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Mods and Maintenance: Drivetrain

New Diamond Axle Housing from Front Range Off Road

It's been a minute since I happened to glance under my truck on the way home from a trip and noticed that the rear axle housing was cracked and leaking at the passenger side leaf perch. Luckily though, the sinking feeling I had at the time has faded, no doubt due to the smashing success of the patch I installed - following Ryan's @Reh5108 lead - which has been trouble-free ever since. Of course, the only reason I installed the patch was because it was going to take a long time - six weeks was the estimate - to get…

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Fixing up the Tacoma for Vegas, Baby

May 22, 2023 With the Tacoma living in Las Vegas now, it's harder to perform various maintenance tasks as they pop up and between trips. As such, with a few general maintenance issues - oil changes, tire rotations, etc. - and a few items in recent Rig Reviews needing attention, I drove the truck home from the Three Days of R&R trip for a little TLC (Tacoma Loving Care). On my list for a warm spring day were the following tasks: Routine maintenance - Change the oil, Rotate the tires Grease drive train. Check the new SPC UCAs for play in…

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Shop Day at Zane's | Timing Belt and Clutch Replacement

I guess you can say that I'm a little gun-shy after having two trips to Death Valley cut short due to mechanical issues. The first one - when my transfer case started making noise - was a surprise, but the second trip - when the main leaf of my leaf pack broke - was something I could have easily avoided with preventative maintenance. And so, I think it's time to stop putting off a bit more preventative maintenance work that I've been procrastinating: changing my timing belt (and the other associated components) and replacing my clutch. I've done the timing…

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New (to me) Transfer Case

TL;DR - the new transfer case seems to be working great so far. After the input shaft bearing in my transfer case gave out on a trip to Death Valley, I quickly picked up a new (to me) transfer case from a local junkyard and swapped it into the Tacoma. My priority - of course - was to get back out on the trail as quickly as possible. So far - some 5500 miles later, seems thing to be really great. As in, the replacement transfer case seems to be in much better shape than mine had been for the…

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Swapping the Transfer Case

By and large, the Tacoma has performed spectacularly over the 21 years since I drove it off the lot. With regular maintenance, I've really only had two or three failures - none of those failures requiring anything more than an early drive home - over the 200,000 miles it has travelled! I suppose I can't always expect everything to work perfectly, and on my Back for More trip to Death Valley, I had a bad-enough-to-head-home-immediately failure of the transfer case. But, the story starts much, much earlier... Background It was in November 2018 - while on a trip to the…

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On the Road Again - Temporarily Patching the Rear Axle Housing

It seems like it's been a lot longer, but it was only a couple of weeks ago that I noticed my rear axle housing was leaking at the passenger side leaf spring perch. On my way home from surveying the Aftermath of the Creek and Dixie Fires, I knew that this was not some maintenance item that I could just put off until there were no trips on the horizon. Nope, this is something that I needed to deal with right away. After several fruitful discussions with my buddies on TacomaWorld, I immediately set about lining up the long-term fix…

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A Front Diff Drain (and Fill) Plug that Doesn't Suck

Anyone who owns a 4WD Toyota and has dealt with the drain and fill plugs on the IFS front diff knows that they generally suck. They use either a 10mm or 12mm hex key, and that can be a problem for many reasons: The recess that the key fits into can easily get filled up with crud. If the recess isn't cleaned and the hex key doesn't fully seat, it's easy to round over. Hex key's aren't generally all that long, so it's hard to get the leverage needed to loosen the plugs. The plugs can get extremely tight, making…

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Clean Energy for My Tacoma - Time for a Fuel Filter

Well, the Tacoma got a new fuel filter today. It's a part I've had sitting around for maybe 18 months now or so, just taking up room in the garage. Because, who needs to install a new filter when the one that's on there seems to be working just fine. Right? Well, it finally dawned on me why they call it preventative maintenance, and I figured I might as well get it done. Interested in doing this yourself? Here is a handy little how-to that lists the tools and parts you'll need: How-to: Replace the Fuel Filter in a 96-04…

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