Long Travel Taco

das linkes!

 

You have a photo of the panhard bar from the back end ? the panhard bar looks super short = a ton of side to side movement and articulation issues with tires scrubbing shocks etc

 

I don't. Maybe @dirt designs can chime in. I haven't seen the truck in person.

 

Super jealous of this setup. Long travel with load carry capabilities.

 

Panhard is ~38" long and the pivots are setup so that the axle travels up 9" from panhard flat and 12" down. Side to side is 1" at bump and ~1.75" at droop. Its the best location I could find for everything. Ground clearance on mounts at full bump, tire clearance on panhard frame mount, etc

 

I completely forgot that his truck is a long bed limo so you have 12" more to work with to keep the CO's in front of the tires, the clearances on a short bed are a bitch. My top pivot is the same but my axle pivot is all the way over at the very end of axle to minimize the side to side, 9" up and 11 down with approx 3/4" side to side movement. Mine is a far more mild build though ( aka low budget daily driver set up ) as I did not want to penetrate the bed or notch the cab at all so we designed it around 12's tucked into towers that are right at the roof of the wheel well...still ended up with 20" of travel so zero complaints ... We created bump clearance by "C " notching the gas tank cross member.

FYI - if you are pivoting the 3rd at the front gas tank cross member completely box the cross member in a reinforce the hell out of it...it tears really easily...ask me how I know

 

The first kit we put on a taco was a shortbed.


And were doing another shortbed right now.

When you say up 9" and down 12", are you talking about ride height or from when the panhard bar is flat? The way we are getting low side to side numbers is that the panhard is basically flat at ride height so when we travel up 9" and down 12" its almost in the middle of the panhard bar arc. I drew up a sketch to show the difference between a longer panhard bar (thats lower on the axle) vs a shorter panhard that stuffs up into the frame rail.

The 1st pic is the way we setup our axle panhard mount. The mount is ~4" above the top of the axle so it can go 4" above the bottom of the frame rail at full bump.




2nd pic the axle mount is on the axle centerline meaning it will be 1.5" below the frame at full bump. The panhard is 10" longer then what we run which is close to the end of the axle.

The bracket we make is a full welded and boxed mount that welds to the crossmember and goes up the frame rail. Total of about 1.5-2ft of weld to factory frame +crossmember. I know what you mean about toyota steel being thin though. The first taco I built (in avatar) I made the upper link mounts that only welded to the inner box of the frame and 30miles into our first race we tore a football size hole out of the frame......End of first race lol. Now everything is beef going to toyota frames. But good look out in case we didnt think of it!!

 

First - I hope anyone reading this understands that I meant 3-4" inches of movement not three quarters of an inch

To answer your question - 9" up / 11" down is at ride height and my pan hard does not sit flat at ride height so the model you posted shows exactly why I get more axle movement... I was so focused on the longer pan hard bar resulting in a larger radius and thinking the larger radius always equated to less sideways travel I didn't realize the same issue could be combated with having the panhard bar dead level at ride height...duh

Unfortunately I can't modify mine to be similar to your design due to other cross members for air and water tanks I have mounted under the bed.

One last question about those short beds - if you were to rock crawl with that set up a 35" tire would hit the bypasses pretty bad when the axle was articulated ? You have sacrifice that articulation clearance for the go fast advantages of having the bypass right ?

 

Sorry on the lag, things got busy at the shop.

Definitely makes more sense. I was not thinking that when I read it.

The tire will rub the bypass but I dont think it actually limits articulation that much. The way the tire stuffs into the wheel well on articulation, I think the tire can still rub the bed and bypass at the same time. And if you hit the bed theres not much more articulation you can do (unless you ditch the bed). We can test it out when I get one of these trucks on its tires and flex it with a fork lift. And bypasses do help a lot with go fast. Maybe not what everyone is in to.

We first raced our truck with just coilover and hydro bumps up front thinking it would be similar to a bypass....not even close. Bypasses let us go so much fast and it was so much smoother. At a lucerne track with just c/os+bumps our average speed was 28mph, next race on the same course we went with bypasses and averaged 38mph. TTs and class 1s on the course were running around 52mph.

 

What size bar did you go with on the currie? Im running the .9" I believe on my cruiser and wish I had the 1". Although I am quite a bit more top heavy than you

 

Well tire rubs a little earlier then I thought. It starts to rub bypass ~34-35" from ground, forklift in pic is at 37", if we pull the bypass the tire can go to 39" before rubbing the inner wheel well hard.





ALSO updates on @sytfu510 truck! Its torn down and just about every unboltable parts is at powdercoat and the frame just got painted this morning. Reassembly next week when we get powdercoat parts back!

 

Which paint are you using? I'm always on the lookout for something more durable than the VHT enamel that's the current #1.

 

Alex's truck is using POR15 black.

The silver taco is VHT black and stainless is Steel-it.

 

I would recommend Eastwood Chassis Saver Extreme. I used it this summer to paint the back half of my truck when I replaced my SUA bushings. Just do the prepwork and use the primer if you have some rust. It is also UV stable. I don't think POR15 is UV stable. For a frame its fine, but any bumpers/ cages it will fade.

 

Well hell...with the articulation so limited @sytfu510 might not make it out of the driveway

Great job on that 3 link design amigo I would have never guessed that you could still get that much articulation in a short bed with a bypass !?.
How are you handling the gas filler, routing it ? I chopped my OE filler neck tubes and used fuel grade hoses and stainless clamps etc but my filler neck barely clears my CO. I really want to redo it someday...

 

One of the last pics. We routed it up into the bed. Harder to get to then stock, but still very accessible https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/dirt-designs-05-taco-4wd-race-kit.284268/page-12

 

And last of the update pics until a proper photoshoot can be done. The truck is actually getting dropped onto its own weight within the hour so its close

 

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No new pics yet, but heres one from the mock up phases: