Maxtrac Spindle Lift for 2nd Gen Prerunners

Great looking truck! Thanks for the info man! Did you have to use a driveshaft spacer, or carrier bearing drop?

 

Question for you guys.

Experiencing some loose steering/steering wander left and right on the road and am open to possible solutions.

Stearing was slightly loose with my 31.5" tires but recently put on 35"x12" tires and i guess it magnified my issues. Truck was aligned after spindle lift a year ago with the 31.5" tires. Tires were put on by Discount so should be properly pressurized and balanced. Am either thinking i need to take it back in to get alignment/camber checked or possibly install some AllPro or total chaos UCA's. (Those with this setup please let me know how this worked out for you)

My setup is

2006 Tacoma 2wd PreRunner
Maxtrac spindles & 2 inch leveling kit up front
AllPro Expedition leaf pack on rear
305/70R18 Cooper ST Maxx

 

You shouldnt need aftermarket UCA's unless you have Coilovers with some preload on em.


Probably go for an alignment i would think

 

Being an 06 are your tie rod ends original?
I have 35's & experience the same wandering feeling, I will be installing Light Racing uca's in about a week. I chose them because 1) price & 2) they're dual adjustable which allows the alignment to be fine tuned. Thay also allows camber to be set without messing up caster, normally if you adjust one it changes the other.
You can contact Marie @HeadStrongOff-Road when they return after New Years, that's who I ordered from. I'm not sure if they carry other brands of uca's.
Here's a couple of good threads I read while doing my research.
https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/ucas-and-alignment.40470/

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads...driving-report-with-light-racing-ucas.158795/

 

IIRC You start to feel wandering when your caster is too low. Usually you don't need uca's until you get to 3" & it doesn't matter if it's from a spacer or preloaded struts. It all has to do with the caster. Worn out parts like tie rod ends could cause a wandering/loose feeling I would think.

 

Correct me if I'm wrong but I was under the assumption that wider &/or more aggresive tires have a tendency to "monorail" on the road more due to a larger surface area for the road grooves to act on. I'm no engineer but I did stay at a Holiday Inn last night.

Obviously if the safety of you or your truck is at stake I would get it looked at by a front end shop ASAP.

 

In one of those thread I posted it says some about getting the caster to the ideal setting which I believe is 3° for 35's will take care of the wandering feeling. I had 35's on my old Ram & never experienced this wandering feeling.

 

Hey Spruce. Ya still running stock tie rod ends.. i guess that's something else to look at as well. My old tires were about 11" wide.. i do recall the steering being loose but now with the new tires it actually pulls left and right i'm guessing because the increase in width.

 

Qualifications seem legit.. lol. It would certainly seem that way given the issue magnified so much when the new tires were put on.

 

Yeah I'm still running stock tie rod ends & ball joints but my truck only has 66k miles. If yours are original & you mileage is up there I'd definitely check them out. Mine doesn't pull it feels more like it's floating kind of.
11 to 12.5 is that big of a change so I don't know if that would make a difference, I could be wrong though.

 

I think it's

the 6.5" kit comes with a 2" spacer 4 inch block in back, so not much different than your spacers now. Probably cheaper to buy the spindles and new 2" spacers for front since your rear already has 4". If you carry any load in back go with full Dakar which is more than 2" settled and add the extra dx29l leaf. And with this much include 3-4 degree shims which gives slight more as well.

 

I think its....?
The kit come with a 2.5" spacer btw. That's how they get 6.5

 

I'm not positive but I'd say no, otherwise Maxtrac would already be selling them. My guess is since 3" is the max for a 4x4 the hub being 4" lower would be too much angle for the axles.

 

x2 with what @SpruceTaco said. Im running 35's on maxtracs with my bilsteins at .85 with zero wandering.

I did however have an issue getting it aligned. Sears twice then TireKingdom 2 more times. Apparently 2nd gens have several variations for the specs depending on your specific model. TireKingdom ended up having one of their master techs align it the correct way with the specs specific to my tacoma using some info he grabbed off the door jam.

Might be something to mention when you take it back to get aligned. Could be causing the wandering feeling​

 

TA-DA
New Grill goes on this weekend ​

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Like spruce said. Most likely your tie rods. Also check sway bar links ( if your running them). Anything over 2" added to the spindle should be ran with a UCA. IMO. UCAs make the whole front end more solid. Let alone the caster benefits.

 

For those of you running the spindles, what spacers did you use? Aren't spacers dangerous? I don't what my wheel to snap off my truck while I'm doing 70+ down the interstate.... Also, does anyone have pics of a spindle lift with 1.25" spacers up front, and 2" spacers in rear???

 

I'm running Spidertrax 1.25 on the rear only. They're not dangerous if you use locate, torque them correctly & check torque every time you rotate your tires.
@Alfuh is running 2" on the front & rear but has fiberglass fenders & bedsides.

 

Dam. You may have OCD as bad as I do. That thing is clean!