mexellent
Supporting Vendor
So a customer of mine (Micah Stone) came in with a 2nd gen Sequoia. Initially I was dismissive of the platform but Micah was a stubborn and persistent son of a gun. So before I made any products for the truck we took the truck to our local off-road park and we put the truck through its paces.
Well, the truck ended up doing good. REALLY GOOD. A big concern was the size but we seemed to be able to take it anywhere we could take a 4Runner or a GX. Upon further research, we realized that the Sequoia is beefy. REALLY beefy.
So Micah, being obsessed with having the biggest, baddest rig out there put 35's on his truck. I was impressed that they fit so easily. Since we own a shop, we tend to go on the safe side. NOT MICAH. He wanted to put 37's on his truck. I begged him not to, but he did it anyway. And they fit. I don't know if I recommend 37's, but it can be done relatively easily. Like, a BMC and an alignment easily. There is a bit of rubbing on some of the hardware holding the trim at full flex, its not perfect but it can be done and in a street application it is very doable. (I'd personally stick to 35's if you're planning to wheel hard)
Micah, being the stubborn son of a gun that he is, BOUGHT a diff assembly from a Sequoia and brought it to me. Well, we do regears on Tundra's so we have a factory Tundra 10.5 ring gear just sitting around. As you can see, the Sequoia ring gear is close in size to the Tundra 10.5. Looks like the Sequoia has a 10in ring gear. It is definitely bigger than what is in the 200 series. My guess is since the 200 series is full time awd, the load on the diffs is split between the front and the rear axle. However, since the Sequoia is a part time system and available in 2WD, I guess it had to be bigger. (I am just theorizing here I have no factual evidence to back up my claim).
So, I took a sip of Micah's kool aid, and I started modeling the Sequoia and the Tundra carrier to see if we could retrofit a Tundra locker into a Sequoia.
Well it's like Toyota went out of their way to design the Tundra carrier so it would not, in any way, shape, or form, be adaptable into a Sequoia diff housing. But now... I was on a mission.
I picked up the phone and I started calling around. I called eaton first. They laughed at me. I called Nitro and they were cool but they thought I was crazy. Finally, I reached Auburn and... they listened. So I took the giant Sequoia diff housing and stuffed it in a box and send the 130lb package to Auburn.
So Tandem Offroad went ahead and invested some money for R&D and tooling. That was about 8 months ago. Fast forward to Today...
Well, the truck ended up doing good. REALLY GOOD. A big concern was the size but we seemed to be able to take it anywhere we could take a 4Runner or a GX. Upon further research, we realized that the Sequoia is beefy. REALLY beefy.
So Micah, being obsessed with having the biggest, baddest rig out there put 35's on his truck. I was impressed that they fit so easily. Since we own a shop, we tend to go on the safe side. NOT MICAH. He wanted to put 37's on his truck. I begged him not to, but he did it anyway. And they fit. I don't know if I recommend 37's, but it can be done relatively easily. Like, a BMC and an alignment easily. There is a bit of rubbing on some of the hardware holding the trim at full flex, its not perfect but it can be done and in a street application it is very doable. (I'd personally stick to 35's if you're planning to wheel hard)
Micah, being the stubborn son of a gun that he is, BOUGHT a diff assembly from a Sequoia and brought it to me. Well, we do regears on Tundra's so we have a factory Tundra 10.5 ring gear just sitting around. As you can see, the Sequoia ring gear is close in size to the Tundra 10.5. Looks like the Sequoia has a 10in ring gear. It is definitely bigger than what is in the 200 series. My guess is since the 200 series is full time awd, the load on the diffs is split between the front and the rear axle. However, since the Sequoia is a part time system and available in 2WD, I guess it had to be bigger. (I am just theorizing here I have no factual evidence to back up my claim).
So, I took a sip of Micah's kool aid, and I started modeling the Sequoia and the Tundra carrier to see if we could retrofit a Tundra locker into a Sequoia.
Well it's like Toyota went out of their way to design the Tundra carrier so it would not, in any way, shape, or form, be adaptable into a Sequoia diff housing. But now... I was on a mission.
I picked up the phone and I started calling around. I called eaton first. They laughed at me. I called Nitro and they were cool but they thought I was crazy. Finally, I reached Auburn and... they listened. So I took the giant Sequoia diff housing and stuffed it in a box and send the 130lb package to Auburn.
So Tandem Offroad went ahead and invested some money for R&D and tooling. That was about 8 months ago. Fast forward to Today...
