Run to the Hills! - Jason's Completely Stalled Colorado GTFO Build

Well good news, if you don't have an elocker.

It uses the same diff. The 8.4. Very appealing to me since I don't have to regear again or get another rear arb. Just swap the diff over and done.

If you're doing a tundra rear may as well go full 3.5" kit. The tundra axle is 6" wide total. So with a 3.5" kit it's 1" narrower then then ring which is nice. Be 1" wider the other way around. Might look cool though.

The FROR kit also uses just normal coilovers. So you can buy extended travel coilover of your choice now and then get the kit later.

I'm a bit worried on cost as it'll need to run custom cv axles vs tundra cv axles. Still. I'm going to watch for it. Wouldn't mind it on my double cab..

 

This is all years away, but great info regardless.

A lot of the stuff I want to do up front is overkill for MT, but would set me up perfectly for LT down the road. Stuff like spindle, coil bucket, and cam tab gussets, for instance.

I'm running the e-locker, but I like the little bit of added strength of going to a 8.4 and an ARB. It would be super sweet to get that little bit of piece of mind and still have a selectable locker back there. It's just money, right?! What would you run for shocks and bumps with being able to outboard on that axle? Bypasses? Hydro or air bumps? Would you have to give up a bunch of bed space? Do you have to run glass bedsides?

As for the front, I kinda like the idea of the 3.5 kit with the Tundra CVs. Shit, there's just so much I don't know... Like what is the advantage of a secondary shock, specifically a bypass? The capability to use it as a bumpstop?

Haha! Sorry about all the questions! This stuff is super interesting.

 

All that stuff isn't over kill for MT. It's preventative. And a good idea.

I'm going ads of course haha I'll probably run a double by pass with resi. 2.5" body and either 12-14" long. I'll use custom hoops I'll make myself. If all works out, I won't be in the bed. May be a small notch but just for the top of the tubing to poke out of by the wheel well. And I'll add hydro bumps then tune it. If I can afford it I'll do triples out back.

For as wide as the tundra axle is..yes. You do sadly. I mean right now I have 2.25" BS on my 12.5" wide tires and about half sticks out damn near. The tundra axle is another 1.5" wider per side...

So yea rear glass is needed. Which is an issue for me due to my rear wraparound bumper..

Secondary shock takes load off the main shock. Most valve the coilover light and then do most of the tuning with the bypasses as it's easier and fast. And yes you can use the top zone of a triple as a bump zone. This all means less shock fade and much better tuning which makes for a much better ride.

 

What Monte said, he has good advise. This is his area of wheeling. Rear LT comes down to proper shock tuning and a quality spring pack that can deal with the weight you'll be carring. Figure out the kind of weight you'll be carring and having deaver build you a pack for your travel and weight is the way to go. I've seen people set up their shocks inside and outside of the frame. That will give you a lot of options on how to build supports for the shocks depending on shock towers or cages. The end goal comes down to what you really want to do with the truck. The performance is worth it in the long run.

 

I was going to stay SOA. Idk if I'll go SUA or not. Plenty of time to think about it...

 

It's a great truck - I always wanted a 3rd gen T4R, so I sold my 2nd gen Tacoma and went for it.

 

Yeah I hear ya. Rocks and SUA dont mix. I know a lot off people like it on LT but once your having to "climb" over rocks it can become an issue. Coming down isn't an issue, just scratching. I think Im going to go SUA with a currie style spring plate and extra steel on the axle housing to work as skids.

 

How Id do it. Still. Idk if I'll need too. Tuned well the SOA can perform well. Can't pull the travel numbers as SUA. But still be fun and work well.

 

Firewall Tubbing for 35s - Sealing and Finishing

Back to the sealing job today! Made some good progress and took quite a few pictures along the way, so here goes...

Yesterday I my focus was just to get primer down on the tub sheet metal so that I didn't have to clean that all again. You can see here that I only cleaned up that localized area. That was my starting point for today's work.

CLEANING:



I hit the entire outer surface of the inner fender with soap and water, then went over all of it with some air pressure to make sure that I didn't have any residual water in any of the tight spots. Then I wiped everything down with acetone in preparation for shooting the whole surface with self-etching primer.



Looks pretty decent at this point! Time to lay down a few coats of primer in preparation for the Herculiner, Flex Seal, and eventually paint. I ended up putting down three full coats of primer, so I'm feeling pretty good about what the end product is gonna look like. Hopefully it pays off in the way of sealing up well and being durable over the life of the truck.


PRIMER:





HERCULINER:

I let the primer sit for an hour or so and started pulling all of the tools together for applying the Herculiner. Because the liner basically has "chunks" of texture material in the base material and must be thoroughly mixed, I ran to the hardware store and grabbed a power mixer attachment. I also grabbed a respirator. This shit is NASTY. I really should have worn a respirator for the primer too, but oh well. When I do the passenger side, I'll make sure that happens.

From everything that I had read, you want to apply the liner in multiple thinner coats. When I saw just how thin it was, I knew why. It's actually quite runny. The good thing about that, though, is that you can really get it in all of the little crevices. And it also goes a LONG way. I did the entire under side with maybe a half cup of liner.

As directed, I started with the weld seam areas first and then finished with the rest of the area in the fender well. My goal is to try to get at least three total coats down. Four or five would be even better.

By the way, it's messy. Wear old clothes and gloves. Cover anything you don't want covered in this stuff. Better safe than sorry.

Drop cloths and tarp:




First coat down!





NEXT UP:

The plan is to get the rest of the bedliner down and then hit the area over and just beyond the welds with a coat of Flex Seal, just to indulge my OCD (great idea, @Robmonster117!). The cleaning and primer should make for good adhesion, the seam seal handles the brunt of the weather seal duties, and the bedliner and Flex Seal handle the rust prevention as well as acting as good insurance for overall weather sealing.


The rest of the inner fender well will get a few coats of black Rustoleum. The black should look good and hide any weird shit, like the BFH work I did toward the front to clear the tire at full stuff and lock. It will also meet up with the black paint that will eventually cover the radiator support area prior to mounting the new front bumper.

After that, the very last thing on this side will be using some rubber sheeting, rivets, and perhaps some aluminum strips for rigidity to close out the gaps left by the removal of the factory liners: inner fender to outer fender, inner fender to frame, and anywhere else that will need to keep mud and water out. After running without the factory liners and finding mud EVERYWHERE, this is a critical final step. Because cleaning all of that up was a giant pain in the ass!

 

What ya doing tomorrow? I think I can get away for a couple of hrs and swing by.

 

Good stuff again, Monte! Lots to think about.

I do a lot of solo wheeling, so that drives a lot of my tendency to overbuild things. She's gotta get me back home! And honestly, my girl has two kids, so I want to make sure that when she goes with me I get her back to them safe and sound.

Thanks, Ray! Glad you chimed in. I respect the hell out of your opinion!

It really does sound like LT might be the best end state for this truck. I don't want to huck it necessarily (I'm no Big Balls Ray!), but for a truck that will see a ton of freeway/highway/washboard/fire road stuff, and the occasional slow crawling, I like the options that it opens up for me. I'm sure that when it's all said and done; with all of the bells and whistles, it's right up there with SFA. But it does seem better suited to my "jack of all trades" overland focus.

Good points, fellas, and something I was really curious about. I know travel in general is a good thing, but is the extra travel associated with SUA more for bailing over whoops and hucking? Because I won't be doing much if any of that. Maybe a properly set up SOA is the way to go, understanding it's a compromise.

Shit, Ray! That would be awesome! I'm just going to be throwing down coats of bedliner on my firewall tub, so I'll be around most of the day. I am picking up some Quick Fists from another member, but he's only ten minutes away or so. If you're up for stopping by, PM me and I'll give you my address.

 

Hey @TMFF, I forgot to add you to this discussion! I'd love to hear what our resident shock guru thinks about this. Lots of good discussion and points so far. Thanks in advance!

 

Yeah Im headed out to harbor freight around noonish in westminster tomorrow. So I can swing by.

 

Yeah buddy! You driving the Ghost tomorrow?!

 

Yup, It's my DD so it goes everywhere.

 

SUA is a big investment and custom fab work. If you're hauling a lot of gear you'll want custom springs as mentioned by Ray and Deaver springs are about $900 a pop.

You loose frame height but gain lots of travel. Particularly up travel, gobs of it. Can pull 16-19" with SUA though vs 8-15" SOA. Getting SOA over 11" vertical travel is hard. But do able.

It can be made awesome though and can handle stuff amazing. Just takes tuning all around.

Again for my use, and I guess yours basically, it's not nessiscary I think. SOA setup can perform well enough for me and still flex awesome too. And to me is a better all around do all setup.


Also, get some wheeling buddies damn it! Having even just one guy with you who you trust has knowledge, tools, parts, and support to give is huge. You will need help at some point doing this. Haven't done a trip yet where at least a flat tire happened. It's nice to know people have your back and important I think if you're out in the middle of nowhere.

 

That all makes perfect sense. The good thing about all of this is that I have plenty of time to get up to speed, because it's gonna be a while before I drop this kind of money on this truck. Again, I'm just glad that I have all of you guys to ping about this stuff!

I hear you, man! I'm still relatively new to the area, but one of my good buddies drives a 2nd Gen and we go out once in awhile. My problem is that I like the solitude, and it's always easier to wrangle just my schedule instead of a bunch of other people's as well.

That said, I'd love to start meeting up with more of the local TW folks. Everyone I've interacted with so far has been good people.

 

Yea I hear the solitude part. That why you gotta find the guy that you can enjoy yourself with and be around for two weeks..haha can always do trips alone. More fun to share and reminisce with someone else though.

And a 2nd gen?! Pff. He won't have spare parts and you'll just end up fixing him anyways haha

 

LOL. Yea, it is a big project the first time around. Not rocket science, but definitely a big project.

Awesome to see a pic of the actual delivery of it! I did not take a full year for you LOL

Very happy for you man.

Sorry, I have not read your entire build thread so I might be responding to stuff that may have been talked about already. So sorry about the potential repeated points. Actually, just came across your build thread cause you tag me on it haha.

Anyway, I am not sure I would go LT for a rig I intend to use for camping and moderate trail use. It would be just overkill for that.

As you might know already, LT, if done right, can be just as expensive - if not more - than a SAS.

I have personally come across a good number of guys that did LT and then regretted it; saying they wish the would have gone the SAS route instead. Please don't be the next one

A SAS is actually the better option for an all purpose off road rig: front axle can be made really strong relatively easily, simpler axle and steering design, waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay easier to work on, more axle flex, etc. That's probably why Jeeps still come from factory with a solid axle up front. a solid axle is just really the best overall compromise for off road performance that does not require super high speed stuff - which is what the LT is for.

Now, you do not need to go all the way with 1 ton axles and 40" tires like a did. That's definitely more for rock crawling. If you use a D44 up front, you can keep your factory rear axle and run 35"-37" tires. With the crawl box you have it will be an amazing all purpose off road/camping rig.

About rear suspensions...leaf springs are easier to set up in theory. In real life, though, it takes a bit of work to make them work right. Leaf springs are temperamental, you have to wait until they settle; then the dance between springs being too stiff or too soft; etc. It can take a while to dial a rear suspension with leafs correctly.

Actually, a link suspension with coilovers is the way to go for both SAS or LT. Look at the Ultra 4 guys. The have LT up front with link suspensions in the rear.