All Entries Tagged With: "advice"

8 Tips for DIY Suspension Projects

For many people, the chance to work on their own truck is a thrill. Unfortunately, few of us come out of the gate knowing all of the ins and outs of these projects, and that can be inefficient at best and dangerous at worst. Plus, most of us don’t have a hydraulic lift and armory of air-tools at our disposal, which can make suspension work quite a brutal endeavor.

While working on your vehicle’s suspension system isn’t exactly complicated, it’s almost always inconvenient. Here are some tips that will save you time and heartache.

Here are several tips that you may find useful when you are working on your truck’s suspension.

How To Make Your Tundra’s Automatic Transmission Last

Automatic transmissions are generally quite reliable, but when they break, it’s not cheap. While noted transmission expert John Lombardo has said that Toyota transmissions are top-notch, nothing lasts forever.

Therefore, if there’s anything you can do to prolong the life of your transmission, you should do it. Right?

Here’s what you can do to make your Tundra transmission last as long as possible.

Tundra Tool Box Buying Tips

When Jason was at SEMA this year he was able to speak to several different representatives from truck tool box companies about the details of their various products. What emerged from the interviews was a series of interesting takes on what goes into making a solid, safe and secure tool box for the truck bed of your Toyota Tundra. With that information in mind, we’ve put together a brief tutorial to help you use this knowledge to your advantage when selecting a tool box of your own. Special thanks to the video assist from Orion Newman of Better Built tool boxes.

Materials and Design

One of Orion’s main recommendations was to choose a tool box built out of a single piece of aluminum, reducing the number of welds to a bare minimum. Obviously there is the need to fully weld each of the five lower pieces of the box to each other, but aside from that each “side” of the box should be cut from a single piece of metal. This dramatically improves the overall strength of the box.

Truck Bed Liners: 7 Tips For Buying The Right One

Bed liners might be the most popular truck accessory of all time. Truck owners love them for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is their role in protecting the shiny factory finish inside the truck bed. If you’re a new truck owner thinking about getting a bed liner, here are 7 truck bed liner buying tips for you:

Off-Road Tire Basics and Buyer’s Guide

As with most specialty tires, when you’re looking to purchase a set of off-road tires, a lot of the knowledge you might have about standard street tires simply won’t apply. The tread styles, construction and size of off-road tires are quite different than what most people are used to, and it’s helpful to take a quick look at the basics of off-road tire design before heading to the local tire and wheel shop to have a set installed.

Big tires on Todd's 2008 Tundra - featured last week.

Almost everyone is familiar with the look of off-road tires – tall and aggressive. Even tires that are meant to fit on rims as small as 15 inches can be 30 or 33 inches in height (visit TireRack.com to see exactly which tire sizes will fit on your Tundra). A common misconception with larger tires is that the giant sizes are meant to provide extra grip and traction. While there is an off-road benefit in a tall sidewall (especially when you make the tire pressure artificially low), the main benefit to over-sized tires is that they get your truck up in the air as much as possible and boost ground clearance.

When it comes to boosting traction, there are two aspects of off-road tire design to consider: tread type and tire construction.