Tacocat is a palindrome

Oh Boy,,just when you least expect it. At least you are ok,

So the truck tried to kill me a couple times. Luckily it failed miserably. No one was injured. But it prompted me to do some research. Turns out the tires have all around terrible reviews with exceptionally poor wet weather performance. So I guess I did pretty well, all things considered.



I'm gonna try out Treadwrights BFG A/T knockoff in 31". See what happens.

Not sure what direction I'm going with the bumper yet, and it probably won't happen any time soon.

I'm not sure of the price on the TreadWrights but I love my General Grabber AT2s, which I consider to be previous-generation BFG AT knock-offs. The tread pattern is very similar to the BFGs but the AT2s run at least $30 cheaper per tire. They're also exceptional in snow and ice to the point where I haven't needed to use 4WD on road in either Jeep I've had them on in the three years I've owned them. I 'wheeled' the YJ with them for a season too and they're tough as nails. Only downside is that I run them on 16" Moabs, and tires for that rim size are only offered in load range E so they're stiff as boards (but that's also part of what makes them tough as nails). Mine are 245/75s and when they were new they measured about 30.5" so basically a 31" like you're looking to run.

Commencing the derailment of this build thread by inserting a tire opinion in 3...2...1...

They were 138 a piece shipped. One of the cheapest, but mildly aggressive, not-straight-up-road-tire I could find. BFG ATs were like over 200 a piece. Still. Like 40 years later or whatever. That's just insane.

That's a real good price. The BFGs are definitely overpriced for sure. The BFG redesign with side lugs most likely makes them a little more aggressive but still not worth that kind of money, especially only at 31".

As far as the bumper goes, I say go with anything besides a full tubular pre-runner. I think the Tacos look so goofy with those on them even when not in stock form.

Damnit. That was the way i was very slightly leaning. That or stock replacement using new parts is more or less in the same ballpark. A "plate" style winch bumper is considerably more money. And weight. Though I will agree it does have a more finished look over the tubular style. I dunno. Like I said, it won't be any time soon. The Jeep needs tires too, and better shocks. And somewhere in there I have to save money for a wedding too.

Truck sits noticeably a little bit taller. These tires are stiff as hell. I need to lower the pressure in them. Also I have a rubbing issue now. 1 step forward, two back.

They definitely give it a nice stance. I'm envious of how clean-looking that thing is too.

What pressure are you running them at? I decided to try running my AT2s up around 35 psi for a few months last winter (max is 80 ) after previously running them around 25 psi from the time I put them on and that pressure did TERRIBLE things to the tread both front and rear. And at that time I was only driving about 60 miles per week and I still managed to cup them something fierce. I went from Spring basically until this past December running them at 22 psi to try to fix the error, and luckily dropping them down like that did the trick and all is good now. 24-26 psi seems to be the sweet spot for these tires but a lot depends on vehicle weight and such. Even at 22 psi they were still like bricks.

I'm not sure where they're at right now. They were just mounted yesterday and I didn't have time last night to check. Plus the weather is crap so I just want to be inside. But in my experience tire shops usually put them at 32-34psi to send them out the door. It's probably somewhere in that neighborhood. I'm waiting for the ground to dry up so I can do some chalk testing, see where that takes me.

To your other point, it's clean until you really look at it. Although, to be fair, the body is straight and the underhood is great. Interior is solid, too, except now all the dog hair. But the bed (as shown on previous pages) is not so great, though at least now it doesn't have many holes through it. And the underside has some pretty nappy hardware. When I get around to replacing the shocks, for example, I'm not even going to attempt it with a wrench first. It'll be fruitless. Cutoff wheel is going to be the first line. Also, the gas tank skid partially exists. Most of it is rotted away. But the floors and the frame are all in great shape, so the important stuff is good. It's clean...ish.

Eh, those are all things that any regular Joe-shmo who sees it roll by won't even notice, so at worst it's a 20-footer. My Cherokee is the closest thing I've ever had to one of those and it's far closer to a 30-footer than a 20 so my envy stands. Throw a new gas tank skid on there, address what you need to underneath, and throw a tonneau cover on the bed and drive the thing until that little Toyota engine decides 400,000 miles is enough for one lifetime. Just please continue to update this because the name of this thread is one of the greatest things to happen to this forum and as such it deserves to be seen in the sidebar.

AHahahahahah will do!

Keep following I have an idea to implement someday that you will like.

CEL is on. I think it's the VSV for the evap can, so I got one on order. Not too exciting.

I also got this.





I got it primed, need some time and warm weather to get paint on it. Got my eye on a Tuff Stuff 12k winch with synth rope. Found out after I ordered that this bumper only has room for a hawse fairlead so...that kinda sucks but oh well.

Ryan popped over and gave me a hand mounting the bumper up



And we put the turn signals into the side marker housings



I'm very pleased.

Sometimes I feel like I'm getting worse at this whole wrenching thing. And maybe I am. I dunno. I've been at it for...shit decades now. So I'm adapting. I had a new skid plate to install, and I figured it's going to fight me, because literally everything does. So I thought to get ahead of the game, I'd spend a little time removing and reinstalling the bolts, just to make sure everything would come loose. Since I was waiting on a new strap for the gas tank anyways, this wouldn't set me back any.

I Blastered everything that I was going to be touching on Wednesday afternoon. I took out the three bolts on the leading edge of the assembly; little tight, but not bad. The rear two skid plate bolts go into the strap, which was getting replaced anyways so I figured not to bother - I can just throw it out as an assembly. So there's one bolt that holds the strap up to the frame (the other end is pinned through a loop in the strap and a hole in the frame), it looked pretty clean (no significant rust) and I had easy access to it. It goes into a welded nut on the frame. I Blastered it and put a wrench on it. It tried to twist the bracket that's welded to the frame. So I didn't push it, I just called it a night at that and put my tools away.

So Thursday after work "all" I had to do was remove one "easy" bolt, and one pin, then install new gear. I put a wrench onto the welded nut so that I could counteract the torque and limit the bending of the bracket. So that worked to that end but:



No matter how many times this happens to me (it's happened a LOT) it still sucks every time. It makes me angry because I can't understand WHY it happens so often. What am I doing wrong? If it was a once in a while thing, sure, I get it. We live in New England. But it's more of a once-in-every-project frequency. Usually more than once per project. It leads me to believe it's ME, not the vehicles.

ANYWAYS. I broke off the welded nut and through bolted the strap so it's not a huge deal. But yeah...the skid definitely needed replacing I'd say:

Believe me, it's not you it's new england.

Replaced a vacuum solenoid for EVAP. CEL is off again. It was weird, nothing broke!

Rob Cote wrote:It was weird, nothing broke!

Broken bolts is "a Jeep thing." Your project was on "a Toyota thing." Easy explanation (despite what happened to you last week, haha).

I was floored when every seat and side step mounting bolt came off the YJ this weekend without a single one snapping. Behold the greatness or air tools.

Hi I made a little license plate holster because the zip ties were trash

I could of sworn i've seen you driving around before.., anyways nice build you got going, jap metal rots very easily. I love the front bumper not to bulky at all , just the right size

DavidJ wrote:I could of sworn i've seen you driving around before.., anyways nice build you got going, jap metal rots very easily. I love the front bumper not to bulky at all , just the right size

So does US metal...just ask anyone driving around a TJ

Ya I have an affinity for iron oxide.

Nothing too crazy but I'm not dead!

I found a good price on a used-but-not-used skid plate on craigslist so I scooped that because as you can see the old one was toast. The aftermarket one only appears way bigger because it was sitting on the jack ready to go in in the picture.



Threw it in there with no issues:



And I got some really cheap lights on Amazon to try out. I don't love them but they're okay.



Nilight is the brand. It was like $16 for the pair or something. Like I said, super cheap. I'm mostly curious to see what a New England winter will do to them.

Building a pre runner?, Big difference in skid plates, looks good.

Hey Mark I just saw your comment. I think pre-runner is 2WD, right? I can never keep the nomenclature sorted. I'm not exactly sure where this is going, to be honest. I'll be keeping 4WD though.