The Does Everything, but Sucks at Everything Build

There was some interference on the front cam tab areas that has to be removed on a 2013, not sure about other years, but you won't be able to just slap them on and weld.

After being welded on and painted


I don't know if this job would be worth it to just do it just by itself, you are easily looking at more than a day to pull everything apart, weld everything, paint it, let the paint dry, and reinstall everything. Its quite a bit of work if you're doing it yourself.

 

sub'd!

 

Spindle gussets.

After pulling the spindle off it has to be stripped, have to pull off the sensor, and seal and clean it up

After stripping it, cleaning it up and fitting the gussets, you have to install it on the UCA and tack it in place. Used the cheap-asses fire blanket to protect the steering boots. The paper towel was stuffed in the front differential to stop any grinding dust, dirt, sand or whatever while I was working on the suspension

After tacking in place and removing they need to be welded up, the directions say to go slow to prevent warping the spindle and gusset, I did a line on each, then worked on the cam tab gussets and worked my way back and forth on different projects to keep from overheating them. I'm pretty damn far from the best MIG welder and the frequent starts and stops came out with some ugly ass welds.

 

Did a couple dumb ass things during all the work, first being I was waiting on parts from Toyota for the rear differential, I went ahead and sent back the 3rd member to ECGS because there is a deadline on core returns. When I finally got the part from Toyota and installed the rebuilt 3rd member I found an empty hole. Turned out it is the locker engagement sensor. I had them overnight a replacement sensor but it turned out to be bad, which I still have to bring up with them.

Another dumbass thing I did was strip one of the rear cam bolts, it doesn't take much effort to strip these, so if you mess around with them, be careful because they are NOT cheap. I think I got these off ebay for like $20ish for the OEM bolt and nut.

 

looks good!

 

Bushwacker fender flares

Things I used for this:
40ish x 5/16-18 x 1-1/2" Button Head Socket Cap Screws
100ish x 5/16" Nylon Flat Washers .343" I.D. .062" Thick
40ish x 5/16-18 Nylon Insert Hex Lock Nuts, Stainless Steel 18-8
100ish x Stainless Steel 5/16-Inch Flat Washer
40ish x Stainless 5/16-18 Hex Nuts, USS Coarse Thread, 304 Stainless Steel
Trim-Lok Edge Trim PVC/Aluminum with Textured Black Finish, Dual Gripping Fingers, 9/16 inch, Height 1/8 inch, Length 25 feet (FOR THE FLARE)
Trim-Lok Edge Trim PVC/Aluminum with Textured Black Finish, Single Gripping Finger, 3/8 inch, Height 1/64 inch, Length 25 feet (FOR THE FENDER PANEL)

Depending on how long you want the bolts or if you plan on trying to install liners or not, you could go with 1-1/4" long bolts.

If you've gone through the effort of cutting up fenders then this shouldn't be a big deal. I used a jigsaw to make the cut and left 1 inch on the flat part of the flare, I was planning on cutting off more if the tires were rubbing on the flares but I haven't had any issues so far.

The front flares went on without any big deal, all but 1 of the holes on a 2013 line up with the holes for the clips so I didn't have to do much drilling in the panel. The rears however were a problem, none of the holes really lined up, so I installed a single bolt in the front of the flare to hold it on one end and held the other end in place with painters tape and drilled all the holes. There aren't a whole lot of reports of people installing these as true bolt on, other years may not need as much panel drilling.

In order to convert the bushwacker pocket style fender flares to true bolt on they have to be adapted, I used a combination of nylon washers, stainless washers, plain nuts, and nylock nuts to get the spacing I needed between the flare and fender.

After I had everything in place I was planning on cleaning up the rough cut edge on the flares, but decided to see how it looked with the trim installed, I didn't think it looked too bad at all with the trim on, so I didn't bother cleaning up the edge.


Having gotten caught up in this fucking joke.....
https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads...y-2-almost-gone.444431/page-128#post-13689915
I didn't know how long it would be before I got the snorkel so I made a makeshift rubber liner to protect the intake while waiting.

In my case it seems that every 1/16"inch is critical in the wheel well, I have rubbed through part of the liner after a couple of rough trails, and since this group buy went to shit, I went ahead and ordered a snorkel from a retailer.

 

Cooper MTPs.........already ripped off part of a shoulder lug after just a couple trails (Dishpan Springs, Holcomb Creek, Gold Mountain, Jacoby Canyon, part of Cleghorn)
I hope this is an isolated incident, but judging by the look the other lugs it may not be...

 

Is the a front tire? if so its probably rubbing something. My rears got caught up in the lower bedside after it got bent in, sliced most of the lugs and a couple of ripped off pieces.

You have any pictures of your hi lift mount?

 

I don't have any pics of just it, I'll upload some photos of the hi-lift holder tomorrow when I'm off work.

Yeah the tire is the front driver side tire, next time I get on some rough trails I'll have to set up a go pro to monitor what's going on with the front wheels. I don't get rubbing very often, only on steep down hill stretches of trail.

The wheel well locations I was rubbing I hammered out, though I haven't been on any trails yet to test out the clearances I smashed in. I'll have to double check for any rubbing that may have directly caused the lug damage like you suggested.

 

Awesome, yeah I need to get my hi lift else where and don't really care to have it in the bed altho that seems like one of the few options. But after seeing how you went about yours I may follow since that keeps it up and out of the way.

 

There are a couple downsides to the vertical mount, one being aesthetic in that while I think it looks good on a jeep, it looks kinda goofy on a truck without a shell, and after the 35s the 48in isn't going to cut it, and I have a feeling the 60in is going to look goofy with and without a shell.
Functionally if you venture into areas with a lot of trees it could be a liability catching on low hanging branches or trees leaning over the trail.

For the pros of it vertically mounted, I do think the couple times I've used them or seen friends use them having it vertically in the back makes it a tad easier to get to.
Having it vertical allows use of the camera relocate on the Pelfrey swing out tire carrier.
I actually sleep in my shell when go out truck camping and keeping the hilift out of the bed makes more room for sleeping and storage.

 

I frankenstein-ed this together with scrap and random things I had around the garage so here is the pics

The bottom seat is a large piece of angle that I drilled and tapped for a 1/2-13 bolt, I used to use both holes, but it turned out to be a pain in the ass getting to the bolt next to the gas cans, the single stainless steel counter sink bolt seems to hold it from rattling around perfectly fine. I keep a 5/16" ball allen in my center console to take the bolt out when needed.

On the top bracket I used a 9/16 stainless bolt and modified it for use as a pin that I could lock. I used to have issues with the jack moving around and squeaking, so I used a rubber bumper I had lying around to butt it up against and ground down the middle section of the pin/bolt.

If I did it over again I wouldn't use 1/4 thick material for the top bracket, its overkill, there isn't a whole lot of room between the gas cans and the spare tire to manipulate the pin. I would also make it narrower for more room to move the pin around when removing the jack. There are a lot of different ways to do it, I was aiming for using the pin as a way to lock the jack+clamp/winch adapter and prevent rattling with the bushings, but the locking mechanism could be located elsewhere and make the top bracket even thinner, it all depends on how you want to go about doing it.

 

Your build is looking good man. Thanks for sharing all the great photos and notes. I was wondering what did you need to do to get these 35s to fit? What other trimming did you have to do inside the fender well. Looking to do the same and wanted to know what I was in store for.

 

Aggressive cab mount chop
Remove all the wheel well liners
Cut the fenders at least equal to the same height as the inner wheel well
Trim fender flares based on if you can stuff your tires inside them or not. I believe Nyco and I set ours up so we can stuff 35s inside the fender flare at full stuff. That is a combination of tire and wheel specs to allow that, but most will have to trim the fender flares to prevent rubbing at full stuff. I think most people just trim their flares the same amount as they trim the fender, or a small amount less to hide the edge of the fender.

 

Why go with these?

 

A couple years ago I did some stupid stuff with the truck and abused the front end pretty bad, I have always been worried about a future failure so I wanted to change out the LCA and CVs. I read a lot of horror stories about dealing with CVs so I didn't want to do them myself so I ordered the CVJ remanufactured ones with the aftermarket silicone boots. The silicone boots help minimize rubbing on the fins, my old CV boots were wearing through a little. Now the bad thing.......I thought CVJ just replaced the inner boot(since that's the one with the rubbing issue) and I didn't realize they came with an after market outer silicone boot, it unfortunately rubbed on the lower shock mount on the LCA, so if you do get remans from them DO NOT get the outer silicone boot, go with OEM. This issue might be exclusive to the Dirt King LCA, I haven't heard of anyone else having issues with boot rubbing on the LCA shock mount.

Now with all that said, I have a +2 sitting in my guest room waiting for install, I went ahead and found a wrecking yard near my house that had a 2015 so I got the CVs off of that for the rebuilds, I went ahead and rebuilt them myself and I found the rebuilds on them way easy. I already had OEM boot+grease+clamp kits and the whole process went really easy, I'm not quite certain why people find them such a pain to work with.

 

its just a mess, but I dont mind. I have had a "oem" (not oem) replacement fail within a month, so wondered if you found a better CV. Sounds like you just found a place to rebuild yours to stock and then put a boot on that doesn't work (I also have dirt kings).

 

Yeah that's all CVJ does, they say that they change some things out that are better than OEM but I have no idea what they change out, the outer joint isn't meant to be disassembled, so if they changed anything out its got to be for the tripod joint side of the CV. I'll be tearing them apart for spares after I get the LT kit on, I'll take a look at the joints to see if I can figure out what exactly they change out.

But yeah, unfortunately OEM is yet again the best for CVs.

I don't think aftermarket silicone boots have any issues with stock LCA, there was a warning somewhere that said there might be issues with some suspension setups and the silicone boots, I knew it could be an issue and it turned out it was. And realistically it wasn't bad, it only rubbed at full droop, I ground off some of the LCA shock mount (The dirt kings tabs are 3/16" the stocks are 1/8") and the boots clear except when drooped and steering locked

 

A non-oem OEM eh? Sounds like there's a story behind that.