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Carseat Crawler

seebrookmeyer

seebrookmeyer

Well-known member
Joined
May 20, 2020
Member Number
510
Messages
75
Loc
San Jose, CA
By the time this thing is done, the girls will probably be out of carseats.

She is officially smog legal. Next up is to continue unfucking some of the goofy shit. Top priorities are to clean up electrical for some of the aftermarket shit and work on the cooling system. The electric radiator fans for the radiator and power steering cooler are getting power via the AC fan switch. They swapped the 10 amp fuse for a 25 amp fuse and just jammed a wire in the fuse block.

I'm pretty sure this thing was in a front end collision at some point. There is red paint showing through at various locations on the inside of the body panels on the passenger side and core support. They installed an aftermarket radiator, transmission cooler and power steering cooler. They are all stacked on top of each other and basically zipped tied in place. It runs a little hot which is no surprise considering each cooler is blocked by another cooler, driving around getting the monitors I had the scanner in reading live data. Coolant temps would hit 225 in stop and go traffic with the AC on, 205-210 without the AC, on a 95 degree day.

I need to figure out what the issue is with the elocker in the rear as it is not currently locking, front has an ARB, but need to install compressor and switches for that. I have an additional ARB 3rd so I'm on the hunt for a non elocker tacoma housing that can be swapped in so I'll have an ARB front and rear.

Current long term plan is cage, links, tons and forties

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Does the elocker light just flash?

Are you in 4low?

Did you try moving forward and turning Slightly?

The elockers can be a little temperamental. I put one into a 1990 4runner and hated it, but the stock one in my 96 4runner has been good. Arb is better though.

Also, fwiw, if you didn't know, the non elocker tacoma axles are an 8.4 3rd and not compatible with the common 8"
 
Nothing wildly exciting, but acquired a set of 05+ Super Duty Axles for this. Plan is to bench build these and collect other parts to hopefully reduce the down time when the actual swap takes place. On the hunt for a j shift, driver drop chain drive transfer case to use as a donor for an eco crawler if anyone has one they are looking to part with. been slim pickings on CL and FBMP.

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Been tinkering with this a bit to get it ready for Sand Hollow. Rear E locker was not functioning, started with verifying the PO had done the gray wire mod (allows the locker to be engaged in 2WD and 4HI). PO just wrapped the wire around a bolt so I put a ring terminal on it, but still did not have 12V at the rear end. Wires at the e locker hanging together by a few strands of copper and connector for the indicator switch was broken off. Ordered a new indicator switch and E locker harness. New harness had a different style connector at the frame, so spliced my frame side connector to the harness. Pulled the e locker motor out of the diff to test, I now had 12V, but the motor was seized up. Replaced the motor, added an e locker motor guard from Low Range and its now fully functional.

PO had bought 2 ARB diffs and an ARB compressor prior to me buying it. I dont think he realized he couldn't install an ARB in an e locker housing, so I have a spare for the front now. He installed the front diff but didnt get any farther than that. The wiring harness for the compressor was cut into multiple pieces, presumably to be removed from whatever vehicle it was previously install in, so ordered a new harness. Cut a simple mount to install the compressor in the engine bay. Probably should have used something thicker but it will do for now.

Center console had 2 rectangular holes with covers on them. PO was using one of the locations for the lights on the bumper. Pulled the cigarette lighters out in an attempt to just put the existing switches in those holes. Switches were smaller than the hole so cut the back of the lighter out and stuffed the switches in them. mounted the compressor and front locker switches in the rectangular holes. All this is "temporary" as the not to distant plan is to pull the interior to cage it.

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"Wheeled" with the family out at Sand Hollow. Overall, pleasantly surprised as I had pretty low expectations and assumed I was going to be dealing with issues all weekend. for the little that I wheeled it I had a good time and am glad I felt it out prior to ripping the whole thing apart. It is a very different animal than TB. The seat time I got help prioritize the to do's for this thing. First being gearing. I was hoping to have the eco crawler in before the trip but TB prep for JV got in the way of that.
Got home and torn the donor case down to assemble the reduction section of the eco crawler. That is the easy part of the process. I pulled the stock t case out of the truck last night and will begin tearing that down to install the new input shaft and get the entire assembly together. that should be only slightly more challenging.

The real challenge comes with stuffing this all back into the truck. My original thought was to buy or build a new crossmember that would also act as the lower frame side mounts for the eventual front link set up when I swap in the super duty axles. WFO makes a crossmember for this generation truck, but address that it only works with a stock case. If you are running duals, this crossmember needs to be reworked. Pat's Tacoma, Elbow Grease, has a reworked version of this crossmember. Martec Engineering makes a similar style crossmember for the 2nd gen tacoma's that supposedly works with duals. But based on some eyeball measurements, it would take a significant amount of rework to clear the front driveline. Both of these crossmembers mount to the stock transmission mount location, which is pretty far forward from the front output on the t case.
Pat's crossmember for reference.
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Martec crossmember for the 2nd gen
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The truck currently has the front range style t case crossmember on it. I have this same style on TB, I dont like it on there, and can't say it was any better to deal with on this one. That being said, the bulk of the eco crawler installs I have seen have been done with this crossmember. Cam Hayes, from polyP's reworked his, and also clocked the t case the full 16 degrees you are able to with the eco crawler. I wasn't planning to clock mine, but may try to clock it 6-10 degrees to make a little more clearance for a skid.
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The overall intent is to not have to rework this again once I do the axle swap so I am trying to be mindful of how I mount this on the first go around.
ecocrawler reduction assembly
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Stock t case, on the bench.
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Finished assembling the t case and eco crawler last night. Installed the triple sticks and cycled through the various gear selections to make sure everything was rotating and shifting smoothly. Next up is to mock this up under the truck and figure out my crossmember/ skid plate.
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Got the t case clocked at 10 degrees and the existing FROR crossmember mounted to the back of the case. the goal is to build something similar to what Jimmy built for the samurai. this will keep the crossmember itself above the frame rails and I shouldn't have to fight the exhaust much and gives me a few more options for building a skid plate.

I got the shifters installed in the cab to make sure everything shifts correctly, which it does not. the eco crawler itself is interfering with the transmission tail housing. there are some notes in the install manual that you might have to clearance the inside of the transmission if you had an electric shift t case with fully internal shift rails. I didnt have an electric shift t case but there is definitely still some interference. This will need to come out another 3-4 times before I'm done so not a huge deal, just another thing to take care of.

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That design is pretty slick, I didn't have enough room to do that with clocking it the full 16 degrees. Did you clearance the shift fork on the eco crawler? I had a electric shift case before and didn't have any issues with the tail housing interfering
 
I did clearance the shift fork. Everything shifted and rotated as expected on the bench. Issue showed up once it was installed in the truck.
 
seebrookmeyer said:
I did clearance the shift fork. Everything shifted and rotated as expected on the bench. Issue showed up once it was installed in the truck.
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Interesting, and the linkages aren't hitting up in the trans tunnel? I had to chop alot to get those to clear
 
seebrookmeyer said:
the eco crawler shifter doesnt have any linkage, its directly below the hole in the floor.
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it has heim joints connecting the triple shifters, that's what I mean by linkage. Check and make sure those aren't interfering with the body when you shift
 
I know what you mean. everything clears, you can feel the shift rail detent pop out and then hear a tap inside the case.
 
Progress has slowed on this over the past couple weeks but trying to carve some time out to get this done. cut off a portion of the slider mounts that where interfering with the frame side crossmember mount and got the mounts themselves mocked up. I believe these will need to shift toward the rear a bit more to give me more space for mounting the bushings on the crossmember. Lasers are cool and make things much easier.
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seebrookmeyer said:
Progress has slowed on this over the past couple weeks but trying to carve some time out to get this done. cut off a portion of the slider mounts that where interfering with the frame side crossmember mount and got the mounts themselves mocked up. I believe these will need to shift toward the rear a bit more to give me more space for mounting the bushings on the crossmember. Lasers are cool and make things much easier.
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Click to expand...
Thanks for the reminder that I really need to buy a better laser.
 
Made some good progress on the crossmember this weekend. Now that it is back out of the truck I cut the mounting plates off the existing FROR crossmember, add a section of plate to the driver side and get everything fully welded.

With the t case back on the bench, I dont have any issues shifting the eco crawler between high/ low. there isnt any interference with the transmission itself, so im thinking that the transmission needs to be in neutral to shift the eco crawler. I wasn't able to have the transmission in neutral previously cause I had the shifter disconnected. I want to get the plate portion of the crossmember cut down and mount it back up one last time and try shifting into neutral to verify that I can shift into all gears before a burn it all in.

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That design is slick! I couldn't get mine set up like that cause it tucked it to high into the trans tunnel and couldn't get the FROR bracket to slide back far enough to clear the output shaft.

Can confirm the trans has to be in neutral to shift the eco crawler, you can slide the plastic white square back to manually shift the auto lever if you ever run into any issues with it not wanting to shift
 
Finally finished the EcoCrawler install and got this back on the road. Ordered new drivelines for the front and rear from Tom Woods. Upgraded the rear to a one piece with 1350's. Pat needed a set of stock seats for Elbow Grease so I swapped mine out for a set of PRP Summit's that I picked up on Facebook. Was able to find an OEM replacement slider mount from PRP which probably saved me about 3 months worth of fabricating seat mounts. Also installed some amazon seat heaters to keep my bum warm.

Planning to just drive/ wheel this as if for a bit while continuing to rework and fine tune some of the little bullshit.

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Do those shifters hit you in the leg? Looks like they might need to be bent toward the center of the truck?
 
With the Tacoma out of the garage I'm taking advantage of some extra space to work on some shop projects. Been talking about building this bender/ tube roller frame for a few years. finally getting around to building it. I had found a set of plans online that were based on a JD2 model 3 and harbor freight roller. I have a model 32 and a swag tube roller, both are larger and mount a little different. Using the plans as a general guideline and adjusting accordingly. Bender side is mocked up, next up is to build the frame for the tube roller.

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