Southern01Taco's build

Yea I might go to that. I was planning on going on memorial day weekend but going to RR will give me an extra 2 weeks to prepare.

On another note, I finally got off my ass and started my skid plates. I'm just about finished with the bash plate. I'm going to try to finish it up tonight. Then do the oil pan and transmission pan tomorrow. Then next weekend, I will try to make the transfer case skid and beef up my gas tank skid. Here are some pictures of the progress so far.

 

Yeah, there's no way I'd make both. I'm just gonna hit up RR

 

Yea I can't make both either so now I just need to decide which one I want to go to.

I finished my bash plate and oil pan skid today. I didn't get to the transmission skid or the t-case skid. I think they turned out awesome. They are 10 times beefier than the factory stuff. On to the pictures.

 

Dem skids look real nice! Well done my friend.

 

Thank you sir.

 

Started a thread about RR if you're interested

 

I made my transmission skid yesterday. Now I just need to figure out a t-case skid crossmember design and make it along with a skid plate.

 

So I started gathering parts together for my t-case skid crossmember. The U bracket is 1/4" thick, the bolt is 7/16" (I think), the DOM is really heavy, and I'm going to weld the U bracket to a piece of 1/8" thick flat plate that is cut 5" x 5" and weld that to the frame. The DOM is going to be the end of the crossmember which will probably be made out of 1" square tubing. Here are some pics. Does anyone see any problems so far?

 

How do those skinny Boggers compare to your Kumhos (in mud, mainly)? I'm going back and forth on whether to go with the 33x12.50 Kumhos or a set of 33x12.50 bias ply Swampers for mine. For some reason, I'm not real fond of how the narrow Boggers look (they look pretty good on your truck though, I have to admit). I do like the 16x35s a LOT. Most awesome tire I've ever had.

You got an outstanding truck there. I'm definitely more than a little

 

Thanks man. The kuhmos are no comparison to the boggers. After I put the boggers on I took it down the powerlines behind my house and was going through holes in 2wd that I got stuck in with the kumhos while in 4wd. The only problem that I have with the boggers is how fast they wear. As soon as the a/t's wear out that are on my factory rims I'm going to put a set of either kumhos or goodyear mtr kevlars on it to use around the house and keep the boggers for strickly wheeling.

 

Well, that's sort of what I expected. Nothing beats a Bogger for sheer axle-popping grip. Too bad they are so freakin' expensive. Tread life isn't really a factor for me. Even if they only lasted 10k, it'd take me ten years to wear them out and they would probably rot before then.

The 33x12.50 Kumhos are running $193/ea at Tire Rack. I've found the bias ply Swampers for ~$250/ea I can justify the Swampers by going with the super cheap steel wheels at Wheeler's, but the Boggers are just too pricy. I figure the Swampers will probably perform between the Boggers and the Kumhos though (closer to the Boggers than the Kumhos ). It is awesome you life so close to Interco. I bet you get some killer deals buying right from them.

Anyway, if you do go with the MT/Rs I'll be interested to know how they stack up to the Kumhos. The Kumhos look like they would clean better, but they are a directional tire.

 

Oh ok. Yea I've got about 5k street miles on the boggers and you can tell that they are worn but its not horrible.

That's damn cheap for the kuhmos because I think I paid $900 for mine and 250 for the swampers ain't bad either. I paid 1300 even for my boggers mounted and balanced. That's not including the gas to drive to the factory which was about 50-75 bucks. I was hoping they had a couple of blemished tires because if they do then you can get them ridiculously cheap, but they didn't.

For the wheels, I don't know how much wheelers is charging but I got my 16x8 cragars from summit racing for about 50 bucks a piece.

Yea I'll probably go with the mt/rs, just to try something new, so I'll definitely let you know how they do.

 

Thanks!

Well, we are talking 15 inch wheels. The Kumhos I put on my F250 last year (305/70 R16) where ~$230-something each. So it's about $40 cheaper for the same size tire made for a smaller wheel. Go figure that since it seems like the tire for the smaller wheel would take more material to make.

I'm looking at the powder-coated black ten hole steel wheels that Wheeler's has in 15x10 with 3.75" backspacing. They are getting $67/ea for them plus lug nuts at $1 a pop, plus center caps at $5 a pop plus whatever shipping is going to be. I may get a couple of the .25" spacers ($5/ea) as well to bring my backspacing out to an even 3.5" on the front (if it looks goofy, I'll get a set for the rear or see how the fronts fit without them).

Just gotta get that darn F250 sold. For such a beautiful truck in such great condition, it's turning out to be the bastard step-child nobody wants. I think the 7.5L is scaring people away.

 

Oh ok I got ya. Yea it's crazy how the price goes up with the wheel size. And that isn't bad at all for those wheels because mine has a 5" backspacing so I had to put spidertrax spacers to get them out to 3.75" backspacing, so after it's all said and done I probably paid alot more than that for my setup. Also, I don't think you would ever notice the 1/4" spacers on the front if you left them off of the rear.

 

Yeah, that's what I was thinking too, although my tires are going to be sticking out a bit more than most folks in this forum.

BTW, are you locked up front? I'm asking because I'm wondering if it's possible to pull the ring and pinion housing out of the front end without dropping the entire axle housing. I gotta have at least one end locked and the front is the way to go for me since I have locking hubs. I'll never notice it on the road. Although it'd be awesome if I could find a TRD E-locker third member for the rear end cheap that I could just drop in and do a bit of wiring...at least I hope it'd be that simple. Come to think of it, replacing the entire rear end would be just as easy work-wise, though with just me, it might be tricky unloading the thing.

I appreciate you letting my pick your brain.

 

No, I'm not locked up front. I've thought about it but I snapped an axle with the open diff so I don't plan on locking it. Or at least not until it gets a solid axle lol. And I'm pretty sure you will have to drop the diff down in order to get the chunk out. Don't take my word on that but I'm pretty sure you do. Although, after you get the axles loose, it shouldn't be much to it. Just 2 bolts holding the diff in and the 4 bolts on the driveshaft and then it should drop out.

In order to put the e-locker in, you have to change the entire axle because the e-locker third interferes with something on the inside of the regular housing.

Why not just put a lunchbox locker in the rear? The only problem I've heard with those is that it has a slight clicking noise when you turn. If I didn't have the e-locker, that's the direction I would have went in.

And it's no problem.

 

Well, to be embarrassingly honest, I was thinking about exploiting my manual locking hubs to go the super-cheap route and Lincoln locking the front. Can't really do that in the rear unless you want all sort interesting phenomenon from insanely fast tire wear to goofy handling on wet roads. Honestly, though, I'm not even sure how you would be able to lock your front if you have that ADD set up unless you put in a selectable locker. Wouldn't that constantly be spinning your locker or your driveshaft? That's why I was glad that my truck was so basic. All the other stuff I'll have to upgrade (basically the instrument cluster, though I would like to add cruise control to it) is all balanced by the manual hubs...except maybe if I had got a TRD OR model with the E-locker rear. I would imagine that getting an E-locking rear and converting to manual hubs are probably similar in cost, at least it seems like a conversion kit I saw once was insanely expensive (>$1000).

There's got to be a ton of TRD E-locker rears in a junkyard somewhere with all the ones they scrapped for the frame recall buy-back.

As for the lunchbox locker in the rear, yeah, I was thinking about that as well if the E-locker TRD rear was cost prohibitive, but that was really phase two of the mods. That and I was really hoping your popped axle was a fluke. Busting axles with 33s is just crappy. I had a 92 YJ with 16x35 Boggers on it. I broke a lot of crap on the rear due to some insane axle wrap that I was too young and ignorant to know how to fix, but I never popped an axle even with the mickey mouse Dana 35/40s with 4.56 gear in them. I broke just about everything else on the rear end, but never an axle and nothing on the front end.

It's a real shame though if Tacoma front ends are that weak. I've seen Toyota straight axles stand up to 18x44 Swampers almost as reliably as a Dana 60 and WAY better than a Dana 44. I was kinda hoping that tradition had continued. So unless you've broke more than the one and established a pattern, I'm going to think of it like something that happened to my dad when he bought a brand new F150 back in '81. He ordered it with limited slip front and rear and shortly after he got it he took it out in the woods, fell in a hole, and popped a u-joint/yoke in the knuckle trying to get out...and it was on stock tires. No way that should have happened even with the TTB Dana 44. My 89 F150 TTB stood up to 38x12.50 Swampers and never failed.

The SAS is pretty much the ultimate front end upgrade though. If you had more money than you knew what to do with, getting one of those Rock Jocks Dana 60s to do the SAS with would be uber-cool.

 

Lincoln locking the front isn't bad at all especially with manual hubs. My boss and I just welded his spider gears in the front of his f250. The a.d.d. is auto disengaging diff, so even though the axles are spinning, nothing inside the chunk is, or atleast that is how I understand that it works. But I still wish that I had the manual hubs on mine.

You are probably right, it may have been a freak thing but I have heard that people snap cv's left and right after locking the front, so it just makes me nervous especially running boggers. I keep a spare axle and the tools to change it with me all the time now.

The solid axle trucks had some badass axles in them but there was no way for them to carry that strength over when they switched to ifs. CV's are always going to be the weak link in an ifs setup but if those didn't break then we would be blowing diffs.

Yea I agree and hopefully within the next couple years mine will be sas'd. I wish I could afford one of those axles but I plan on going with a plain jane kingpin d60 front and probably 14 bolt rear, full width.

 

I won't suggest that I know much about the Tacomas. This is my first one and I've been out of the game since before anyone I knew could afford to take a Taco and wheel it hard (they were too new). However, as I understand ADD, it's pretty much the same set up that was on my YJ, except it's electronically actuated instead of vacuum actuated. It has a sliding sleeve that uncouples the long axle from the diff. The short side is still connected so you are constantly spinning your spiders...unless you're locked and then you're either spinning your locker or you're spinning your driveshaft along with your ring and pinions. The first one doesn't sound particularly healthy for the longevity of your diff, the second would suck for fuel economy and might cause some vibrations when driving at speed.

I could be wrong about that, but from what I read about it, I believe that's how it works.

BTW, this could be a band-aid fix if your ADD actuator ever fails: I heard you can take the actuator off and manually slide the coupling over to lock it in 4 dig and then replace the actuator and cover. Could get you out of the trails under your own power if you needed to.

We think similarly I think. My wish list also includes a D60 SAS with a 14 bolt corporate rear, although I might choose to go with a D60 rear as well. It's not as bullet proof as the 14 bolt, but I think it has a bit more ground clearance under the chunk. Unless you're running a spool with 42s or better, you probably won't break the D60 rear.

So...when you SAS, what size tires are you gonna run?