Inspirational Hab !!

Your stick arms have served you well so far.
The diff's are heavy, I've been finding out how heavy, I'm doing a full Nolathane bush upgrade, when Nat gets back from France I'm going to go to work on him for a hoist, wish me luck....lol

I'm taking notes, you've done a heap of mod's that I want to attempt !!

 

The axle is in. Tranny jack worked a charm, it did almost feel like cheating. It's still a tight fit and a bit of a wiggling to get it in, but so much easier.

The rear axle mount nut circled is the big annoying troublemaker. Getting it out entails unscrewing the nut from underneath (was able to use a large torque bit without trouble though it appears more to be a hex. After you get the weird nut off the bolt on the mount has to be lifted up out of the cross member all the while trying to puzzle the axle forward and down out of its spot. I took off the 2 front mount brackets for a little extra room. They are back on in this pic, though one is bolted on (see the dif drop) and one is hanging in the breeze.
Also taking off the lines attached to the top of the axle with 2 bolts before pulling the axle (tight fit) and attaching after mounting the axle (tight, but it does puzzle in there without force) prevents them from getting mashed, bent and mangled.




Hopefully Thursday I will have some very exciting pics to show. I am wrestling with a few thoughts and ideas, really want to get this thing back together for the weekend if at all possible.

 

Woohoo! And, it's not cheating at all to use the jack! Especially when working alone or with a small helper.

Have the wiring bits arrived for the rear? You'll be all ready to go on vacay soon.

 

I had to look that Nolathane bush thing up, yeah, that'll keep you busy! I guess we call them polyurethane bushings here? Definitely I am wishing you luck and getting that hoist- and dealing with those bushings.

 

Alone this time. The kid isn't allowed to get near it when it's sitting on stands like that.
My wiring bits are in. I'm still researching exactly what goes where but have a general plan. Once I get this front end thing done I'll be ready to tackle the wiring thing.

 

Scary enough having you alone under there. Eeek!
Yup, not a place for Stoker when it's on stands.
Are you to Spring weather or is winter still trying to hang around some?

 

Spring is finally here. Just put the 'maters and peppers out on the porch to harden. The garden is tilled and once I get the truck back together enough to drive I'll start on planting.

 

Excellent! How many plants of each this year? I'll be here this fall, so in goes a little garden here too. Can't wait for the sweet corn again.

 

Hab I really dropped the ball here, I feel like for once I might have given YOU some useful advice on R/R of the front diff, sorry about that. Glad to hear for the most part it shall went well and you got it done.

 

I bet you could have! Bet you'd have some great tips.
That's okay, it's really not that difficult as it was, just heavy getting the old out without the jack and way easier getting the 'new' in with.

 

I'm glad you found a way to use a jack, it always seemed to be in the way for me, maybe I should be asking you for tips lol.

 

It was a scissor style Harbor Freight el cheapo tranny jack with a v-shaped tray. Don't know how well it's going to work on the actual tranny, but for this it was great. I'm gonna bow to your experience, this one was pretty much plug and play whereas you've been much more involved in the fun.

RW- 72 peppers of various types, and 148 tomatoes are on the porch. I don't know how many of them will get planted, I've still got to make out my garden 'map' of what goes where.

 

Wowza! Plant 'em all.....feed the whole neighborhood?

 

I already do! Neighbors, relatives, neighbors' relatives, the new people the next street over who's yard backs to my neighbor's, well, you get the idea. I always have way too many tomatoes, even for storing, but it's on purpose. It's an easy way to make a lot of people happy.

 

I agree! I'm single and plant 8 to 10 tomato plants myself and give more away than I could ever use. Now, I'm a little stingy with my corn though.

 

Ha! Us too and boy does our neighbor rib us about it.

Today I replaced the left rack boot with a Beck Arnley boot. It's rubbery and was stretchy enough to carefully pull over the outer tie rod end so I didn't have to unscrew it from the sleeve.

If the rain behaves itself enough I'm hoping to get a lot done tomorrow. Pics then.

 

The rain is not behaving itself but it did wait 'til I'd been off work a few hours before it showed up.

So. The truck isn't done (still) but I did get the upper ball joints out of my old spindles and into my new-to-me huge thank you to Mightymouse for finding these and getting them to me spindles off a 96 Tacoma. With. Manual. Hubs!!! I've been keeping an eye out for these for awhile now but hadn't had any luck. He had them, gave me great information about them and got them to me right away. Knows what he's doing.

I have decided to stick with the Taco spindles w/o ABS for now. They'll work fine for me and when the bearings need replacing I will go back to my 4Runner's spindles and have someone with a press put the manual hubs in them, plus the new bearings and abs rings. Hopefully that'll be after the kids in college thing ends. Right now they are hanging off the 4Runner's upper a-arms and the cv's are in. That's prolly about the worst of that part of the project.

Looks like I'll be driving the 99 again tomorrow. Stupid rain. Hope all is well with everyone!

Edit:
Since I promised pics I went out in the rain and:

 

Wow. That's a lot of progress. Can you keep track of all the projects you've got going on? If I was wearing a hat I would tip it towards you.

 

Awesome hab, I don't know when or where I miss the manual hub conversion but this is great.

 

Thanks JBurt and Jason! I try to keep the post 2 table of contents up though I have to admit I haven't updated it lately. That's how I keep track of what I've done and where in this thread I might find it.

I've been toying with the conversion for awhile now. When I pulled the add cvs I saw all the boots were dry-rotting and there was a hole in one of them. No rubbing wear though, boot stretch helped that. I was facing new boots at the least. I thought it'd be a good time to bite the bullet if I could find manual hubs instead of putting more money into the add cvs and then later get the manual hubs anyway. I couldn't anywhere nearby but thankfully Mightymouse could and more thankfully he's not far away *and* he brought them even closer to me.

So.
Rear axle with/locker and 4.30s.
Front dif with add and 4.30s.
Spindles and manual hubs from a lower mileage Tacoma
CV shafts from the same Taco

Next:

Going with longer sway bar links up front, like maybe off a 2nd gen rear.

Wiring for the locker. The 96 does not appear to be pre-wired in any way so I'll be using something like Dick Foster's diagram, I think. Still doing a little head scratching on this one, lots of really helpful threads and information to look through.

It's about time for new shoes. Who needs groceries, right?
I'm thinking I should stick to the 33's instead of going up to the 35's. Less weight, I'll be able to use one of my old ones to replace the 31" spare I have now, less cost.
I really like the Michelin A/T2 but would like something a little different. So many people seem to like the Goodyear m/t (overkill for me) but they have an a/t as well. The other one I saw in a sneak peek was a redesigned BFG- A/T KO2.

And that's what's on the plate for now. Some people do spring cleaning. My house is a wreck but all this spring wrenching feels so so good.

Hubs. They don't stick out much because of the 1" adapters and I could prolly even fit the center caps over them (haven't tried it) but so far I'm thinking I could live with the look. What do y'all think?