What have you done to your Tacoma today? 1st Gen Edition

So far not too bad. I trimmed my ARB for the 33s, and that looks fine so far. It lightly rubs the frame in the same place at full lock driver, which don't bother me. I haven't touched the pinch weld at all, trimmed the plastic in front of it. But I think I will finally have to move the washer fluid res, I think I am catching on that now.

 

Duplicolor

$28 hwp102 high performance graphite

hwp102 Graphite Grey. With Rustoleum Gloss Clear over top.

 

Still waiting on the center caps to be delivered, so I can cut holes for the locking hub, and paint them to match. But they are installed Toyo 34x10.50R17 ina D load. Some more trimming will be needed. But so far its only catching the washer reservoir like my 33s did. The truck is so much quieter and rides so much smoother. Even being that the 33s were a C load and these are D load. I will try to get some better pictures this weekend.

 

It looks like the the truck's original locking hub center caps would fit those wheels. Toyota being Toyota, my original center caps snap right into the 4Runner 5-Star wheels I'm currently running.

 

They do snap in, but the edges don't line up correctly. Its was pretty cheap to pick up some aftermarket center caps on ebay that will be painted and installed.

 

Looks good!
How much clearance do you have from wheel to spindle and tire to ball joint?

 

About 3/8" or so to the spindle, same as my 33s, then never touched.

 

Picked up some parts from @drr to vastly improve my fuel economy when cruising downhill on the highway. Gonna attempt the 5th gear swap.

 

Like the one that was mentioned on the old pirate threads? Because if it works for you I am all ears.

 

Yep.

 

Funny, 5th is already barely usable in my driving around here and you're looking at making it even lower.

Maybe I should get on with installing those gears I have sitting on a shelf.

 

Interesting, I have about a 1/4" clearance from my wheel to the spindle. And only about an 1/8" from the tire to the ball joint on the 285/75R17 Yokohama M/T's.

 

2 more years and I can get my copper plate here in AZ. Wish I didn't get rid of our 98 4runner, could have had one last year

 

Those copper plates are heavy too, had em on my 300ZX while I was there

 

You'll get better cooling WITHOUT the radiator.

The trans fluid running through the radiator serves more of the purpose of warming up the ATF in cold conditions than it does actually cooling in warm conditions if you're introducing another cooler.

You have to figure your radiator is near 170° degrees (or more) anyway.

 

Yeah, we'll see how it goes. @drr gave it a try (or had a shop give it a try) and he ran into some issues with the shift keys, so I'm hoping I don't run into the same. Time will tell.

Yeah, well, I run at about 2700RPM @ 62mph right now (MT, 33s, 4.88s), so I'm hoping I can get up to the speed limit with this mod, hahaha. Will definitely need to do some downshifting on uphills though. Might be hating life when there's a headwind. Would be nice to add a sixth gear, rather than replacing 5th, but whatever.

Oh, and I've heard that these will drop my RPMs by about 500RPM, which is about the difference between MT and AT in stock condition, so I'm hoping that I'll be about where a stock AT is in overdrive.

 

I doubt you'll be fighting head winds. It's only going to be around a 400-500rpm drop. So to go 70mph you'll still be at like 2600ish. Should be close to "stock" gearing in 5th i'd imagine. Bit more over geared still.

 

Oof, yeah I think 31" and 4.10 has me at 70+mph at 2700rpm in 5th. 3RZ/W59 so not a perfect comparison, but shouldn't be far off. I can cruise comfortably at 80mph (close to 3000rpm, but the 3RZ doesn't seem to mind) when conditions allow, that just doesn't happen much around here.

Are you sticking with 33" now? I thought you said recently you were considering 35".

 

There are a couple of spots that are particularly bad for headwinds. One is NW out of SLC, NW on I84 towards Boise. The other spot that is always bad is west from the Vantage grade out of the Columbia River gorge on I90, all the way to Ellensburg. Can be brutal.

 

33s for now. I might clearance for 35s, but mostly "just because." I don't have any plans to move up, mostly because then Monte would win and would start bugging me to LT the thing.