The 5.29 Mega Thread!!

There is no setup with ECGS, they come assembled and ready to go, you just bolt them in place.

Place the order for third member and clamshell, pay for core charges
When they arrive you install
Send beck your cores within 30 days and receive core charges back minus return shipping ( $150 in my case)

 

Ahhhh ok that makes sense for that time frame.

How’d it ship, in a crate? ….which carrier?

 

I don't know how ECGS does it, but 3rd members are pretty small. Two cardboard boxes from Lowe's, one inside the other is more than good enough. Filled with packing of course and some support on the bottom. I shipped some via UPS for about $70 each.

 

Yep, two thick boxes, one inside the other, with a bunch of shredded cardboard packing, and wrapped in a plastic bag. They have you use the same boxes for the core returns. Shipped UPS ground. ECGS ships to you for free, and pays the return core shipping at their rate but subtracts the cost from your core refund.

 

When I questioned the install time I assumed guys were installing the gear sets and setting backlash etc themselves.

Putting in a prebuilt third is far less complicated. I did the 3rd on my old pathfinder, when changing out the LSD to an open with a lock-right locker.

Didn’t touch the front or the gears.

 

regarding break-in...

According to ECGS there is a break in procedure for towing. Do I do this before changing fluids at 500 miles or after? And if it's after, do I need to change fluids again after the trailer break-in? It's only a ~1500lb trailer, so nothing heavy.

 

call ECGS for that. I wanna say do the 500 mile break in, then fluids are done, then you do whatever trailer break in and not need new fluids

 

I'm about to wrap up my first full tank after break in was completed. I've noticed a bump in mpgs. Average mpgs used to read mid 15's before, now its mid 17's. So far trip mileage the truck is reading is about the same as GPS trip, so we will see what it hand calcs out to. I did go with the lite/mild OTT tune this time vs mild/medium I had before.

So far zero complaints. The trucks drives sooo much better. No gear hunting, no downshifts on simple hills that shouldn't cause any vehicle to downshift. Pulled the camper awesome with no issues, even pulled in S5 without unnecessary downshifting or unlocking of TC. As long as nothing changes this was by far the best money spent on the truck. It actually feels driveable and usable now.

 

Thanks for the videos. This will be my next project.

Question, if someone knows. If I am just changing the front clamshell (no new hubs or spindles), do you still have to completely disassemble the hub, or can you get the CV axle out by disconnecting the upper ball joint, etc.?

 

Just take the two bolts out at the bottom of the steering knuckle. That will let you move the knuckle enough with the CV to get the CV out of the diff and out of the way.

 

Thank you, I figured there was a simpler way.

I had another question but searched around and found the answer. I was concerned about the speedometer/odometer being even further off than it is now with 285/75R16 tires, but apparently the 3rd gen uses wheel speed -- so gearing doesn't affect the speedometer. It's not far off, but I ordered the Hypertech doohickie to correct things anyway.

 

Yeah, no need to do anything with speedo for gears, only tires.

Decide if you want the odometer or speedometer accurate. You can’t have both. In stock form, the speedo reads fast by 3.5% and the odometer is spot on. Many know that stepping up the tire by 1” or one aspect ratio size fixes the speedo, but most don’t know that doing so actually makes the odometer underreport. Which is not a problem, just something I think is worth knowing. This is probably because they know they can’t short people on warranties on stock tires, so they have to make the odometer accurate.

If you want to calibrate the speedo to be accurate (and don’t care about odometer), then use 31.6” as your “stock” tire size and 32.8” or whatever for your new size. If you use 30.6”, like stock is, then the speedo will be fast by a bit just like stock was.

 

Thanks, I knew this was true on the 2nd gen, but I hadn't heard this for the 3rd gen. Based on GPS readings, I thought the speedo was pretty accurate in stock form. I'll probably just go with stock size and get the odometer back to accurate so the MPG calculation is a bit closer to reality.

EDIT: Well, that was easy. Amazon delivered within 24 hours, took about 10 minutes to run the updates and configure it and 10 minutes to install. Seems to work well.

Ran down to get my daughter from college (30 minute highway drive) and it seems to be accurate, and it's giving me a much more realistic MPG calculation (17 for the round trip). With the wind at my back and on level ground or going downhill, it would actually shift into 6th for a little bit. On the way back against the wind, I don't think it ever saw 6th. I need to regear . . .

 

Ordered from ECGS and started gathering info and tools needed. One of the things I needed was all the torque specs, found this thread for 3rd gens:

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads...to-end-all-torque-lists.828060/#post-29683137

There's a doc you can download that has EVERYTHING. You have to scroll through to find the right sections, but it has everything for both front and rear.

 

did u get better mpg after regear?

 

I saw the same and sometimes 1-2mpg better depending on where I was. But most tanks are the same as before.

I did gain about 1.5 avg while pulling my trailer. Before the regear I consistently saw 13mpg average, now I see 14.5avg.

 

So the ECGS 2-week lead time was actually only 2 days. Rears are in! I took it for the first run break-in ride and I'm already seeing my MPG jump, but I'm driving gently. That said, I barely have to hit the gas and it will go. No highway driving yet, so the jury is still out there. I might disconnect the battery for a bit and force it to re-learn everything, but it already seems to hold gears better.

 

Working on the front now but waiting on security bits so I can get my cat shield off (don't know wtf I did with those, coulda sworn they were in the center console). I know some have said you don't have to separate the CV from the hub, but all instructions I find have it being removed. In case I run into clearance issues, I want to make sure I have the right tools.

The ECGS instructions say the axle nut is 36mm. Other sources say 35mm.

Which is it?

 

Don’t need to separate the CV from the hub. Definitely need the security bits for your cat shield though.

 

OK, thanks, I'll try it without. But if I did have to swap a CV axle, would I need a 35mm or 36mm?