Manual Hub Conversion for the 1st Gen Tacoma & 3rd Gen 4Runner

Will check them out

Your truck is my wall paper

It replaced a 911R

 

More photos of white trash adventures in my dad's Suburban, Old Blue. A 3/4-ton, manual everything, no A/C poverty-spec model just for you @lotuscupcar. It ate starters for breakfast but otherwise shouldered an ungodly amount of abuse. We went fucking everywhere in that thing.

Book Cliffs:





Wind River Range:


Avenue of the Giants and Yosemite:


Elephant Hill & White Rim Trail:




Boulder Mountain:


My 14 year old self having a "what the fuck" moment when I high-centered the front axle on a boulder. That was 30 years ago and my dad STILL gives me shit about it:


RIP Old Blue, 1977-2003. Manual hubs and pizza cutters for life!

 

Love the pics

I considered a new suburban 9 seater bench for family
Poverty spec

However the 5.3l with cylinder deactivation having lots of issues

No more bulletproof 6.0

Love your pics
Thanks for sharing

 

Great write up, I did the same swap (minus all the diff parts) on my 2000 4runner and loved it. Didn't notice much MPG difference but I also had a supercharger so I could never get consistent readings...

I have a set of manual hubs and spindles in my garage now as well for my new 99 4runner project.

 

I had a rental Silverado 1500 for a month when my company truck was in the body shop. The cylinder deactivation caused a lot of hesitation and shuddering which I could feel ripple through the chassis. It made an otherwise nice vehicle drive like a heap o' shit.

When he could see that the suburban's rusty demise was inevitable, my dad bought a 1999 Silverado 3/4-ton 4X4 pickup. He had to order it and wait 6 months to get a manual transmission/6.0L powertrain. It is still his daily vehicle and has been uber-reliable. It gets similar highway MPG as my 4 cylinder Tacoma but with triple the power. GM has made a lot of mistakes but their LS engines are excellent.

 

Hey Dave,

You did some incredible work with reengineering your Tacoma's front axle and transfer case. I hate to be the one to disappoint you, but you are probably not going to see much of a change in your rig's fuel consumption. My family has a 1999 Tacoma SR5 Extra-cab with the 3.4 V6 motor and a 5-speed transmission. This rig has manual hubs from the factory, and it does not get any different gas mileage than one with the ADD system according to what the EPA claims the gas mileage should be for these rigs, which is 16 to 18 miles per gallon. I have tested our rig multiple times with the hubs unlocked and in two wheel drive, and it gets exactly what the EPA says it should it get. Of course, I have never tested it against an identical rig with ADD, but, hopefully, for your sake, there is a difference. I, specifically, went looking for one with manual locking hubs when I was looking for Tacomas because I firmly believe that the manual locking hub system as inconvenient, as some people may find it, will age better than the ADD system, and I knew I was going to have my Tacoma forever.

Good Luck,
Paul

 

Excellent thread. I'll be doing this same swap to my 01 DC. Great info here. Thanks again for making this task so much easier on me !!

 

I had better reasons for switching, but I'm still going to debunk the MPG claim once and for all. Every time I found a similar build thread, someone piped in that they got better MPG with manual hubs. I usually get 19.5-20.5 MPG in 90% city driving and 22-24 MPG on long trips.

My first tank of gas after the swap was 20.6 MPG/city and I'm almost finished with the 2nd tank. If tank #2 is no different, I will officially declare the "better MPG with manual hubs reason" BULLSHIT. The good reasons are longer CV axle life, no front diff vibes in 2WD on lifted IFS, gaining 2-LO, makes lunchbox lockers "selectable," no need for diff drop, and ability to freewheel with a broken diff or CV axle.

It was a stroke of luck that I got a donor non-ADD front end inexpensively AND in good condition; the wheel bearings, ball joints and CV axles were all in great shape and reuseable. I made that money back selling the extra front diff which didn't match my gear ratio. I sold my ADD parts which were also in good condition and reuseable, so I actually made a few bucks doing this conversion. I would not have done this swap without good donor parts.

 

I love square bodies, hope to buy a 70s C20 eventually

 

Me too. The styling is faultless, they're easy to wrench on, parts are cheap and plentiful, and the drivetrains are very tough. But they are also notorious rust buckets and slow gas hogs.

 

I have plans to shove a twin charged 454 in one some day. That should solve the slow part at least.

 

I have used 2 full tanks of gas and my MPG is no different with manual hubs than with ADD. I declare that myth officially debunked.

 

Hey Dave,
Thanks for debunking that myth of manual hubs getting better gas mileage than ADD with doing the research on two tanks of gasoline.
Merry Christmas,
Paul

 

Badass pics, man!

I'm definitely keeping this thread in mind for a later mod for all the reasons mentioned previously!

 

Probably a stupid question, but what do manual hubs do? Also why did you remove the ABS system? Why are hubs beneficial to the truck?

 

All of those questions are answered in the first post.

 

Manual hubs allow the front axle of a four wheel drive to be locked or unlocked manually. They are an old four wheel drive engineering design, which is almost extinct in new vehicles. This is not a dumb question to ask BartMaster1234 because most people new to four wheel drive technology have not been exposed to the old design of manual locking front hub four wheel drives. There are very few manufacturers that still make manual hub style front axles. I think the larger Ford Pick-ups are the only ones that still use this system.
Americans, as we all know, are very into convenience, and manual hubs are not very convenient to use, which is why they are almost completely extinct. They do, however, have some major advantages over the current modern convenient automatic everything four wheel drive systems. They age much better since the C/V axles or axle, and the front gear shaft does not spin when the hubs are disengaged. They also have much less electronics so there is less to go wrong with their electronics.
This is the very simplest way of explaining manual hub four wheel drive systems. Tacoma World subscribers please don't rip me a new one for not going into a long detailed explanation of manual hubs. I did not want to bore this subscriber to death with a lengthy explanation. From the sounds of it, it sounds like this person is just starting to research four wheel drive engineering.
Take it easy,
Paul

 

Nice Work! I did something similar to my '04. I replaced just the non locking front hubs with locking ones. I sourced the parts from Downey and Toyota of Dallas.

Here's The part # for the OEM opened face front center cap that should fit those wheels if you were interested in them. Part#4260304020.

 

What'd you do with the old green cvs...?

 

I sold the ADD parts on KSL.com