WATRD

I think I finally have all of the parts, so I am tearing into my suspension this weekend. When all is said and done, I should be about two-inches taller than I am now, axle wrap should be greatly reduced and I should have as much as 4-6 inches more flex in the rear and almost as much in the front.

I am custom building a leaf pack for the rear and reworking my TM/Coilover system in the front. My biggest fear at this point is increasing the flex to the point where I drop the slip-yoke We shall see

My flex is not too bad as is, but it can always be better, right??

Wish me luck, I'm going in...

mark from uk

good luck dude and dont forget to take the pics for the write up

Corey

iTrader: (1)

Good luck Rob!

Hey, you got that dag burn shower on yet?
Looking forward to that write-up.

I could have used one today
I spent a few hours freezing my rear off in 30 degree weather at 8:30 this morning washing the rig.

I get inside to take a nice hot shower and just as I'm getting ready to rince the soap & shampoo off, the maintenance guy cut the water to the building for 20 minutes.
I was ticked

If I had my on board shower setup installed, I would have finished out in the parking lot.
I bet that would have got a rise out of the neighbors :eek:

Let us know how your lift goes. Looking forward to hearing about it.

WATRD

No shower install yet... it's coming, but always seems to be in line behind other mods. This weekend it's the suspension and the shovel/axe rack, then... perhaps next weekend will be a shower weekend

tomus1000

anyone else really jealous?

Beowulf

Ditto ... awesome truck!

WATRD

No reason to be jealous guys... From what I have seen, your rigs are not exactly slouches That's the really cool thing about Toyota's, from mild to wild, they all rank pretty high on the "cool-o-meter". Besides, you buy the parts, I am just as happy to wrench on your rigs

Let's go wheeling!

WATRD

It is done

I am now riding on custom seven-leaf packs in the rear. I increased my available flex by almost four inches!!!

Now I am headed for the woods to go test it out...

Chat with you all tomorrow

Corey

iTrader: (1)

Cool...
Dang, we're gonna have to call ya the Night Ryder going out for a night run

WATRD

It's still too stiff in the front, but the back is amazing I ran a long section of the Naches and the flex is a beautiful thing. But, after that, rock lights will be going on this week

I alternated soft springs with stiffer springs in the pack, mostly just experimenting. My body roll was significantly reduced on road and the rear can get really twisted up now.

The install went almost without a hitch. While we were ripping the old suspension out, we decided to see what was limiting my flex. We first found that my shocks were too short and then after we took them off, we found that the e-brake cable was actually limiting me. We fabbed a drop bracket for the cable where it mounts onto the fuel tank hanger and replaced the shocks with longer RS9000's Now I am limited on the droop by the amount that the springs can flex downward, which turns out to be pretty considerable.

While we had the rear apart, we also decided to see how much flex I had before I dropped the slip yoke. It was pretty easy to accomplish with the axle floating freely, but once I got it all bolted back up, on full flex it extends to just where the splines begin to show. So, I shouldn't be able to drop it unexpectedly.

I think I might be a bit *ss high at this time, so I am going to play with various loading, aux tank full/empty combinations until I get one where fully loaded I am just about level and running close to empty I am slightly nose down. I have to admit that I cannot stress enough how valuable those coilovers up front have been during this process. As I fine tune the rear, I can crank the front up or down to suit. No pulling and guessing at spacers.

rowan

sounds awesome. 7 leafs? geezum. as far as the front flex problem... i have just one word for you. 3 letters really... SAS!!!!

i just noticed you have some bils for sale... how many miles on them? and how much might yuo want?

WATRD

Yes, yes, I know... the SAS will happen, it's just a while off yet...

The Bil's were on my truck for about 3k miles before I decided they were too stiff for my application and I yanked them for RS9000's.

Make me an offer I can't refuse...

WATRD

Okay, here's a couple of pics from the suspension tear down.

The first is the spring pack itself. The springs underlap the ones above them by about two inches all the way down the pack. My hope is this will help to reduce spring fatigue and sag. The top four leaves are pinned together with spring retainers so that they can still slip against each other, but will not splay out to the sides. Also in the shot is the corner of the aux. fuel tank and the end of the air tank.



The second is of the bracket we had to fab to drop the ebrake cable when we found it was hindering flex. Nothing fancy... You can see where the cable sheath has become frayed from getting twisted and bent. I think I caught this problem just in time. Also visible in the shot are the stainless brake lines and the onboard air tank.

WATRD

Okay, it's done. I spent some quality time with the front suspension this evening, leveling the truck out. It's a tad bit over 8" of total suspension lift now, probably closer to 9", but I left it ever so slightly nose down.

Tacoma's have a bit of a nose down attitude from the factory and I figured that way when the bed was stuffed full of camping gear, I would not go nose up for the pre-runner look.

Hopefully some pictures will get taken on Corey's "Fall Color's" / Snow run tomorrow

rowan

awesome. well i am not going to be lifting any tiem soon, but maybe in the future i will let you know about the bils. your truck looks realyl great!!!!!!

WATRD

Thanks for the kind words Hopefully the pictures will start to roll in from the run today

data

i envy your truck! :eek:

WATRD

Nah, I saw a 4Runner today that made me look like a poser. Most of the time it's what you do with your rig, not how it looks