What have you done to your 1st gen Tundra today?

Picked the truck up from the shop yesterday after work. No more rusty crusty leaking ass axle anymore and also have working A/C again. They said that the donor axle may have a bearing going out on the driver's side. But I did notice a possible strap compression mark on the dust cover on one side that could be touching the drum. So I will have to check that out. The noise I was hearing was more of an eccentric type noise that was cyclical but sometimes it would go away at different speeds.

Got the old axle home and took the carrier out and set it and the axle shafts in the garage and took the housing to the recycle yard. Good riddance. Dropped it off at the auto detailer friend to get the interior all cleaned up and will have that back this afternoon. I should have some before and after pictures to post later today. Next thing will be finding a good exhaust shop to get the O2 sensors in and possibly replace some of the exhaust that is rusting out. Need to find a cover for the bed tooat some point.

 

What'd the issue with A/C end up being?

 

That's a downgrade. You're replacing one of the best OEM wheels ever made for a truck, for one of the worst OEM Tacoma wheel choices?

 

Other way around. Settle down Bevis.

 

Well hot damn, then! Get those tires swapped over, and TPM sensors reprogrammed into the TPMS ECU!

​

 

The old ones are 16s so no go on the tires. And I’ve never seen a TPMS warning so I assumed my DC didn’t have it. I’ll have to check that out. Knowing the guy I bought it from, he probably disabled it in the most annoying and destructive way possible.

 

Thanks. I didn’t remove the chrome to wrap. I trimmed and tucked the edges. This was my third time wrapping them. The first two times I screwed up because the chrome pieces aren’t straight and it gave me a crease. This time I used larger pieces.

 

Someone may have done the 'ol "ground the TPMS wire out, under the glovebox (or elsewhere)" trick to bypass TPMS.

 

So far, just a recharge with dye added to see if there is any leaks if it stops working again in a couple weeks. Just a result of sitting for so long most likely.

 

Just a note that the dye in a system is only visible for about a week. after that, it's very difficult to see.

 

If you have the AC shop remove the charge, you could change the Schraders as well as all the o-rings that are easily accesible

 

^^^THIS^^^ O-rings are the most common point of failure on an aged system

 

My 5100s front and back arrived today. Now im looking at springs and decided to go with OME 2883. I just want my truck to look leveled. However, i have suspensionmaxx links that I was going to put in when I put in the 5100s. Do I need the extended links if I put in the OME 2883?

Edit: i guess I should add, i dont want to do a rear lift, just want to lift the front enough to make it leveled.

 

Are you 2WD or 4WD? that makes a significant difference, and should be in your 'vehicle info'.

Taken from the suspension section of the community megathread:

• Guidance to pick the right lifted spring w/Bilstein 5100/4600: With OME (Old Man Emu, not 'OEM') springs, it can daunting which spring to pick, between the 2883, 2884, 2885, 2886, 2887. We have tons of user experiences and know what you can expect better than any vendor:
  • For OME springs you need these isolators and if your current struts aren't factory/OEM you'll probably need these tophats.
  • For AC/RC with 2WD, both V6 and V8, you'll get near-level with OME 2883. Don't do 2884 unless you plan a rear lift.
  • For AC/RC with 4WD, go 2883 for a sport rake, 2884 to get level, don't go with 2885 unless you plan a rear lift
  • For nearly all DC applications, 2883 for near-stock ½-¾" lift, 2884 for slight rake, level w/2885, if you plan 1-2" rear lift, 2887 is probably your choice.
  • With any suggestion given here, your lift may take a bit to settle at final height.
  • If you're AC/RC be forewarned: Nearly all who doubted the above were left squatted out back, thinking 2884 or 2885 was right for their AC/RC 2WD truck. It'd just not the case, and a lot of vendors don't know/bother to inform their customers, so heed the above.

And:

• Extras... At 1.5" of lift or higher, you'll want extended swaybar links, Suspension Maxx sells, to avoid travel limitations. As you approach 2.5" of lift with 1GT trucks, you're closing in on thresholds of OEM travel and should consider extras to compensate. Examples: You'll want new upper control arms (UCA) to more easily hit alignment numbers. At 3" and beyond, you may need to snug up your OEM CV boots or get ORS extended boots or similar to avoid grease-sling or ripping, and probably add bumpstops, etc. There are a lot of considerations - think about it, or ask questions in the forum if you need a sanity check!

If you're just going for 'leveled' I would stick with OEM links.

 

Gotcha, thanks shifty. Didn't know how much the front was going to lift for just a level. Will stick to oem links

 

2883 + 5100 on 2WD AC will get you nearly level, enough that most people won't be able to notice. At worst, even if you settle out heavily, you'll have the mildest rake that will look level when viewed from anywhere in front of the door.

 

I didn’t remove anything. Left the chrome on and the grill was on the truck too. It passes the 5 ft test pretty well. A couple wrinkles at the very edge, but I’m the only one who knows. Did the mirrors too.

 

I will be driving it quite a bit this weekend and next week so I should know rather quickly if the A/C starts dropping off in the heat we have here right now. The shop I am going to is very well respected around here by a lot of people. He can get me in same day if there is any issue.

 

That looks good too. That vinyl is a near perfect match for your paint. I wasn't sure if it would work well with the gunmetal, but I'm convinced now. Did you leave the mirror covers on as well when wrapping? If you did this again, would you do it the same or remove? I bought extra blue clips as I was planning to remove the grill pieces to wrap.

 

Speaking of which. mine is still leaking. my guy said let it leak until it stops cooling and then swap it. Still has been ice cold lol.

 

We know where yours is leaking from. If you don't pop your hood, you can't see the leak

 

Lieutenant Dan got new legs

 

Yeah mine is a super close match for Phantom Gray Pearl. It's 3M Satin Dark Gray. I did leave the mirror covers on. I had a little trouble at the edges, but I think it was really more due to the convexity of the mirror cap than to the fact that it was still on the truck. I'd do it the same again. Get you some little squeegee-ish tools and that'll help. I bet if I had 3 or 4 tries I could get it perfect, but it still looks really good. And I've washed the truck a bunch and it has been thru a couple Texas summers with no sign of peeling off or coming loose. Still want to do the rear bumper but haven't gotten around to it.

 

New terminals installed. Seem to be decent.
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Full story:

https://www.tundras.com/threads/ode-to-fgt-a-refresh-story.144308/page-12#post-3976150

 

My truck had 5100s with stock springs all around by the first owner. I replaced the fronts with 6112s, and it was a world of difference as far as body roll.

The rears I left, but the back end has always felt under damped, especially in rebound. I didn't know if the 5100s were worn out or if they just aren't tuned well vs other trucks I've had.. eventually drove a buddy's tundra with similar config and his rear 5100s were way better feeling.

Anyways, replaced the rears last night and I remembered rear shocks sometimes being a pain but holy hell I did not have fun. My truck isn't rusty but the access back there and then difficulty in cleaning the threads and getting that top nut off... I ended up cutting the studs this morning...

New 5100s are way better. Next time I'm going to juice the top nut with penetrant days in advance, and maybe even chase the threads if I can fit a tool in there. Definitely drop the spare tire too...

Anyways it's done now but it was a more frustrating job than LBJs, T-belt, UCAs, front coilovers, speakers, head unit, amp bypass, dynomat, heated seat install and wiring, you name it, it's my least favorite one so far. Probably doesn't help my that frame is coated in fluid film so it's a downright dirty job to get to those top nuts...

 

Oh also got a new windshield installed. Went with the well regarded mom and pop, and they seem to have done a good job, didn't make a mess or break scratch or stain anything.

Otherwise I'm just awaiting my parts sale stuff.. I ended up grabbing new bushings and the smaller swaybar from the early trucks. It was cheaper with free shipping vs any yard near me.

When I put an OR swaybar in my SR5 taco, I thought it was a nice change. That's 28mm vs 30mm.

This one will be 24mm vs 27mm, I hope it's a nice change. Will report back. I currently run no swaybar because I don't like the stiffness of the 27mm that comes on these trucks. But I'd rather run one for letting other people drive, slightly better cornering manners, and for emergency maneuvers.

I also picked up the 8 screws and grommets for the windshield side stripping. I already have the stuff for the cowl. Between the two locations that leak, I want to have all the parts since they've both been disturbed by the windshield replacement. Tech did say that all the rubber and grommets were cleaner than most trucks this old.

Lastly I picked up a 17" spare wheel with the sale and shipping it was actually competitive from Toyota. Now I can replace the original 265/70R16 with something safer and better sized.

 

I have very little if any rust and my rear shocks were totally locked on. I sawzalled them off.

 

It’s only a problem when you acknowledge it.

 

same