WarRig build and BS - Caution, we do things most dont like and use foul language

[WarFabArmor]

Alright. Figured I should get the build thread moved over here. Seems to be a pretty standard build setup for most of the rigs, so I will come throw our trash panda into the mix so you all can laugh at the dumb shit we do with the truck.

Let me clarify, this isn’t a fancy build. We are very much function over form, and try to apply the KISS method as much as possible.
Decisions on this truck are made by my awesome wife as this is her baby.
I’ll give a little rundown on our back ground, then bring this up to date best I can as I dig up pics.
Stop in, say hi, talk trash, ask questions, whatever, all good here.

 

[WarFabArmor]

Alrighty then. A little back ground. Wife is a Tacoma girl through and through. She was in a 2006 prerunner she bought new when she moved from Vegas to Colorado.

The 2wd wasn’t going to work here, so we did some car shuffling and got her into the new truck, 2016 DCSB sr5. We went with the SR5 as she ultimately wanted me to build it up for her. She’s always like driving my projects and wanted one of her own, so we started basic and worked her up.
When I picked it up first of October 2015, 3 miles on it.

 

[WarFabArmor]

As for me I’ve only been in old hilux trucks, otherwise I’ve been a ‘gasp’ Jeep guy. Mostly because they make good throw away projects. From building armor, suspension, axles, cages, etc, we took a lot from boring to fun. I tend to wheel....aggressively, but not heavy with the throttle

 

[WarFabArmor]

Alright on to the truck.
Had to hand over the keys to her new truck.

So took the truck from denver, ran down to buddies shop in the springs and tossed on some 265/75/16 Duratracs.

First thing that had to go was the ugly front end. Picked up a mesh grill from
CustomCarGrills.

Truck ran through a boring season of dealing with a good snow year and making a trip out to Vegas for some random odds and ends.

 

[WarFabArmor]

Wife decided she wanted to go a little bigger and do some
More wheeling in her truck. We picked up a set of the procomp adjustable struts with an AAL rear. Also went to 285/75/16 toyo at2’s.

 

[WarFabArmor]

After moving across the state, we took the truck to Moab so she could wheel there for her first time and get used to wheeling on great traction trails.
Truck with mini squat towing the Honda on a dolly.

Loaded up on the trailer headed to Moab.

Met up with a buddy of mine, David, for some Tacoma Moab wheeling. We ran poison spider Mesa and hells revenge.

Wife celebrating her conquer of hells gate her first trip to Moab. She was nervous having seen Jeeps get tippy here but fortunately she trusted the longer wheelbase would help, and takes a spot well.

 

[WarFabArmor]

After that we tossed on a front lightbar, some morimoto fogs, and she picked up some wheels from our friend Jesse at 4WP Tampa - if you are needing something from 4wp give him a buzz, awesome dude and always done right by us. Tell him we sent ya (despite my efforts to get NON black wheels)

Miss the car sometimes. Was a 1 of 2 from factory. HOSS hardtop manual black leather and a few bolt ons from factory that other cars had to get ordered in and installed from SLP. This car had the stuff as factory options and only 1 other car came that way off showroom. Was fun, but pointless for us to own.

 

[WarFabArmor]

So now that the wife was getting serious about wheeling a littl harder, I started to put together some parts to start testing to see what we liked and worked well.
Arguable the best thing we did was the hitch skid. Anyone who has been to Moab with a Tacoma knows the sounds of your hitch draggin absolutely everywhere.
Other than that I tossed on several different slider designs. Changing mounting brackets, spreaders (tube vs plate ), as well as different angles and lengths for how far we wanted them to stick out.
To do some testing we ran rimrocker from Montrose to Moab and did som wheeling. Taking a non locked sr5 with at’s up Moab rim was fun on a few spots. Had to take a strap up the waterfall on gold bar, just too much ass drag and not enough bite to climb up. Otherwise the truck worked real well, even walking right through pickle trail. Onto the pics, even some Jeep ones.

 

[WarFabArmor]

After Moab was a big year down, amidst some runs through Ouray trails (local to us) with some of our local pals.
First we had to tackle to big issue we had in Moab. Trans temp.
While we know Moab is hot in summer and a July trip can be torture dubbed Oven runs, the trans in the truck was not having it. With barely over 40k, the trans fluid was getting hot enough to shut off the truck in safety mode, and the fluid was junk. Despite trying to pay for it, non of my local Toyota dealers would service the ‘lifetime’ trans fluid and do a swap. (Some folks have been having better luck lately so going to try again before summer) so I did a few drain and fills until the fluid cleaned up a good bit. Also added in an additional trans cooler and a fan. Picked up a scan gauge as well to monitor temps and keep an eye on things. Never had an issue after, but we will see this summer. Tossed in a ubolt flip kit same time I built a bastard pack leaf pack for rear, as the factories were sagging pretty bad.

 

[WarFabArmor]

Just some Ouray shots with our friend Wes in his awesome lil MJ

 

[WarFabArmor]

ok, few quick changes. We are both originally from Vegas, where desert racing and nights in the dunes are a whole different animal. Wanting some of that flavor, she wanted a whip for the truck.

Then we started messing with and testing out different bumper setups to see what worked and what didnt, as well as dialing in the sliders and cab mount tie in.

 

[WarFabArmor]

So we’ve been piling parts for the next level of the build. Wife came to me and was like “soooo uhhh, how much bigger can I go?” I laughed as she showed me a pic of bigmikes Tacoma on 40’s and smiled at me. We agreed on 37’s and she wanted a rear locker. She didn’t want both for now because she wants to learn rear vs front vs both (my Jeep has both and just walks up stuff but she hasn’t learned why front works where or why rear works where. Plannis next year after she has this season rear locked, to get both diffs with arb’s.

I picked up a 3rd with a fresh build on it for a steal. While I absolutely love spools for the wheeling I do, I wasn’t stoked for it in the Tacoma. But for 400 delivered for the new 5.29’s and locker, I had to snag it.
We were back and forth between nitro and ecgs for a complete front. Both have been having issues it appeared, but ultimately decided on ecgs.
Well we are hoping they can make things right in time to break in the gears before ejs. They sent me a diff in the time frame they specified online (3weeks). The diff was getting parts swapped between (stab shaft and such) when it was found the housing they sent was missing a bung for 4wd sensor. So while the diff is in (at their approval) the truck has no 4wd. Upon shifting the truck sends an error message and clicks back out of 4. Any attempt to go into low range results in beeping and a flashing error message on dash. So far ECGS has been great to deal with. My corrected diff was in mail to me following day, just a matter of getting scheduled in time to get the new front swapped in. I’ll update how things went and how it was working with them when it’s all over.

We also snagged some Nitto trail grapplers. 37/12.5/17 they give a great look to the truck and really tie the old school tube front together. With the 5.29’s in it feels great on the road. Anxious to see how it is in low range.

Ok. Here comes the questions and hate for the 37’s. Lol.
You’ll have to understand where we live and wheel. It’s very controlled and slow wheeling. Definitely rock crawling vs dirt road running and jumps. We don’t load a lot of gear. Etc. it’s a toy truck and treated as such. For trimming we are looking at pushing front axle forward roughly 1-1.5”. We’ve been messing with upper and lower arms to get to it but haven’t found the right combination to get what we want and retain factory knuckle. We haven’t given up on the factory knuckle just yet, but we will see how things progress. The extra wheelbase is t ideal, but the room up front in more usable than into the cab. For now we rub at 80% turn when stuffed. Which is fine, to save the cv’s full lock isn’t ideal anyway on obstacles. See how it works once our new diff is here and in.
We trimmed at the fender flare line and cut the cab mount back pretty far (as much as possible without cutting any bolts or killing the mount entirely. ).
We are working on a HC rear to go on and relocating the spare to the bed. Parts and pieces, pieces and parts.

 

[WarFabArmor]

Just some rando's - man I miss that chevy.....

 

[WarFabArmor]

Little shakedown on a local trail of ours. Also showing the difference between pinned and unpinned trans tstat. Did really well on the initial lack of chopped set up. Needed some serious more trimming though.

 

[WarFabArmor]

Oi! What a badass trip for EJS. Pickle, Moab rim, Hell’s, TOTW. Potato salad hill. Felt good to have the truck out there and be issue less. I did tag the driveshaft a little bit so have to check it for any dings. It’s also very much time to design and build skids now, the underside got some loving. Front bumper and sliders took a heavy dose of abuse and held up great. I’ll eventually get pics of all the dings and scrapes on stuff. For now I’m uploading pics from the camera.
PSH was a blast. Hung out with Zane and George and got talked into taking the Tacoma up a few times. Was a bit busy over there. Truck smokes pretty bad when up so high on the nose.
Anyway. Here’s some pics off the ol phone to hold ya over. Last pic is for fuel. I add roughly 20% for correction (tire size and difference calculated comes out to roughly that.). Killed fuel mileage on trip him.

 

[WarFabArmor]

Just some more local testing on Calamity. Some trail damage by Ash, and some others.

 

[WarFabArmor]

Next was making the HC rear bumper, getting it tested out and demo'd, obviously with some wheeling.

We headed off to Old Chinamen Gulch, also known as OCG or Chinamens. Trail is rated pretty moderate, but was Ash's first time on it, as well as a few other Taco guys we had with us. We hit some heavy traffic due to a flop and ended up catchin some heavy rain and even a little hail. Unfortunately it was right at we were headed up the wash part of the trail so things go nice and slick and muddy for the middle section of the trail. Overall was a real fun day.

My buddy Led in his well built TJR taking on 'rockpile'

After some discussion we decided Ash should give it a go. IFS, no front locker, and schoolbus wheelbase made things fun, but other than needing a little shove on the rear bumper, she did great and went right through, testing the crap out of the sliders and rear bumper.

We love stuff like this, because its a great chance to really see what works and what doesn't. We run everything on this truck in HREW. We want to make sure that we know what will fail, if anything does. So far I think everything has taken the beatings just fine.

 

[WarFabArmor]

Next trip was just me and some big tire friends up on wheeler lake, trying to break trail. We got shut down about halfway due to some still deep snow. Love this trail, Hoping to get ash up there this year as shes never been and the lake up top is gorgeous..

Pups loved it up there in the XJ

 

[WarFabArmor]

More moab.....

 

[WarFabArmor]

Took a quick ride down to Ouray yesterday. Met with another local friend of ours and we helped Blake Wilkey and his crew, we both know the trails, and he is a good rep for the group that oversees those trails and the rules of the area, so was a good combo to keep things in the lines and still have fun. They are travelling filming for a show and were wanting to get some footage there, but had never been, barely even knew where to go. Ultimately, for the content they wanted with considerations for traffic and access, we decided Imogene was the go to route. We were able to snag some great shots, and even got their $300 2wd jeep up to the summit as well. Was fun being able to help them out, do some filming with the truck, and just be able to guide them to shots that would be awesome once edited together. Cant wait to see what they do with everything. (sorry about video quality, IG/youtube decided to dumb them down apparently, sorry)
ETA:
show is currently on Youtube under Shreddy lyfe. It is supposed to be on hulu but they are dropping episodes until hulu starts to air them.

 

[WarFabArmor]

OHHHH man more filming work with the Shreddy crew.
After leaving our place Tuesday morning the guys had a rough day on the road chasing problem left and right with the jeep on the way to moab. After talking to Brian and Blake, we decided to head out the following morning and give them another hand with an area we knew pretty well. So I spent the night loading gear, getting tools and the cooler together, and prepping the truck for the trip. After 2 hours of sleep, I was up, fed the poopers, and hit the road just before 5am. We killed it with fuel all the way to fruita, getting well over 20mpg. Then we hit the 80mph area and we tanked, dropping our average down to about 16 for the trip (ouch!)
We headed out to Hells/PSH for some quick 'rock crawling' filming on some iconic Moab sites, as well as some downtown footage. WE then headed over to Behind the Rocks to catch some sand dunage. We filmed there for quite a bit, lots of speed and jumps. They had the wife hop in with Blake and filmed her reactions and excitement as they were bombing around. Although after about 4 hours of it, she feels like she was in a bad car wreck today. Boys are off in Sand Hollow today with Rich Klein and then head to vegas to finish things up. Got them hooked up with Rich of Trail Hero (big thanks to him for happily guiding the guys around) for some great spots to film the car, boat, and another car that joined them there. Anyway, heres what you care about.

 

[WarFabArmor]

Again, more moab shit, the production rear, and fronts, plus a few rando's from ouray. The first climb is the big waterfall on PSM. No front locker makes it a tough climb, she did good though - about that bumper smash though, haha

 

[WarFabArmor]

Then there was the Rocktober Therapy event in, you guessed it, MOAB! haha. Met some rad folks, they did some cool as photos, some of which are below. Was a fun time. No breakage, but gave me the push to really focus on the suspension and handling of the truck for a faster pace.

Their edit:

 

[WarFabArmor]

So I have been on a bit of a collection spree as of late. Collecting parts and pieces to correct the poor suspension weve left on this thing, still the same set up since we first went with 285-70-16 toyo at!

Ultimately I was not going to pay $1500 for a set of coilovers with 5" of throw, sorry, nuh uh, not happening. And on the rear, I couldnt justify the money into leaf springs, hammer hangers, bracing,shackles, better shocks, just for it to still be on leaf springs. Now, I was on budget to link the rear end, however Accutune, or anyone else, could not get ahold of the coilovers I wanted. I even looked at the king options, still no dice. SoI had to opt for the 2.5 resis and that doubled my coilover price - ouch. ( I wanted 2.0's as the ass of the truck is 2k even, and thats with the 600lb or so of unsprung weight. We just dont weigh enough or move fast enough to need more. But it is what it is)

So, up front I am doing LSK UCA braces, FOA 2.0 resi 8" coilovers w 700# spring, and building my own uniball uppers using tmr bushings and uniball. Despite not having broken any, I am replacing all steering components, and tossing in some poly steering rack bushings. Ash and I have already decided if we blow up this rack we are just going to a full hydro setup and going to be done playing around with making crap steering racks work. We will see what this season holds.

On the rear, I wanted to do a link setup, but Ash swore she didnt want a fuel cell, or to move the tank into the bed. (for those that havent run a fuel cell, they are great in most senses, but they can be a pain to not get vapor lock, and have issues running in the heat. Considering most of our wheeling season is extremely warm, she wasnt up for it. So I had to settle with a 3link/panhard setup. I had seen what RSG did with big mikes, and that atrocity that is rock slayer, and neither were acceptable. For a show truck, sure. But for legit hard wheeling in the rocks and ledges, where they all mount their lowers frame side, is where we already drag frame a ton. Adding a 3" rock magnet down there wouldnt help us at all, it really would screw us for the most part. So I am outboarding the lower links on the frame, giving me a roughly 37.5" lower link length. For now I will be just doing 1.25 heims and DOM links until I dial in the setup I want, thenI will likely go Summit joints and ali links from her as well. Really focusing on my AS/RC/RAnumbers in the calculator, but really, it should be great. I will be boxing the bed in with tube and tying a lot of things together to stiffen up the rear. Going Fox 2.5x16 resi rears pretuned by accutune for the setup I will be running. Should be here tomorrow actually. Brackets are a mix of artec and wilkey works brackets. New brakelines front and back, as well as DCLB parking cables so they are long enough to route out of the way and not snag.

 

[WarFabArmor]

Other changes included working with Matt over at Goat truck (great guy and awesome product) to get a setup for the truck.

 

[WarFabArmor]

As well as a wheel and tire change up.
I really liked the nittos, they were great on trail, but they disappeared quickly and were stupid heavy. So we went back to the MT2 by procomp. Ran them on the XJ, buggy, and have a few friends that run them on their buggies still, they are a great tire once you get into the 37/40 options. They are lighter than the Nitto as well, and that would help us as we were going to a heavier wheel in a beadlock.
We ended up doing some work for Wheelpros, who has a corporate office based in denver. Part of the gig for us building them gear for their office tacoma, was some wheels for us. The "crawl" version of the wheels is super sexy, but the extra width and offset made them impractical for the tacoma. So we went with the "desert" variant of the Grande beadlock. I won this time and talked Ash into doing the Machined finish, and man does it look great. The new tires and beadlocks are almost exact weight as the worn nitto and simlock wheels. plus theMT2 in this setup come in at a true 37"
Oh , and the dope ass synthetic line snatch block. plus a BNB sticker I picked up for Ash.

 

[WarFabArmor]

Thats it, as of 9-mar thats up to date. say hi, laugh, ask questions, talk shit, all good here. It's the internet so we dont take anything personal. We tend to be matter of fact and talk trash (we grew up on Pirate), and wheel much in the same way. This year should be an awesome year of changes, testing, and pushing the limits.

 

[Tyler]

Thats it, as of 9-mar thats up to date. say hi, laugh, ask questions, talk shit, all good here. It's the internet so we dont take anything personal. We tend to be matter of fact and talk trash (we grew up on Pirate), and wheel much in the same way. This year should be an awesome year of changes, testing, and pushing the limits.

I love this thread, glad you finally made one. I’m obviously taking a break from any serious wheeling as I go into overland mode and travel the continent for a few years. But when my “trip” is done I very much intend to switch the truck to crawler mode. I want to do a SAS as soon as I buy a house. I’m sure you can probably tell me why a SAS on these trucks is a stupid idea, and I would like to hear that advice, but I feel like I need to do it regardless. I won’t be satisfied in my deathbed if I never do it, lol. And when I do I want to take on the hardest trails in the country until the truck falls apart.

Anyway, major props to wives who wheel. Mine has done some cool shit I’m my Taco and her Jeep but she still does get nervous. You guys are inspiring though.

 

[Tacomadad18]

Super awesome thread. Love the truck, always have. Truck sure has transformed!

 

[WarFabArmor]

I love this thread, glad you finally made one. I’m obviously taking a break from any serious wheeling as I go into overland mode and travel the continent for a few years. But when my “trip” is done I very much intend to switch the truck to crawler mode. I want to do a SAS as soon as I buy a house. I’m sure you can probably tell me why a SAS on these trucks is a stupid idea, and I would like to hear that advice, but I feel like I need to do it regardless. I won’t be satisfied in my deathbed if I never do it, lol. And when I do I want to take on the hardest trails in the country until the truck falls apart.

Anyway, major props to wives who wheel. Mine has done some cool shit I’m my Taco and her Jeep but she still does get nervous. You guys are inspiring though.

I'd love to SAS. Issue comes in to keeping track control with wheel speed sensors and being able to calibrate. Speedo, 4wd shift, and so much more is run off those sensors factory. Going sas without those really limits truck computing and doesn't help the process at all. Biggest problem aside from.achool bus wheelbase is the overall size. These things are just so damn big for certain trails. It's good fun though.