Wyatt's "AWSUMDC" 05 Toyota Tacoma Solid Axle Swap

[wyatt]

THE FIRST!
'05+ TOYOTA TACOMA SOLID AXLE SWAP!

So here we go.

This was the morning after I brought the truck home from Power Toyota in Irvine. It's an '05 Tacoma 4x4 sport double cab TRD edition. Thats my wifes '04 4Runner I bought for her brithday just 6 months prior. It's the sport model also with the 4.7 V8.


I then put 3,000 miles on it to get the first oil change out of the way and we then brought it into the shop. This is the picture that was on the front cover of the premere issue of 4wd toyota owner magazine.
For those of you that don't know him, thats my buisness partener, Jason DeMello. He sure did look happy holding that torch


But first we had to take a bunch of stuff off before the torch could be used.
Thats me on the jack and Jason on the seat.


The guy kneeling by Jason is the editor and owner of 4wd toyota owner magazine, David Zartman.


Got alot of the front suspension of now and pulling the front diff and stuff out.

[wyatt]

Here are some expensive, barely used parts just waiting for a new home. Sorry folks, they are all sold now.




A brand new truck ready for the torch. It was nice to work on a clean truck though.



And the cutting begins. There was no turning back now.



Getting close to grinder time. I hated that part.


Disgarded parts that are only good for scrap now.

[wyatt]

And here is the jewel that will relace all that IFS stuff. It's a Currie rock jock 60 that is high pinion with reverse cut 5.38 gears, an ARB locker, 35 spline axle's Ford F-450 knuckles, Wilwood 4 piston disc brakes, and Warn premium hubs.


Started Grinding. Hated it.


All ready to start plating the frame.


After we ground down the frame we set the axle under the truck to see how it fit.




We noticed a couple of things right away. The swaps on the '05 and later 4.0 trucks would be easier than the older Taco's. Heres why. The oil pan is already set back so you don't have to change the oil pan. The steering shaft doesn't come down straight like the older taco's so you don't have to change that angle either, and the frame kicks up about an inch and a half higher than the older Taco's not to mention that they are bigger in the front. This just cut down the amount of fabrication needed to do to do a swap on these trucks.

[wyatt]

Now we started plating the frame. We plated both the front and back of the frame as well as the top and bottom. Now we don't think that this is needed to do the top and bottom but we did't want any problems and felt it was cheap insurance.



The two plates at the front of the frame on the drivers side were made to incoporate the mounting for the new steering box. We used an early model IFS power steering box from a Toyota truck. These are what are normally used on these swaps.


This picture is here just to show you how big the axles and knuckles are on a Dana 60.


These are the shocks we used. They are Bilstein 9100 14" coilover shocks with remote reseviors. They are using Eibach dual rate springs. The joints are FK 1 1/4" hiem joints and Johny joints. All the bolts used in this build are either grade 8 or the super strong F-911 bolts. We didn't want anything to brake on this build.


The first set of tires we put on this truck were 40x17x13.50 Goodyear MTR Rock Spiders.


We then took the rear Toyota axle out and decided to go with something bigger.


We went with a Currie Heavy duty high pinion Dana 60 with 5.38 reverse cut gears, an ARB air locker, 35 spline axleshafts, Wilwood 4 piston disc brakes and we had it shaved for more grond clearence.


This picture gives you an idea of how much bigger the Dana 60 is over the Toyota axle. Having it shaved gave me more ground clearence than I had with the toy axle.





During the time we were grinding the frame the Glassworks fiberglass fenders came in and we put them on to check fitment and to see how much trimming needed to be done. I was surprised to find that they fit very well and needed very little triming.




I was very pleased at how well they fit.

[wyatt]

Got the steering box mocked up and mounted and it was time to do the steering shaft.


Doing this steering shaft was going to be different from others because it was going to be segmented. We had to go around the shock mounts because they were going to come up into the engine bay. We used one end from the Taco and another end from an earlier model toyota truck so it would mount to the steering box.


We also used some steering joints from Kartech along with some hiem joints to keep it in place.


And theres the segmented steering shaft. Works like a dream.


At the same time we cut into the engine bay and had to move the battery and fuse box. We knew we were ging to move the battery because we went with a dual Optima battery set up in the rear of the truck. I had a friend do all the electrical work at the fuse box and hooking up the Painless dual battery system with isolater. We put the extra fuse block and isolater under the rear seat.



Yes, that is a cucuit braker next to the isolater and fuse box. There is another one where the battery used to be.

I then had to have some new hose's made since the ends at the box were not the same any more. I took my parts to the hose man and he fixed me right up. In this picture, you can see the wired spring that is in the stock system. Alot of guys doing these swaps forget to put this back in their new hose and they get this weird kick back from time to time. I didn't want that so I had him put it back in my new hose.


t was now time to start building the links. These are the heart of the swap so they had to be strong, yet provide me with massive flex. We chose 2" x 1/4" thick dom tubing for the links. We then sleeved them to make them just that much stronger. The links ends are 1 1/4" hiem joint at the axle end and 2 1/2" johny joint at the frame end. Those sizes are miss leading since the hiem joint is measured at the threaded end and the johny joint is measured at the ball end. The hiem joint is alot bigger than the johny joint, and stronger too. The johny joint uses 9/16" bolts and the hiem joint with high misalignment spacers uses 5/8" bolts.



The lower links are 41" long from bolt hole to bolt hole, and the top link is 31" long. Yes, there are only three links and a panhard bar. This set up as proven to be the best for massive flex with no binding and still provides a good ride on the freeway at 70 + mph.

[wyatt]

After the links were done the front fenders came back from the paint shop and were put onto the truck. I think they look awesome.



At the same time we started making a front bumper for it. This bumper was only built for the shows and wasn't meant to be used off road.


We started mounting the links to the front axle. It wasn't really that hard because we spent about 20 hrs. on the computer figuring out where they would go, how long they would be and what effect any changes would have on anti squat, dive etc.

This is the lower link on the passenger side. It has already been attatched to the frame further back. The lower links locate the axle front to back while the top link controls the axle from rotating on itself.


This is the top link on the passenger side. We put the top link on the passenger side unlike others who put it on the drivers side. We did this because of room, the fact that now you can use any axle without modification, and it tracks really well.


Drivers side lower link.


In this picture, you can see the top and lower link and also the panhard bar that keeps the axle from moving from side to side.


This was the first panhard bar frame mount we made. We have since changed it.


We then cycled the axle to make sure there wasn't any binding before we made the shock mounts.



Then came time to make the shock mounts. Jason wanted something different. I don't really like them but they are strong as hell. I will change them at some point. You can see just how far into the engine bay we had to come.




We also mounted up the rear axle. This was a temporary mount as we had to get it ready for the Off Road Expo.


This was the night before the expo. I finally went home at 4:30am to get a little sleep before the show. We mounted both axles, wheels and tires and did the graphics all in the night before the expo.





On it's wheels again, after four months of work it's just three hours away from going to the Off Road Expo in Pomona, California.
It is far from beeing done though. It has no driveshafts, no brakes, the rear axle is not mounted correctly, and the bed is not completed yet. But it rolls!



Finally in it's place at the 2005 Off Road Expo!




While setting it up in the booth, we put the Acro HID lights onto the front bumper.

[wyatt]

After the show we then took the bed off to start our tube bed set up and to get the bed over to Glassworks so they can use it to make rear glass fenders for it.



After we got the bed off, it was time to get the correct springs and mount them. We used custom Deaver 63" long springs for this truck and they wouldn't fit in the stock postition so we needed to make some new rear spring hangers. These works of art are all Jason DeMello, and they work perfect.


The bar you see going across the top is there until we get the rear boxed in to make sure nothing moves on us. The dimped died piece you see will be the new rear cross bracket.


Now that the spring hangers are done it was time to finish boxing the rear of the frame. We kept some of the stock frame and just boxed it in and some of the frame is entirely DeMello built.


Here you can see the tire mount, thats the three tubes comin into one, the dual battery box mount which is the tray you see there and the rest of the boxed frame.




Here is a close up of the detailed work of one of our talented welders, Jordan. Nope, it wasn't me. I wish I could lay down a set of beads like that.


Here you can see the tube work taking shape while we were pre-testing some of it's flex. After this we decided we needed some different rear springs.

[wyatt]

It was now time to redo the exaust. We had to do this because when we changed the cross members, it was now in the way of the exsaust and we wanted the exaust tucked up in the frame anyway.




Here the exsaust is finished and is nowhere to be seen. It's al tucked up inside the frame wells and now it's out f harms way. Even the crossover pipe is up and out of the way.

[wyatt]

Ok. After we got the tube bed finished, it was time to do the rear fenders. We wanted to be able to take the rear fenders off for tough trails so we built frames that could be removed with just 4 bolts. Then we attatched the fiberglass to the frames.




To make all this work, we had to have extra lights that would work when the fenders were off. So I got some truck lights, an '05 Tacoma mini wirig harness for the rear lights and fabbed them together so that when the fenders come off, I unplug the stock rear lights and plug in the the truck lights and I'm all legal




In this picture you can see both the stck rear lightsand the custom lights added


Here is how the fenders are held onto the frames. It's probably the sturdiest way to hold the fenders on yet still easy enough to take them off the frame if need be.



Here is a picture we took to see just how much flex we had in the front. Thats 46" high from the ground to the bottom of the tire and the rear tires are still on the ground.

[wyatt]

This is Marlin's Shop in Fresn, Ca. and the little red truck is Marlins own Crawler. It has triple case's and has a crawl ratio of....... 1372to 1!!!!!

You can actually get out and walk faster than it crawls.


This is my truck on the rack where it stayed for awhile waiting to get it's new toy.


This is the stock transfer case.


Pulling the stock case out of the truck.


Here is the stock case with the drive shaft.


This is the inside of the crawler box. It has a set of 1to1 gears and another set of 2.28to 1 gears.



Here is the completed "Taco Box" before it is attatched to my transfer case. It has Marlin adapter plates on the front and rear of the reduction box to mate it to my transmission and my transfer case.


Here is the Crawler box and transfer case together which would be considered a double transfer case.


Putting the dual case in the truck.


The dual case bolted to the transmission.


Then Rocky built an entirely new crossmember/skid plate for the whole thing.




Nearly finished, it covers both transfer case's and the transmission.



Here it is all painted.





This is where the shift lever comes up through the floor. Looks like it came from the factory that way. It still has the electronic switch on the dash for the 4hi and 4lo and then I shift the crawler lever forward for ultimate low.


Because the crawler box lengthens the drive train, we had to lengthen the front drive shaft and shorten the rear shaft. This gave us the opportunity to go with a one piece shaft in the rear. Love it.


Dana 60's come with yokes instead of flanges like the Toyota's have but they are not as strong as the Toyota units so High angle drive line fixed that. They made special flanges that will bolt up to a Dana 60 and then a stronger toyota drive shaft can be used.



They made the flanges and driveshafts for the front too.



So there you have it. If I were to do just one mod to my ruck, it would be this one. It is amazing what you can do with these in your rig. Ever go down one of those steep hills and just slide down? With a crawler box, you just put it in ultra low, take your foot off the brake and slowly crawl down with all the control in the world. And the place you can go have just increased ten fold.