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

Yeah that's a cleaned up photo.

Any more heat and the gusset would have blown away. I blew through it here as it is.



It was pretty damn hot. And the gusset is only 1/8 so gotta sorta find a middle ground. As it always is with welding small stuff to big stuff. The puddle was always on the spindle and drawn to the gusset.

 

Thin spots of Forged steel can be deceiving, blue colored areas don't always mean penetration.

 

Thin to thick can be troublesome with cast, did you post heat?

 

Yeah a bit. Just a few minutes with the torch. Not my first set of spindle gussets. And those are still going strong on a 2nd gen who's spindles are much more touchy about this.

 

This is true. As long as his preheat was substantial enough it shouldn't be a big concern. Again you're right that more amperage would've been safer, I think he was up against the limit of his welder though.

I'm going to do mine at work, we have a part oven and the bigger 3 phase welders can really kick it out with the heat cranked up. Would you post heat or just control the cooling ideally with forged steel? I only deal with T1 at work which is just a finicky alloy.

 

I've read your best off heating it up and then if you can control the cooling as much as possible.

My welder can go hotter. Was only about 55-60% maybe? It's a 200amper...not sure my long ass cable extension and the old house wiring before that would let me do full click hahaha

 

You can throw them under the BBQ lid after a good night of debauchery for the post heat with good results I've been told...

 

I have heard that too!! Haha

But I don't have new seals so not about to do that.. haha

 

Pre heat/post heat is the key to carbon-cast welds. A long post heat helps the cast from cracking. Sand heat pits hold the product in place plus the heat.

 

put the windows back in the old canopy. got a couple of quotes in to ARE, Leer, Snugtop, and Ranch. was going to look into Century too but their website was all screwy so i couldnt submit a quote. I looked back at some old quotes and it'll looking like the canopy will come in at about 2500 without a roof rack. pretty steep but i think i can get about 600 for my old canopy and i should be getting my money back for the windoors shortly. that should soften the blow a bit.. then it's . should end up being about 1000 more than i was initially going to spend on the parts which doesnt sound too too bad for a new cap. thought about looking into another range rider but the only dealer south of the Canadian border and north of Redmond Oregon is the place that i'm decidedly not going to do business with.

if i can get a decent trade in for my old cap i'll put it back on the truck and keep it on until i get the new one. if i can't then i'll just sell it bear it until i can get the new one.

 

Added my dorkel on today!

 

I think we already have them on here in pdf. That you can download them.

 

YesSiRr!

 

Aaaaaand, do we have a pick of the skid plate?

 

I automatically assumed it was wire wheeled because of the lack of silica.

Preheated on the grill and then slowly cooled again haha

 

Did you do new seals after?

 

Yeah this was a spare set I bought. So when we did the gussets (back before I had my own welder) we did the gussets and then I got new backing plates, bearings, seals, everything. In retrospect I wish I got tundra backing plates.

 

Gotcha. Smart way to do it.

 

Looking for suggestions to reattach all of the lettering/badges that I pulled off my truck prior to the Raptor Liner. I let them soak for several days in WD40 to get the adhesive off. Plan to paint them black, and put them back on. Since the raptor is rougher than paint, I was thinking something on the order of a thick adhesive, on the order of rubber cement. I could probably do double sided foam tape on the bigger ones on the tailgate, but not sure that could work for the small ones (SR5, V6) that are on the tailgate and also on the rear doors. Thanks in advance!

 

I just ordered new ones for like 50 bucks, flat black