Keiko the Tacoma - An Evolution of Needs

[Toiyabe]

Awesome build! What brand LED light bar is that? You seem to have a sweet shop to work in also, I'm jealous!

I believe the stock breather is one way valve only. Lets air out but does not let air in. So if your rear diff is hot and you soak it in cold water during stream crossing you have the potential so get water sucked in through your axle seals on both ends of your axles.

In my 4runner I had a one way breather in the rear diff like you. But Toyota put a 2 way breather for the front diff. Why? I'm not sure. So I put in the same 2 way breather from the front diff to the rear diff and put it as high of a location that I can find.

I sold the shop I used to own and "retired". Part of that was building a new shop. I still have to make some benches, but it's really nice.
I reused the old diff breather at the top of the hose zip-tied to the filler, so it is still there. It seems to work well. Good to know about the front breather. Odd. I'll probably remove it and put in a fuel filter.
The LED lightbar is a cheap eBay one, sold my someone in the US if I have a problem.
The only LED bars I have experience with are the super high-end ones and the cheapie eBay ones.
When it's my money, I take the risk with the cheap ones.
This is a 36" 72 3W LED set-up.

 

[mouthy1]

Very cool thread! Thank you for posting all of this. It is great when someone that has such know-how puts it all together for us novices! Thank you.

 

[paranoid56]

looks good. i just bought that crimper kit a day or so ago. how do you like it so far?

also, i agree with the metric hardware part. one of the things that bug me though is buying m8 bolts here, they all have 13mm heads where as on the truck they are all 12mm. and buying jic standard bolts gets expensive lol

but what do you do on new ford trucks? its got a mixture of metric and standard lol

 

[Toiyabe]

looks good. i just bought that crimper kit a day or so ago. how do you like it so far?

also, i agree with the metric hardware part. one of the things that bug me though is buying m8 bolts here, they all have 13mm heads where as on the truck they are all 12mm. and buying jic standard bolts gets expensive lol

but what do you do on new ford trucks? its got a mixture of metric and standard lol

Love the crimper kit. I'm probably never going to do a Weatherpak again. I like the Deutsch style much better.
I got the correct 12 and 14mm heads from Wurth, and Fastenal. I know Winzer also has them, but I never had good luck with their customer service.
I just get them at my local Fastenal - which is WAY better than the one that was near my old shop.
I also hate the 13mm/15mm head thing, although I primarily did Euro cars, and the infatuation with oddball sizes was comical at times.

Of course, I started on British stuff, and my wife has a TR250 (I just sold my Series III Lightweight, sad) and I have had THREE sizes on some: SAE, metric, and BS/Whitworth.

 

[uscg2008]

Pretty clean build you have going on here

 

[2scars]

Very cool build

Great attention to detail and purpose behind the mods. How do you like the Rockwood? I have been thinking that type of pop up would be on my list of things to buy in the next few years. How do they pull behind a medium V6 like the 3.4? Thanks in advance.

Brandon

 

[Toiyabe]

Great attention to detail and purpose behind the mods. How do you like the Rockwood? I have been thinking that type of pop up would be on my list of things to buy in the next few years. How do they pull behind a medium V6 like the 3.4? Thanks in advance.

Brandon

Here is my wife's response to how she likes the trailer:

Absolutely love it.

The thing sets up in about a minute and a half, and comes down in maybe four — and I can do it myself. Setting the jacks to stabilize it takes no more than ten. Inside, it's quite comfortable and reasonably spacious, even with the two dogs (and a tall spousal unit) — and the number and size of windows is lovely. It's pretty decadent having heat and a/c while "camping," too!

The only downsides that I've noticed:
1) The interior lighting is dimmer than I'd like. This, however, is pretty particular to me — I'm very sensitive to lighting patterns.
2) There's less easily-accessible storage than I'd like — that is, things like drawers or cabinets. There's a huge underbed storage compartment you can access either from outside, or by lifting the bed up, so there's no difficulty actually bringing everything we need along, but I don't feel like hauling the bed up every time I want, say, a jar of peanut butter.
3) The back support when you're sitting on the bench seats is crap. You have to bring pillows of some kind to be comfortable when sitting and reading.
4) Every time we take a trip, the turntable on the microwave (another bizarre thing to have while camping) pops out of the oven and ends up somewhere on the floor.
5) The counters are the exact same height as the bed, so it's pretty much impossible to convince the puppy that all surfaces aren't fair game.

In terms of towing, it's not bad.

The Volvo (2.5T - 208bhp/236lbft) did pretty well at it, as it only weighs about 2500lbs loaded for us. Towed it to Colorado, and Michigan a few times. Averaged about 17.1mpg. Worst of 15, best of 20.
The Tacoma has a bit less power, but the manual and length help. I got about 16.5 mpg towing it through the mountains of SW Virginia and WV, lots of slow hilly stuff an 75mph on the freeway. Low of 15.1, high of 17.6.

It's light, it tracks very well, and the trailer brakes are excellent. It has decent clearance, although the departure angle is iffy. It is very well built, and also corners well. It's hard to get it at a good towing angle on the truck, especially after the tries and AAL. I'll be towing it with a new drop hitch in the next few days. Bearing and tires stay cool, and it has minimal sway in crosswinds because of its height. On the other hand, it's very wide...

 

[Toiyabe]

Tried out the roof rack for the first time this weekend.






Ok, some minor tweaking.

Decided to try and do something about the paint, and clean under the fender flares.

First, pulled the fender flares off. I broke every clip... The dirtiest was the right front. Odd.
'




Started polishing, and waxing. Much mo' betta.






The flares I cleaned up, and then painted with spray-on bedliner.






Replaced all the clips.





Looks great.

 

[Toiyabe]

UltraGauge

Now for my UltraGauge review.

TLR synopsis: it's great value for the money.


I read the manual, although I didn't do the crazy rebate. Unpacked it, it came in a simple brown cardboard box. Shipping time was three days to my door. I installed it with 3M double-sided trim tape, the kind used for installing side moldings. I put it at an angle in my CD slot, where it is completely out of the way, yet easy to see.
The brightness and contrast are adjustable. I have mine very sensitive to light. It works well.
The number of gauges is variable depending on your OBD2 protocol, with up to 77 being supported. My truck has 44.
I settled on large instant MPG and Distance To Empty, which it calculates from your input of the fuel tank size, and injector pulsewidth.
I then chose 4 smaller gauges: Intake Temp, Average MPG, Voltage, and Coolant Temp.
All have been verified by external measurements, including GPS speedometer and fillup computations. It is dead nuts accurate.
Some small issues: the refresh rate is meh, and it occasionally does a 1/2 second blank screen, which are artifacts of the mediocre 9141 CAN protocol. My old truck doesn't have fuel level supported, so you have to manually tell the gauge that you've refilled the tank. This is fairly easy, but is an extra step. The OBD2 connector has a cable that goes the wrong way, although it was easy to route out of the way.

That's it.
First installed:




End of first tank:



End of fifth tank:

 

[4Rescue]

Man, you and I could be "Rally car twins"... different paint-jobs, but I have a VERY similar MKII (and I've been building track rally cars out of VW's for years). Great lookingcar man.

As for the truck... Impressive. You've done a LOT of or on her already (how crazy is it to get a used truck optioned exactly like you'd have done it... I've not had that joy yet) and it's coming along nicely. Very simple and straight forward, I like it a lot. What brand of Light-Bar are you using??? Edit: N/M read my answer back a few posts. Looks great, I want to sun the same set-up on my new build. Good Luck going forward, I'm gonna subscribe to this one.

Cheers

Dave

 

[Toiyabe]

Man, you and I could be "Rally car twins"... different paint-jobs, but I have a VERY similar MKII (and I've been building track rally cars out of VW's for years). Great lookingcar man.

As for the truck... Impressive. You've done a LOT of or on her already (how crazy is it to get a used truck optioned exactly like you'd have done it... I've not had that joy yet) and it's coming along nicely. Very simple and straight forward, I like it a lot. What brand of Light-Bar are you using??? Edit: N/M read my answer back a few posts. Looks great, I want to sun the same set-up on my new build. Good Luck going forward, I'm gonna subscribe to this one.

Cheers

Dave

We ran Subarus and Evos for a decade, before running the Golf in ESRC and USRC, as well as Rally America. You and I might have met at Oregon Trail, as we ran it every year for a decade.

I don't drive them, I just build them and manage them. I have too strong of a self-preservation instinct. As a driver, I was resolutely mid-pack, but as a builder at my old shop, we won National Championships. It was great to have a good team.

 

[olypenjeeper]

Wow, you really get around! excellent thread! I can only hope to have a shop like yours someday with a lift. I really enjoy the attention to detail displayed in this build. Keep it coming!

 

[Box Rocket]

We've got similar taste my friend. I had an '03 Evo that I bought new and ended up selling for my Tacoma. Fun cars.

.

 

[CYi5]

Very tasteful mods, good job! :26_7_2:

 

[GhostRing]

Delta V!! :smiley_drive:
Good to see you here! We met a few years back when I was building rally cars with Barrett...now I'm focusing on overland/trail fab work.
Great job on the Tacoma so far - if your travels ever bring you back to Bend, lemme know!