Taco Sauce TX Pro Build: Custom LT, 37’s, Tundra Axle Swap, and now a Back Half?

Well, another long day and didn’t think I’d actually have this much to do without parts here yet. But I built a little cross brace for the shackle slider that ties into my frame cross brace. Should give the extra bit hanging below the frame some side support.

Filled the diff with fluid before I forgot.

Finished cleaning all old cut off stuff from the frame and painted the frame and new cross member.

And did a 2wd low mod and pulled the front drive shaft.


Such a cute little shaft.


Still waiting on brake fittings so I can make hard lines and u bolts so I can set pinion angle, make shock mounts, set bump stop strike pads and limit straps.

And lastly will be to wire in the wheel speed sensors and locker.

So like 2-3 more days of work?

Oh and pray the driveshaft isn’t too long and need modification

 

Back on her own 4 feet again. At least for a moment.



Final stats come in as such:

18" of travel, drive shaft is the limiting factor.

10" of bump travel at ride height, so 8” of droop. Shackle is at 47* back at ride height (goal was 45*).

At droop the shackle is 12* back (goal was no less than 10*) so even if I had the ds shortened I wouldn't gain much more travel. Probably take it to 18.5-19”.
So, gonna call it good at that and just strap it there.

Need to strip it down so I can set bump strike pads and shock mounts. Run brake hard lines. And run electrical for the locker and wheel speed sensors. Goal is driving by Tuesday

 

It's looking good.

 

She wide.

 

First drive just happened. She's sitting a little proud in the ass but that's ok. I'm waiting on new limit strap clevis's so I'll pull my add a leaf out next weekend when I set limit straps.

Other than that the 5.29's are gonna be great. Sitting at 2k rpm at 65 and 2wd low is low. Only negative comment on the first drive is brake which I figured would be bad. I'll need to ditch abs and get the tundra master cylinder and brake booster to make them work good

 

Second drive and this time in some dirt. Pulled the add a leaf out and it’s sitting much closer to where I want it for ride height so this will probably be where it sits.



Bad luck with u-bolts and center pins cost me probably 3 hours of running around town and cutting shit off which was frustrating. But got it done.

In the dirt the rear seemed to have a good bit of side to side movement even with the shackle sliders so I ordered up some delrin upper shackle bushings to try and keep the flex down some.

But talking about flex...





The high tire started rubbing bumper so I’ll need to trim that up some more to truly fully flex it out.

I need to quit cutting up this bumper if I ever want to get money for it to build a new one some day lol

 

I am surprised you have issues with your brakes. Is the ABS being finicky? Mine drives as if it was stock, but stops on a dime. Even the auto LSD and A-trac work well. If you do not use the same wire (gauge and metal %) to extend your ABS lines, you can achieve a variation in resistance and cause issues. Although larger, the tundra rear brakes are only a single piston. I wouldn't expect a significant difference from moving to the tundra master cylinder and brake booster. I'm assuming youre talking about from 00-06? Maybe disable ABS first and see if that fixes your issue

 

No issues with abs at all. Just soft pedal after several bleeds. I’m also running newer 4Runner brakes up front which have larger pistons than the Tacoma. It’s a cheap big brake kit up front that a lot of people complain about softer pedal afterwards apparently. A few guys have upgraded to the newer tundra/ sequoia master cylinder snd booster and it helps a lot, but only with the sport or sr5 models. Off road with a-trac and e-booster is a lot more involved in swapping that (rip it all out with the abs unit)

 

Ahh, that makes more sense. Didn't know you had upgraded the front.

 

If you let the brake system to the rear run dry it will introduce air into the abs module. The only way to bleed it is to take it to the dealer or a shop that has the computer to open up the solenoids in the abs module to bleed it. You have the typical symptom of this exact issue. .....soft pedal after multiple bleeds.

Though some dude on FB said he bled his by taking it out in the dirt slamming on the brakes to get the abs module to actuate and push the air towards the brakes and he would bleed the brakes after a couple of abs actuations till the pedal wasn’t soft anymore. YMMV though.

 

So, after a day of driving it around I think it’s not as bad as I originally said as far as brakes go. It’s probably about as bad as it was before, just been about 2 months since I’ve actually driven the truck.

Also, it appears the long shackle has softened up the dynamic spring rate enough to induce some pretty bad axle wrap. On a modest acceleration or brake stand the rear of the truck can rise a good 4-6”. Could probably get to full droop at a hard launch lol. So I’ve got that to figure out as well.

 

Upper delrin bushings make things 100% better!!! Anti wrap bar stuff ordered and hopefully get that in ASAP to fix this axle wrap

 

One of the sickest builds on here. Amazing work dude!

 

Doubtful but thanks!

 

Cross member in for the anti-wrap bar. Just waiting on the kit to build the bar now. Gotta put the power from the new gears to the ground



Did have to kink the pipe before the muffler a bit but it was already smashed some from rubicon a few years ago

 

Done being incognito. Avatar, sig pic, and title updated. Showing off for the likes again lol

 

Ready for some real testing this weekend.



Excited to get the anti wrap bar in the next week or so. But a little late for this weekend but real excited for the 5.29 gears. 2wd low just idled up the ramps onto the trailer

 

I wanna be like you one day..

 

https://www.instagram.com/p/CO8niblAd0V/?igshid=w4g3htnlqpb2