[BattleWagon]

Ok, well I figured since it's been just over 4 years since I purchased my Taco (aka; The Battlewagon), it was time to start a thread on what I have done to her... It has probably been the slowest build ever. So I will try to gather and post some before and after pictures of the Mods..

Just a heads up, the order of the post are going to be totally random, due to the fact that I'm trying to pull photos from 10 different sources......Sooooo:stfu: and deal with it! :flipoff1:

Specs 09/05:
01 3.4 4x4 TRD DCab Tacoma
Purchased stock with 80k

Specs as of Now 04/10:
285*75*16 ProComp Xterrains w/ Black wheelers style wheels.
2.0 Fabtech Performance Coilovers
Camburg Upper Arms
ProComp AAL w/ 1.5" Downey Shackel
10" 5150's
Home Fab upper and Lower rear Shock Mounts.
Poly Steering Rack Bushings
EBC Rotors and Yellow Stuff Pads
9000lb Superwinch w/ 100 Cable & necessary accessories
Home Fab Front bumper
Home Fab Rear Bumper
Home Fab Sliders
Home Fab Spare Tire Mount
Home Fab/Ammo can tool box
Home Fab Front and Trany skid
Home Fab Swaybar Disconnects
Home Fab Co2 Mount with 20lb bottle
Home Fab/BudBuilt Trac Bar.
All-Pro Rear Diff cover
All-Pro TCase skid
All-Pro Elocker Skid
High Lift
CB & Ham
Hella 500's
Red Top Optima
2 other random sets of rock lights
K&N Filter Pak
Magnaflow exhaust



Future Mods.

-4.88's ARB front
-Taco Box with 2.28



Here is an old Poser Pick to hold you over until I post more..

 

[BattleWagon]

Front Brakes

Here are some pics of when i did the EBC swap... Originally I did the generic Brembo's and Autozone pads to get rid of my old and worn rotors... They held up for a while. But they too feel victim of the heavy ass taco and got warped. Then I upgraded to another set of after market Pads and rotors... EBC
They have been holding up so far..

Old Generic Brembo's

Then my Bro talked me into the SuperBlue... I Likey Super Stiff pedal..

 

[BattleWagon]

Old Trany

Here is the Planetary gear from my 1st tray that had seen better days...

OO yea I forgot to tell you that i'm on Transmission #2. My 1st one went after 99K. Then after paying $4,000 for the rebuild (long time ago before these transmissions were easily available) My Torque converter went at 115K. another $1200. but i now have a cooler w/ a fan. and its doing Great!!!!

 

[BattleWagon]

The Second set of Poly Bushings..

After my last Coral canyon run I noticed that I had a little more play in the wheel. But of corse i did not actually take a look at until a few days before my next wheeling trip.. To bad i found a larger problem the what i originally thought..

Then I found out that my Trany mount that was toast. No biggie so i ordered one and thought i would be cool for the trip.. Too bad they shipped the wrong one..!!! Then the only correct one I could find was 3days away and the SCTTORA Anza run was only 2Days away... Guess what happend....No anza Trip:banghead:

Just a little off..

 

[BattleWagon]

ReMounting Sliders and adding the Trac Bar..

A little history to fill you in... I made my sliders about 4 years ago, along with my front and rear bumper. The issue is, that sliders were not originally plated, they were just welded to the frame. So now I have cut them off, plating them and now remounting them... This way they will never be bent back up into my body... That shit was really annoying, rattled like a bitch after every trip..
Plus this gives me a reason to work on my rig...

Then recently I purchased a used Budbuilt trac bar off a board member... Great deal. But when I went to have a shop install the bar (because i want a 220V Welder to do the job). They did a half ass job, in my opinion. So now i have pulled the bar off and in the process of plating it. As well as reinforcing all the mounting locations.... Should be good t0 go for next week...

A few pics..

Cut off..

A little Clean up..

in the process of remounting..

About an inch of room..

A few Trac Bar pics..

Some tired tools....:welder::saw:

Well this time around I took my time and plated it with gussets, at least on one side for now. I will reinforce the others shortly..
I also got to work on plating the area between the new tracbar mount and the stock crossmember. still lots to do....

Boxing the Front Trac Bar mount

finally finished my sliders and moved on to finishing the trac bar. The original Trac bar mounts were a little weak in my opinion..


Original Rear Mount...

New Boxed and gusseted rear mount...

Painted and mounted.

All looks good except i had some clearance issues with the Trac bar and my Exhaust. Exhaust and a shock. and exhaust and rear leaf...

I have worked out the TB and exhaust as well as the exhaust and rear left contact issue. The new project is making new upper and lower shock mounts as well as adding the Ubolt Flip kit and Timbrens that I recently picked up.

 

[BattleWagon]

Front Skid Plate

Here are some Pics of my Skid plate.


Toyota's idea of a skidplate and mine

A little notching for clearenceing the a-arms

Mounted through a crossmember that i put in while building the front bumper

Dunnnn

 

[BattleWagon]

Update as of 4/27

Today after work I decide to pull the bed off. The reason being that i need to redo my upper and lower rear shock mounts and having the bed off makes it a lot easier....

mmmm... maybe a tube bed....

Rear Bumper mounts... Now that I have the bed off I can actually get some full pen on the top...
Just need to do a little cleaning...

The mounting plates just had a few passes on it when they were built...

 

[BattleWagon]

Upper Arms

Just found the pics from when I put the Camburg upper arms on. (Feb 10) so still a new upgrade...

 

[BattleWagon]

Slow working...

I was finally able to get some time to finishing the rear wiring and making one plate for the Passenger rear side frame rail. I still have to make the driver side plate, finishing welding, adding new 2x3 1/4 stock for upper shock mount, lower shock mounts, ubolt flip kit, bumpstops, new shocks, Co2 mount, patching the bed's old unused holes... and more and more.....

So still a lot of work before Cleg... Just need to bust ass this weekend...:


The work Shop..

And Table..

The towing hookup.. had to rewire it. the original owner did not do as clean of an installation as possible..

Soldered and heat wrapped...

1st plate, came out pretty clean...:saw::welder:

 

[BattleWagon]

Driver Side Plate..

Started and finished the driver side plate today after work......

 

[BattleWagon]

I finished the new upper crossmember and did the final fit with the new shocks... I may have over shoot the length just a little bit. I will have to do some flexing to test it out.. Also on another note, my damm Tracbar keeps giving me issues. So I might just end up removing it for the Cleg run and worry about it later... Here are some pics of the new set up..

 

[BattleWagon]

Here are a few shots of the finished "ReWork" that I was doing on the rear shock mounts, trac bar, and sliders... (only shots of the rear shocks..:flipoff4

Still plan on 4.88's in the very near future. already have one of the two... just keep going back and forth with either an ARB in the front or a lockright:dunno:.... mainly its money right now.:banghead:.. but its wheelin season is too..:driving::camping::driving:



And i just felt another earthquake while writing this....wholy shit...pretty good one.... 5.9... outside of Ocotillo Wells


Came out ok...

Plenty of room...

Wiring all cleaned up.. Looks a whole lot bettter than before

Tow ready.... Little easier to read now..

Rear Mount..

New ubolts

Bed on..

Welded up some old holes... also mounting location for new Co2 mount..

Perhaps its time to give this rusty can a coat of paint..

 

[BattleWagon]

Update

So just giving an update on what’s up... nothing special..

I Finished the rear shocks, UBolt flip kit twice:banghead:, bumpstops, Co2 Mount, seconday tool box and cooler tie downs, swaybar disconnects, and slider relocation.. The trac bar is on hiatus right now... There are issues that need to be addressed before running it.

When I got the Ubolt Flip kip it came with 05+ Ubolts. But I did not realize that there was an issue utile I was done.:kewl: So a few emails back and forth between Pepe at All Pro and all was taken care of...He hooked me up with the right set...:xozzy: What makes that super chill is that I did not get the 1st set from AllPro, directly.. They were used for "mock up" just before I got them...

Here is a pic of the wrong set.. can’t really tell from this angle that there was a gap between the Bolt and axel tube

Now the right ones.. Also had to tuck the exhaust up more

Happy with the ride height and the amount of up travel…

New Co2 mount.. Better than the old hose clamp I had in its place..

Swaybar disconnects…

Need a new CB antenna

All ready for SoCal Takeover.. New Tie downs for the secondary toolbox and cooler

Other than that i'm going to hold off until after Takeover for any more mods.. I still need to get my front 4.88's and ARB set up.. Already have the rear with 4.88s. So half the battle is over..

 

[BattleWagon]

As many of you know I have sold this rig a few months ago. So thanks to all that followed my build. She will be missed thats forsure. I have now moved on to another rig (87 4Runner) keep an eye out for a new thread...

Regards,
Drew