Traction Bar Installation On A Toyota Tacoma - Power to the Pavement

1. Per the instructions, we pre-assembled the bar off the truck, so we could understand how it all went together and also to set the adjustment dead center. Here, we installed the first part of the adjustment turnbuckle, which happens to be lefthand threads, so in this case its lefty-tighty, righty-loosey. We only threaded it in a few turns at this time.

2. Next, the second piece of the turnbuckle was threaded in a few turns, but this one has standard threads. If you are wondering why there are left and right threads on this turnbuckle, it's so the bar can be adjusted without unbolting it.

3. Here is a shot of the bar assembled; we also joined the two pieces that make up the front mount, because it can be sort of a puzzle and we really don't want to try and figure it out under the truck. Once you have figured it all out, jack up the truck and support it on stands. Make sure to put your stands under the axle tubes so the rear-end doesn't drop down.

4a. Next, we were going to dry-fit the front mount just to be on the safe side. The passenger-side carrier-bearing bolt will be used to support the bracket, so it had to come out.

5. The second piece was put into position, and the supplied bolts were loosely installed.

6. This is what it should look like installed on the truck. The bracket is designed to clamp against the crossmember with one of the bolts going through a factory hole, while the rest go around the outside. With that, it was removed and set-aside for now.

7. Moving rearward, Shaughn put the bracket up to the rearend third member, so he could figure out what studs needed to be replaced with the longer ones provided in the kit.

8. Once we knew what to take out (the four that run on the passenger side of the third member), he used the double-nut technique to remove the factory studs. The instructions tell you to drain the fluid from the diff, but we decided to just swap them out really fast, losing only a few drops of the oil.

9. Fluid will only run out of the two lower holes, so get the top ones in first, and when you are ready, put a few dabs of silicone on the studs and quickly swap them out. The double-nut technique was used to tighten them up.

10. The third member has a recessed area around all of the studs that must be filled with the provided washers, so the bracket has a flat surface to mount to.

11. The bracket can now be slipped over the studs, but it might require some persuasion from a hammer or just get some aggression out and push hard.

12. The kit comes with washers and Nylok nuts to hold all of the brackets, so you will not need any Loctite for the installation.

13. The upper stud was shrouded by the bracket and required some patience to slowly thread the nut down. A crow's-foot wrench will help out a lot, but we know not a lot of people have one so just get it out of the way first and then take a break.

14. After our break for a smoke and a drink, we crawled back under and tightened up the rest of the bolts with the impact.