Fully polished TuRD

Factory tank. I like the location of it as it protects the driveshaft. I don't want it behind the axle because I don't want to worry about anything but the taillights dropping off ledges, and I don't have the clearance to stick it above the driveshaft/below the bed, plus a shaft breaking and blowing a hole in my fuel tank sounds like it wouldn't be fun. Plus I like to keep the critical systems simple on this truck. I know that low range skid has some issues, but some steel and an afternoon with the welder I may be able to fix some of those, mainly some extra braces over to the frame.

 

What issues? Mine's been great and I've dragged it over a bunch of big rocks

 

I have heard that it's easy to dent and the mounting is a little weird. This is only internet hearsay. Good to know you can pound on it!!

 

Preventative maintenance day on my DD Camry, so that means take the front axle.of the Tacoma apart LOL!! This is the first time the front ends been apart since I built it, I was chasing a hub that wouldnt unlock all the way and a chriping noise while turning left. Both hubs looked good, no birf soup and no evidence of water. I tore the pax side apart and regreased the bearing and slapped it back together, waiting on gaskets now. The chirp appears to be coming from the brakes. It looks like the hub issue was a chunk of RTV that got stuck between the hub clutch and the spring.

I do need to adjust the knuckle shims and center that axle shaft in the spindle, but I don't have any shims on me and it's pretty tedious so screw it LOL!!

Bearing looked good as well! I'm going to tear the driver's side apart later this week or next weekend.

Just for fun here's the current state of the fuel tank, LOL!!

 

Is that the factory 8" rear axle? or swapped? Looks like it's kinda trussed on the bottom part

 

FF80

 

Got the fuel tank out of the Tacoma today, fucker put up a fight!! The damn rats nest of hoses going in and out of the tank is the biggest PITA. I need to replace to hose that crumbled and I broke a nipple off the charcoal canister purge valve thing. I'll need to figure out a solution for that, either rig a nipple back on it or just buy a new one. Onto the pics:
Don't try this at home, I'm a 17yr credentialed safety professional (that's actually 100% factual)

Unbolting the bed and jacking it up helped a ton.

Tanks out, now for the interesting part. My truck was showing less than a half tank, I sucked over 22 gallons out of it. So I believe the dents in the tank moved the fuel pump/sender back and up, thus reducing my usable fuel capacity. The truck would die going down steep hills with less than a half tank indicated.

Bent ass fuel pump assembly.

I'm going to install the new tank any way, and I do have an idea to more solidly mount the low range skid plate so it's not relying on the fuel tank to support the weight of the truck. More pics to come on that once I get some steel!

Install should go MUCH quicker, I was smart and marked all the lines with color coded zip ties so I know where they go.

 

A cherry picker works to remove the bed and pick up the engines for motor mounts etc. Harbor freight 2 ton is only $209 regular and less than $200 couple times a year.

 

I probably get one some day, right now the hi lift Toyota bottle jack combo will have to do! I am for sure cutting and access hole in the bed to get the fuel pump out in the future. F all this noise!!

 

Yeah I don’t have evap there but I still wouldn’t mind finding a beat up bed to make a nice panel that overlaps an access hole for changing the fuel pump.

 

My tool box covers it, so it will most likely just be some sheet metal and self tappers lol

 

The part I broke is called Part No.: 77390-35010
VALVE ASSY, FUEL TANK. It was $51 from Toyota parts deal so I ordered it up, should be here next week. I live in a county that doesn't do emissions inspections, but I would much rather have this all fixed when everything is out and accessable so I don't have to worry about it again. I don't need the truck running until the 18th anyway when I'm going wheeling next, so this gives me time to build those extra supports for the skid plate.

 

Major upgrade day to on trail hydration. For years I have been slumming it with this POS playmate cooler in the bed of my truck. It actually heated up beverages and food on the trail, even with bags of ice dumped in there. People use to put burritos in there and eat them later pipeing hot on the trail due to this effect. Clearly it was due to the inferior quality of this cheap cooler, something had to be done.

Well today I upgraded to the best cooler money can buy, a You Beti. My drinks are so fucking cold now I get an instant brain freeze, I put 4oz of ice in here and it some how created ice, rebuilt the melting glaciers and I predict it will be 10yrs AT LEAST before I'm even able to salvage any cooler water out of it, let alone it actually melt to the point of not being ice cold. I recommend getting one of these, and then laugh at all those posers with their damn yetis.

 

My actual project has been this gas tank replacement and today I basically made zero progress in 4hrs in the garage. The issue is I had 2 factory skid plate mounting bolts either sheared completely off of broken off in the mount. I was able to extract 1 luckly it was the front mount. 2nd issue was my skid plate mount is mangled to fuck so I stripped out 2 of the skid plate mounting bolts, so I had to grind off the nutzerts. Then due to how mangled the mount is I had to drill out of the mounting holes on the low range skid plate. So throwing in the towel now to eat dinner, but damn this bitch is putting up a fight! Going wheeling Saturday so that's my target so far, still waiting on a part to show up on Thursday and I should be able to dump gas in and be back driving.

 

I recently moved to NC from IL and I tossed all my extra bolts and scrap metal, this sucks because I'm trying to create a better mounting system for this low range skid. I'm not the biggest fan of it mounting the fuel tank. My idea is to mount it to the spare tire cross member on the pax side with some unbolts, mounting plate and a piece of angle iron or square tube. The hard side in the driver's side. This is what I can up with up, critique this:


I'm trying to envision the forces and I go back and forth between I'm going to bend that or I'm not. The skid plate is only 3/16 and that's 3/4 so I doubt that, and it's what I had laying around, it's a link mount I was going to cobble together into a ram mount. It's going to clear the spring even fully stuffed so that's good.

Thoughts, opinions?

 

You're def going to bend the skid before that bracket if you do that which is good.
And my skid isn't even 3/16" thickness, I forget exactly what it is but it's definitely thinner than that. Did you measure yours?

 

I eye balled it and assumed lol!!

 

I like that option looks good. Go take a look at the Victory4x4 skid for the 2nd and 3rd gens they have several mounts for their skid that go to the frame you might could get some ideas from that to further secure it to the frame.

 

The hardcore mods keep coming! My tsunami mv1050 whatever the hell they are calling them shit week air compressor has this screw on air chuck, this sucks because it doesn't fit on my beadlocks and is all around kind of a PITA.

Weird chuck thing;


Well random Amazon vendor selling Chinese parts for my Chinese air compressor to the rescue!! They make a clamp on chuck for this type of hose that screws right on, so my compressor works with my beadlocks and allows me to air up my leaky DD avalon tires weekly very quickly because Toyota made wheels in the early 2000s out of swiss cheese.

Sweet new chuck:


Inb4 buy a viair or a power tank, NO!!

 

sweet! That's a good upgrade