eon_blue's 1st gen Build: Radiant Red 2004 Tacoma

are you still running the stock axle gears? regearing aint cheap but from what i understand you can get quite a bit of fuel economy and pep back from doing it (not that you need the pep since you have a SC). given that you're running 33" tires i'd go with 4.56 which should (as i understand it), put you right back around stock as far as gearing, power, and the speedo.

 

Very clean build!

 

Why no welded front diff?

 

I put jbweld and a banana peel in there last time I changed the oil..is that not how it works

 

Oh yeah you gotta use plantains and Bondo

 

Yes, but what about the zip ties?

 

seeing the low miles, have any information on whether or not the frame is still original. own a 2.7l and she's pretty rusted. then again a 01' in wisconsin. Not very easy.

 

It's the original frame. No rust anywhere, been in AZ and CA it's whole life

 

I want to do a Old Man Emu complete set for my truck, was wondering if that would be a good set for winter conditions, any problems it may have
then i want to get black rims, was wondering what may be some good choices.

 

I did a full OME set (toytec front springs tho) and have been pretty happy with it. nothing to complain about and it does fine in MT winter conditions. not sure exactly what problems you're wondering about, but as far as withstanding temps we've had it down to -30 this year at times and no issues. the only problems i've had in that kind of weather were the truck just not wanting to start. If I had to do it again though, i probably would either go with a set of Bilstien shocks or save my money and get a set of ADS shocks. the OME is good stuff, but it also is at that middle ground where it's expensive (well built tho), but also they arent rebuildable and they arent that much better than the Bilstien stuff IMO. i've ran both. just my .02. if you're looking at the OME stuff it's pretty good. this is just if I had it to do over again.

as far as black wheels i've got a set of pro-comp 7069 wheels and I've been pretty happy with them. mine are 16x8.

 

Got a new noise and did some digging on TW, you said your noise went away with the clutch pushed in a couple years back. Ever find the culprit? TOB?

 

Mine was noisy AF for a long time but then just went away on it's own, I haven't heard it in probably 2 years now at least. No idea why. I've had two clutches on this truck where it made that sound (cricket noise when coasting or in nuetral, goes away when you touch the clutch pedal).

For the longest time I thought it was the throwout bearing, Toyota even told me that it was when I had them look at it years ago. But more digging and reading online led me to believe that it was the input bearing - whereas the TOB will chirp/whine with the clutch pressed.

Either way, input or TOB the solution is pretty much to replace the clutch if you can't stand the noise. But I just decided to live with it after it came back when my new clutch was only in for 10k miles. And then a couple years ago it stopped entirely lol. So I can't really say I found a solution. I do know that bearing failure is rare on these trucks, I don't think I've heard of a case on a Tacoma where it's happened. Usually it's just the noise that drives people crazy.

 

Throw out bearing if I had to guess. I'm having the same issue with my Subaru after a new clutch assembly was installed.

 

Pilot bearing will often make noise until the clutch is pushed in and go silent because little load is put on it once the transmission isn't connected to the engine via the friction plate as well. Cheap to replace, but obviously it hides behind the clutch / flywheel so it's a pain to access unless you're going to do a clutch anyway.

 

Thanks guys, maybe I'll just live with it till the clutch gives up the ghost if there is nothing that can catastrophically fail...

 

Well the throwout bearing can fail and would make it impossible to shift, but I've never heard of it happening on a Tacoma despite all the talk about them being noisy for so many owners

 

Wait, there's a build thread

 

It gets resurrected like once a year but then disappears back into the shadows of TW

 

Kind of like....wait...there's another thread for that