1999 Tacoma SR5 TRD Imperial Jade Build, Sweat and Tears

Sad. Used to watch their stuff all the time. They lived life to the fullest RIP Matt and Stacey

 

Super sick. I was like, what the hell is that.

 

There’s a guy who lives near me with one of those with a lift and military tires it looks sick

 

While waiting around for parts I added an insulation layer to the tail gate for my feetsies in the winter.

 

After waiting like 10 days the bushings are here for the 5100's. Putting the part number here for future reference. BIL-E4-GV2-Z024A02. Price was actually reasonable for once, I think it was $12 each.


I ordered the cam adjusters from Amazon that claimed to be genuine toyota, they have the stickers but honestly I dont know if they are.


Pressing them in




About to go massively overboard with this stuff on everything

 

In other news, no idea why the front diff is leaking from the drain bolt.


A couple of the side tabs that the cam rides on were bent, so I spent some time bending them back.


Not gonna lie, getting the LCA's in with the Whitelines are kinda of a massive pain in the ass, at least for me, the tolerances with the washers on each side are very hard to get in and then trying to align the washes with the holes is insane. I ended up marking all 4 bushings to see if they end up twisting if I hit hard bumps.


Torqued everything. I ended up torquing the cams at 105lbs. Since I off road for real I want to make sure they dont move. I set all the cams back to where they were from the alignment a couple months ago.


Everything back on and torqued.


So for this job I didnt remove the ball joints on the steering. I was able to work with it, with both sides still attached. Its possible to do that if anyone ones to cut a corner, every tutorial I read says to remove them. Well even with keeping them connected, my steering is massively off. Im driving straight in the photo and the wheel is pretty far off.


Oddly enough the front end is sitting at least a half in higher, its pretty noticeable. The alignment is wayyy off, which sucks since I just paid $120. Also I have no idea why the cams are both pointing to the passenger side. I think Im just going to learn how to do alignments at this point. I sick and tired of pay a bunch of money to let idiots touch my truck and do a shitty job.

Easy to see how bad it is. Wheel is straight. As a side note I need to get rid of this taco lean.


All is all the LCA bushing job absolutely sucked ass, having to cut everything off and wait around for a month for all the parts to come in.

 

Did a little research on the taco lean and came across @HM796 post and layout, https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/taco-lean-fix-1-4-spacer-plans-diy.295943/ Thanks!

Decided to stay up and crank one out. If I was smart I would of done this while everything was apart.

Found a 1/4 inch piece of scrap










Got the taco lean on there. A little rough around the edges but itll work.




Set it on top for a test fit and seems to be good.

 

Wish I was smart enough to have put this in when the strut was out yesterday.

Was a real pain getting it in. The space made the shock a lot longer and it was hard to get the bottom bolt in. I used a ratchet strap to help pull the spring up and I had to take out the 4 lower ball joint bolts and disconnect the sway bar.

Fits perfect




All back together and torqued. It did help. Theres still a tiny bit of lean still but it made a good difference. I felt it right away as soon as I sat in the drives seat.


I spent a few hours going through all the alignment adjustments, camber, caster and toe. I did it all by eye. I set the back cam adjusters to max caster and then adjusted everything from there. Every adjustment I drove backwards then forwards for everything to settle, then adjusted again. Probably did that about 15 to 20 times. I also shifted the tie rod ends on both sides to straighten the steering wheel back to center. For not knowing anything about suspension adjusting and doing it by eye its not bad. It fairly drivable, it actually tracks straight, but the camber and toe is slightly off and can be felt while driving. Ill need to buy or make something so I can get a measurement for toe and really dial it in. Also the same with camber. The caster will just have to be what its going to be for now with the adjusters on max.


Also while testing driving to check the alignment, the shake is a little better but its still there. In the middle of testing I also dropped the front shaft to make sure nothing is coming from there. After dropping it doesnt seem to be causing anything at this point. The next step is to add shims to the rear axle when I put in the AAL.

 

On to fixing the front diff leak from the drain plug


Changed the fluid semi recently. Still looking good, so I reused it.


Here you can see the hot spot I marked in red. Looks like there was some debris on there causing the leak




Refiled. Looks like I didnt really lose much from the leak. As a side note, the red isnt rust, its the dirt from Moab.

 

Onto the trans leak from the shifter area.

The leak looks like its coming from the passenger side


So I think I found the problem. If you see the bolt all the way to the right it doesnt match and its longer. The 2 front holes towards the engine bottom out. Looks like the bolt was bottoming out without clamping down. More previous owner BS. When I did the clutch in the parking garage in Colorado I did notice the bolt didnt match, but I was in a rush to get it back up and running and just stuck it where ever. The 2 back hole towards the transfer case shifter are bottom less. So I put it there. I also put a super thin layer of RTV just to help because I dont want to go back in there.


Went to top off the trans and it didnt really lose enough to matter, it ran out as soon as I pulled the plug but I still put a couple pumps to make sure I wasnt being fooled. Still using the unicorn tears Ford trans fluid. I must say after all the years it seems to be working good. No matter the outside temp the shifts always feel the same and its not hard to get into gear in freezing weather.

 

Did another round with the front end alignment. I used 2 pieces of thick plastic and put the excess diff fluid sandwiched in the middle.




I got the camber as close to zero as I could with this ghetto method.


No photo but I used a tape measure to set the toe last. Measuring the different between the front and back of the tire. I was about 3/4 in off from what I did by eye. Not bad. I set it as close to 0 difference as possible. Test drove it at 75mph and it seems fine. Doesnt pull to either side and I can feel a big difference in caster. It comes back to center a lot better than what the shop set it to. Good enough for now.

 

I was going to do the AAL tomorrow but just seen I messed up on the shim size, I ordered 2 inch wide instead of 2.5 inch. Ill have to wait a couple more days for the right size to come in.

 

Did the AAL today







Wire wheeled all the hardware, the greased it before it went back in


Couldnt get the driver u bolt off. Even with 10 min of heat and 1/2 impact. Had to step up to 3/4 impact. Makes the 1/2 impact look tiny. The socket thats on there is big and it looks like a 12mm.


Greased between every leaf, was a major PITA.




Shit is comically high, again! What is with OME and their lift numbers? After Im done towing Im probably going to have to remove them. Looks ridiculous.

Its so high now that the shim to fix the driveline vibration isnt enough. Im going to have to buy another shim and take it back apart again.

 

Front height, 5100 on the 3rd setting (1 down from the top). Putting this here incase I need to refer back to it.


Rear with the AAL added (also with the 2.5 degree shims). I wasnt smart enough and too lazy to get a before measurement with just the Dakars.


I added the top box on and some of my tools to the back to see what the drop is going to be like. Its not much considering its probably around 250-300lbs. It would of dropped more before the AAL.


Still absolutely losing my mind over the shaking. Literarily insane to the max, right about ready to be done with this truck.

With all the weight on I checked to see if the driveshaft alignment is better. Drove like 400+ miles of testing. No matter what I do, shakes all the same.

Kept re checking angles, still all within the recommended 3 degrees.


Strapped the trans mount to see if this is problem, was a tiny bit better but still shaking.


Took out the all the shims from the center bearing on the driveshaft. Got slightly worse.


So over this shit, dropped the whole drive shaft and drove in FWD 70-75 mph and still shaking.



Im very good at finding problems. I can tell exactly where things are shaking. Ive done this is on other vehicles even with very slight vibrations and was always right. This truck is a joke. Its like its shaking from everywhere. Wheels, drive shaft and who knows what else. I dont know what to do anymore. I dont have anymore money, time or patience for this. I could of built an entirely new project with the money and time Ive spent on just chasing vibrations.

I think the General Grabber ATX are probably trash and are most likely one of the main issues. One search of "Grabber atx out of balance" comes up with endless results of them going out of round, constantly falling out of balance or just cant be balanced at all. This lines up with me not being able to find the shaking/out of balance. Even when I have them road force balanced it doesn't last long and just shakes not long after and with the tires shaking I cant find the other things that are shaking and its just and endless loop of hell and waste of my life I cant get back, because some shit tire manufacture cant make a product correctly. The dates on these problems span over 6 years and they still cant fix the problem. I dont doubt that this has caused accelerated wear on other parts due to the constant shaking for 5+ years (wouldnt doubt if the 5100s were worn from this too). Unfortunately Ive only ever had Grabbers on this truck (3 and half sets) and I just bought these tires and Im not spending another $800-$1000 on another set of tires.

Honestly I dont know anymore, this truck feels like endless repairs. Dealing with companies that cant make shit correctly, sending damaged parts and or anytime I have to have someone else do work like and alignment or tire balance they suck. I feel like I have a full time job just doing up keep on a pretty much stock truck and baby sitting companies and people. Ive never worked on a vehicle so much in my entire life and I have an e46 (engineered to fail) with 365k miles and thats been less work.

I have to drive this thing across the country again, apparently shaking the entire way, again, for like the 6th time. Its also so wonderful that the shaking is perfectly at the speed I need to drive at, 70-75mph.

Now it looks like the transfer case is leaking between the trans, possibly from all the shaking. I fixed this a couple years ago and here we are again.

Also while taking the driveshaft off, the very rear u joint is stiff with a spot that feel like a detent. When I pumped it with grease black grease comes out, which it shouldnt be since I use red. So it seems like some metal wear. This was also new, not too long ago. All that shaking wearing on it I guess.


Not sure what Im going to do. I dont have time to cry to General to replace their shitty tires, which seems like it would just be a waste of time anyways since most people say the replacement pair are crap too. I might just fill the tires with a bunch of balance beads for the trip

OME sucks too, The AAL is squeaking like crazy now even fully covered in grease. Why would you make a Dakar leaf pack with squeak pads then not make the AAL with the squeak pad?! Literally zero logic, other than trying to cut corners and save money. My Dakars have never squeaked once in 120+k miles until now. Another example of me having to waste my time and money to fix a problem that shouldnt have existed. So now I have to call OME try and source the squeak pad, take the leaf packs out of the truck, drill a hole and install the squeak pad, then reinstall.

 

That really sucks about the vibrations. I have limited experience with tires on these trucks, but my Coopers all balanced like shit too, if you can even call them balanced. I tried to do it myself but the machine called for like 21oz on one of the tires. I road forced them and fixed runout and literally made it worse. I figured I was doing something wrong so I took it to Discount Tire and they said it still called for over 21oz and they were just shit tires. The other 3 took a ton of weight too. Stuck with them for now because tires are expensive. I guess I'm trying to say don't buy Coopers either.

 

Just a thought, how do the motor mounts look? I could be way off but...