Millenium Falcon Taco Build

Just read through all 17 pages! Some very impressive dedication and patients, truck has made some amazing progress

 

Drivers door armrest that came with my truck and then what my drivers door looks like now as I used the armrest off of the parts truck.
I have also installed the mudflaps.
Here is the dash after the new parts.

 

I really appreciate you taking the time to read through my build!

 

lol

 

I've got my Taco in the shop today to do the front diff swap.
I'm really looking forward to the results!

Here is a pic of the donor diff before and after I cleaned it up.

 

GL, it s a bear to get the diff in and out. I had to loosen my steering rack to make room. Don't know if it was required but made the job a lot easier.

 

It was a monster to get in and out for sure!
Thanks for the tip!
I ended up having to remove the flange off of the front diff pinion. Oddly thought it came out off the parts truck without having to do that. Baffling.

 

Here is a pic of the two actuators off each front diff. The cleaner of the two is actually off of my tacoma and I put it on the donor diff.

 

A few pictures of what the ECGS bushing looks like after a couple thousand KMS on it.

 

The top set of nuts and bolts are from my truck with about 384,000kms on it
The bottom set are from the donor truck that had 181,000kms on it.
You can see the difference!
Needless to say I cleaned up the bottom set and used them.

 

Cleaned up the surfaces, applied some gasket maker, smothed it out and let it sit for one minute as per the directions. Then pieced the parts together and torqued down the 4 bolts that hold the actuator to the diff.
Last picture is of the completed diff assembled and ready to go back on the truck.

 

So the results are that the front end feels tighter but the vibration is not entirely gone, it feels different.
Next step is to swap the front and rear drive shafts with the ones from the donor truck.
Then the rear diff
Then the transfer case
Then the tranny
Then the engine
Only because I have all of those parts to try.

 

Wow.
Honestly I think loads of guys are doing better work than me. I'm just happy to share my adventure with tacomaworld!

 

Wow, thank you!

 

I have a video explaining one difference I found between the two diffs.

https://youtu.be/xSzTQWagBUw

 

Does anyone think that bad wheelbearings could manifest themselves by vibrations when off the throttle?

 

Sub'd

 

Yesterday after I swapped the front diff I thought I would adjust the tension on the belt that drives the power steering pump and the fan, in the mornings it would squeal and the fan wouldn't spin until the squeeling stopped.
Could be a worn belt or just loose, I'm unsure.
Regardless, I went to tighten the belt and when I looked at the mechanism I found that like everytthing else in the truck, someone had bent and broken it and not fixed it, so it was not adjustable. Morons.
I pulled the broken parts off my truck and replaced them with working parts off of the donor truck, of course after cleaned them.

Below are the broken parts and the working parts.

 

So this morning I hit the shop before work determined to get the rear driveshaft that I pulled off the parts truck (in one piece) installed in my truck. That all went without a hitch.
I took it out for a drive and guess what, vibrations gone!
That serious vibration has been there since I purchased the truck, so I suspect that someone else has had that rear driveshaft off of the truck and apart and put it back together incorrectly.
I will say that the front end had some issues as well so I don't think I wasted my time and money with the work put in there.
More work to come, but this issue was a HUGE one to me.