Scuba's 99 Single Cab SAS.. 5 Years in the Making

Looking sharp!!

 

Thanks bud!

 

Got the truck out on the trail this weekend at Hidden Falls. It did great. Flat out works. I thought I'd have a really tough time with 37's and no crawl box but it was fine. I still want to get one put in before Moab in September.
Not a whole lot of really good pictures, but here they are:

 

What a beast man! Looks like a blast!

 

That looks awesome.

 

Hell yeah! Nice job!

 

Maybe I should update this thread? Photo bucket sucks ass so bear with me.
Truck has treated me well. It's now at 245K miles.
It's seen its fair share of miles since I made the last post. A few modifications, a trip to Moab, and plenty of wheeling here in Texas.
The 37" goodyears lasted all of 20K miles. My rear end being welded definitely didn't bode well for longevity. About a year after the swap I tossed the cragar steelies and put on some Pro-Comp proxy series 45 alloy fake locks. They were 20 pounds lighter per wheel than the steelies and that helped a lot for acceleration and power, especially on the highway.
I am now sitting on 40" Coopers.
I now have a crawl box with a 4.7 low range gear. I bought a brand new rear driveshaft from Tom Wood's when I put the crawl box in. That way I didn't have to worry about driveline vibes. Works great. I really enjoy the crawl box. I feel like it took the truck to the next level.
I also moved the shackles on the front end further forward about a year after the original SAS. The shackle angle was really steep originally and the truck was really tall at first. That dropped it a good couple inches. It looked way better and way more proportional.

This was about 2 years ago now. I think this was my first trip right after the crawl box. Still getting used to not slipping the clutch to crawl.


January 2017
This was after lowering the front and getting some free fenders from a friend that came off a 3rd gen 4Runner. The Camry I bought for cheap after finding out I was having a kid.


Fast forward 6 months after that I bought a house and a Tundra. I borrow my friends trailer from time to time to tow the truck wheeling.
December 2017 first time towing with the Tundra.




January 2019
I got the 40's and pulled the bed off to do a bunch of body work on the B pillar from my flop on Dishpan back in 2012. You can see the new looking paint between the door and bed.


You can see the front bumper looks a little different than it did after I first built it. Less than a year after the swap I ran the truck into a hillside and bent the side wing of the bumper back into the tire. Wouldn't have happened if I had braced the bumper to the shock mounts but I just hadn't gotten that far yet. And yes there is a zip tie holding in the headlight because it got messed up the same time as the bumper.


This past memorial day I rolled the truck at Katemcy2 in Mason. The damage was much worse than my previous flops. I walked away without a scratch. Pulled the plugs, blew the oil out of the cylinders, and drove the truck 2 hours home.




I tracked down a new cab a couple hours away and got a pretty good deal on it.


I started stripping the truck


Cut the floorboard out so I could pull the dual cases with an engine hoist and re-seal them up.



I got the new cab painted and had a bunch of friends come over to help me swap it.


Putting it back together.




I've always wanted a tube flat bed. After killing the bedside from the flop I cut the bedsides off, moved the gas tank up and to the other side, put the battery in the back, and moved the exhaust to the other side.


Fired her up for the first time after the cab swap



New color is John Deere Green.


Added a personal touch to the hood.


Had to get a 95-97 grille and headlights because the 99 front end parts don't bolt up.




That's pretty much how it sits right at the moment.
I got a PSC pump kit and a rogue fab tubing bender for christmas because this truck really needs a cage. Fenders should be painted within the next few days.





I'm going to get the PSC pump installed just in time for a new years run at Wolf Caves.
I wanted to have the cage done before going out with the new cab but that's not going to happen. Oh well.
I'll update when I start the cage.

Thanks for reading.

 

Awesome update man, glad to see you’re still out beating on this thing. You won’t regret hydro assist at all either

 

Thanks brother man.
No assist. Just the upgraded pump from PSC. Hoping it will at least act like its not struggling to turn the tires anymore. I don't think the stock pump puts out enough volume for the Ford box. It was always "ok" on 37's and probably felt about the same (maybe a little better) than OE pump with steering rack on 35's.

 

Fenders are done and painted. PSC pump and reservoir is on. Made it to the mall today with the truck so I guess that's saying something. Cage coming soon.

 

Ugly paint color

 

I’d rather have an ugly paint color than an ugly face.

 

looking good Steve! When you did your cab swap, did you notice any cracking in the frame? Mine was hidden by radiator.

 

I found the same cracking back in 2015, about a year after the swap.
Managed to weld a fish plate over it with the radiator still in the truck. Mine wasn’t as bad as that though. Just the 4 cracks coming from the edges of that rectangular hole.

 

We welded up the cracks and plated over it. Also plan to but off the body mount and reinforce the outer frame as well. Time will tell if it will hold.

 

Bro! The truck looks great! It’s been a while man, I didn’t even know about the flop. Glad you and the kiddos are doing well

 

Thanks brother! Happy to see you on here. I really appreciate it.
I asked everyone who was there when I rolled it to leave it off of social media for some personal reasons. Plus I kinda quit using most of those outfits too.

 

Cant tell you how many times i read your threads on your initial swap years ago when i did mine. Glad to see the trucks still around and doing well.

 

Thanks man. Hope you got some good info and learned from my mistakes.
When I was doing mine the well known Tacoma SAS threads/ parts lists threads really sucked. I spent hours and hours reading, googling, cross checking parts specs, etc. So I just did my best to lay everything out for cost, what works with what, and how I did it because in the end, every single Tacoma SAS is a little bit different than the last one and the more public info the better.

 

I went wheeling the other day and legit did not take any pictures and neither did my hot ass girlfriend.
The PSC steering pump worked really well. 95% of the time I had no issues steering. It felt 1000x better than before. It did have a small lack of assist while going down an obstacle when all of the weight was pushing the front tires into the rocks. But, I’m satisfied with it.
Broke the rear diff and had to drive home in FWD after removing the rear driveshaft. Don’t know what’s broken but I would guess there are some missing teeth on the ring and pinion. I hate breaking shit especially when I’m not being a throttle jockey. Oh well. 10 years and 120k miles on the diff. I got my monies worth.
I am contemplating replacement options. Tax return season coming up makes it promising. I have a Detroit full carrier locker that’s been waiting to be put in. May ship it to ECGS and just get them to build me another new diff. That would be the cheapest option at this point.

Also finally got the chance to get my decals put on. I had a friend of mine copy the ToyotaTACOMA logo that is normally stuck to the doors and tailgate. I wanted the same font. Came out great. The yellow looks awesome on the green. Looks more military than farm implement.