and shafts. So I stole the passenger shaft from that. The bearing was in good shape, but the backing plate was hammered, so I massaged that out to function fine. The brakes were like new too. I felt sort of icky using all these used parts, but with this axle just being temporary until I go full float, I don't want to sink a ton of money into it.

I spun the drum backwards on the axle, and used a scotch brite pad on a grinder to lightly scuff the drum. The shoes got hand scuffed and I put everything back together. The shaft is in good shape and not bent. This gets me back on the road to iron out all the boo-boos. I plan on putting the matching brake parts on the drivers side, so it is at least a little less ghetto.





Since we are planning on running the Rubicon with some friends this summer, I need to get this thing dialed. The ghetto brakes seem to work fine. I plan on chipping away at these repairs in the near future to make sure I don't let them fall by the wayside.

Hopefully I will have more updates in the next few weeks.

 

Haven’t look but how expensive is the 7075 bar?

 

I haven't invested much energy looking either. I need to do some homework. I've only been looking into tooling