I want a truck that Toyota never made

I have been putting some miles on the truck and loving it. I have been noticing a weird knock noise coming from the back floor board. I only noticed it when under heavy acceleration with very bumpy roads. I can't get it to do it with heavy acceleration by itself. Looking under the truck, I noticed a thin sheet metal crossmember going across the trans tunnel of the Pre-Runner body. I checked the X-Runner body and it doesn't have one of these. The picture doesn't do it justice because there is only about 3/4 of an inch clearance from the drive shaft. I put a hydraulic post jack under the truck and bent it on both sides of the drive shaft and it seems to resolved the problem.

 

So is this hydraulic post jack a tool upgrade from the BFH that Ford's used to be sold with?




Good job. Loving the thread and your results.

 

@sshadow69 , this is one of the coolest things I've ever seen someone do with an automobile in their back yard. Thank you very much for sharing the details with interested strangers.

I hope you will see this for the compliment that I mean it as: most people would never know that isn't a well maintained and lightly customized factory truck, despite the truth of the matter.

I think there is a special kind of art in making something that only (but sharply) turns the heads of enthusiasts and experts.

 

Thank you, that means a great deal. I love custom vehicles of all kinds. In my opinion, if you can customize a vehicle and it looks like factory and the normal person can’t tell... you have done a great job. It is easy to just slap on a part and just about anybody can do that but to do something different is special. I have always liked lowered vehicles (not slammed), for some reason they just look better to me. This project was really driven by the want of a lowered reliable daily driver truck. To be honest with you, if my job was closer to my house… I would have just bought an X-Runner and been happy with it after I repainted it to a lighter color. I love standard vehicles but in all the heavy traffic in the Dallas area I drive daily... it would not be that fun and this is why I wanted an automatic. I am very happy with how it turned out but it was a lot of work for a person that is not a mechanic.

 

I have found another miner problem with the swap. I should have swapped out the parking brake cables to match the frame. The X-Runner parking brake cable with the X-Runner frame and the Pre-Runner parking brake cables with the Pre-Runner frame. This is not as big of a deal with the X-Runner frame because of the extra slack hangs over onto the leaf spring... eventually this will wear the cable but, on the Pre-Runner, it is a big deal. The cable is shorter and will not go into the back on the drum and connect to the parking brake bracket. I only figured this out when I started rebuilding the donor truck, for now I have bought new cables for the donor truck and in the future, I will replace out the cables on my truck. Everything works fine but it is not done right so I will correct this and just wanted to let y’all know. For some reason, with all the parts that I spent hours cross-referencing between the X-Runner and Pre-Runner.. I over looked this.

 

If I won the lottery I would get an FJ cruiser and a newer Tundra with the short bed and build myself a "Toyota Jeep Gladiator" with AWD and slam it and then auto X it.

I don't know why but damn I wanna do it.

 

Only you can make it happen

 

Unfortunately my wallet ain't me!

 

I've enjoyed watching this thread. Kudos to you for hanging in there and making it what you want.

It's never easy, and the perseverance to finish is a struggle for many.

You get a blue ribbon. Not because you played, but because you won!

 

All I can say is WOW...!!!

Nice truck, Great Job...!!!

 

I have been pretty busy trying to get finically caught up on the frame swap but wanted to drop a current pic of the truck.

 

I always liked the look of the x-runners when they came out. Looks great!

 

Ran into a weird alignment problem having too much negative camber only on one side of the truck. I installed SOS performance F-1.5" / R-2" lowering kit and went to get it aligned. They told me that one side way maxed out and they couldn't get rid of the negative camber and that was all they could do. I went thru the front end and tighten everything and basically re-did the lowering install. I took the truck to another alignment shop and was told the same thing. I didn't know what to do... so I just happen to take my truck to Texas Track Works to talk about other options and if there was anything that they could do for me to help out the 1 degree more negative camber only on one side. They put my truck on the rack and within seconds knew what my problem was.... the synkro washer of the camber bolt was on top of the tab. There are metal tabs on the left and right of the cam washers to keep them in a certain area.. somehow my tabs got bent back only on one side of the truck and the camber washer slid and was on top of these tabs. I could not believe that the other 2 alignment shops didn't tell me about this, especially since they knew there was too much negative camber only on one side. Texas Track Works was able to weld my tabs back and make them strong than factory. They also replaced my camber bolts and new synkro washers. Then they did and alignment for me and everything is great and within specs again for a lowered truck. This process took a few months but I am glad I got it fixed. Apparently, this is a common thing that can happen to Tacomas. There are some pictures of the tabs after they were fixed. I wish I would have taken a picture before it was fixed.

 

You may notice the aluminum spacers lifting the steering rack up. While at Texas Track Works I gave them a few different size aluminum spacers to decrease the mild bump steer I was getting because I lowered the truck. When they had it on the alignment rack, they were able to measure the angle of the outer tie rod end and figure the correct spacing for me with the SOS 1.5-inch drop in the front and 1.5-inch All-Star solid aluminum blocks in the rear. They use a 1 1/2 O.D x 1/2 I.D aluminum spacer 1/4 inch tall and a 1 1/2 O.D x 1/2 I.D aluminum spacer 3/8 inch tall on each side for a total of 5/8 lift on each side of the rack... turns out this is the max that you can do without clearance problems. I bought them the spacers from Keyser Manufacturing for around $25 shipped (shipping was more than the spacers). I also had to get slightly longer bolts ( M12 - 1.25 x 140mm ) to get this all to fit. As far as I can tell this did away with my mild dump steer, very pleased.

 

The next thing that I have done to the truck is create a custom belly pan (skid plate) because I was having trouble finding one for this X-Runner frame. Keep in mind, that I have the 4.0L automatic mounted to this X-Runner frame and my oil pan hangs lower than the standard manual X-Runner. This was really worrying me about hitting something in the road and damaging stuff.

 

Not to bore everyone but I bought a sheet of ABS plastic and spent time heating it and bending it to the shape that I wanted it. I did this so I would have a template to take to a metal guy and have him put the breakers in the correct spots and at the right angles.

 

Absolutely love watching the progress of this build.

Kudos

 

My metal guy was too busy at the time, so I took my template to a place that sells metal and has some large break machines. They were able to put the beakers into the 14 gauge steel plate that I bought from them.

 

Then I used clamps to hold the metal into place and drill my pilot holds for where I wanted the screws to go. I drilled the X-Runner braces with smaller holes to fit the M6 threaded hand rivets that I used to thread the bolts into and hold the belly pan into place. I used 4 threaded rivets per side. So when I need to remove the belly pan... I just have to remove a total of 8 bolts.