New to Me 1999 SR5

Here’s my CV angle. Looks just fine.

 

Yup. Cv just fine.

 

I was just checking the truck over and figured out I was low on power steering fluid. I put a new rack in a few weeks ago and I don’t see anything dripping so I started investigating why. Turns out I think it’s leaking into the passenger side boot. I squeezed the boot and heard a squishy sound. I really don’t want to do that job again plus try to deal with Rock Auto on a warranty claim. Just how my luck is going these days!

 

And good for that too..

 

Time for an update…

I got everything fixed and the truck is running awesome! Took it out to my hunting land and had to traverse some muddy areas and big washouts and it did great. Surprising how good the little truck with open diffs does. I’m guessing the light overall weight makes a huge difference. I can tell you that going through the same stuff in my heavier F-150 would have been a real challenge and the Tacoma just drove right through.

I also replaced the heavy and worn out Toyo OC RT tires with some new 31x10.5x15 Duratracs. The Duratracs weigh 45 lbs vs the 56 lb Toyos. The ride is night and day better now.

I did find a blown CV boot after the 4wd trip so that’ll be my next task. Looks pretty simple to swap in a new CV so I’m not worried.

Overall I’m super happy with the truck and my mild OME suspension upgrade. I’m averaging 18 MPGs over my first 2000 miles. I think that will go up a bit since I lost 11 lbs on all 4 tires.

 

Good work. A while back I lightened up the wheel and tire combination to yield just over a 10lb per wheel weight reduction on my 100 series. I could feel the improvement after I made the change.

 

Where did you order your lift kit from? Did you have to extend the brake lines? Also I suppose you did a front diff drop? It appears the front still sits lower then the back with the lift in the pictures you posted? How would a man add the kit but get the truck level? I was hoping that if I go this route it would allow the truck to be level. Great looking truck and thanks for the information! I am new here as well and have been running Yotas since I begin driving. I just purchased me a 99 xtra cab 2.7 same color as yours.

 

I ordered the kit from Wheelers Off Road. I do have the extended brake line that came with the kit but haven’t installed it yet because the fitting up near the frame is nearly stripped so I had to go get a flare wrench. I’ll post up some newer pics but after getting the spare tire reinstalled and driving about 1000 miles everything settled nicely and the rear is only very slightly higher than the front now. To get it perfectly leveled some small spacers could be used with the front coil springs. If you installed the same kit as me your front would sit slightly higher due to the lighter engine in your truck so it may be close to level.

 

Thank you so much for the response! I appreciate it!

 

Did my last round of work today. Replaced the driver side CV which had a torn boot. Not a bad job but I did struggle a little getting the new CV to slide into the diff. After 15-20 minutes I finally got it to seat.

I also pulled the steering column out of the cab and fixed the play in the sliding shaft joint. I saw this on one of the stickies on this forum. Most tack weld the two pieces but I didn’t have access to a welder so I drilled through the outer and into the inner and then ran a small screw into the hole. I then cut the screw off flush. Worked great and the clunking on rough roads is completely gone. Steering feel is also 100% better. Glad I found that thread. That job took me about 45 minutes mainly just because I struggled getting the tilt springs out and back in.

Truck is doing great. Thinking about ordering a soft topper in preparation for deer season. I’ll be using this thing a lot to travel back and forth to my hunting land.