Long Travel BS Thread

This is not just a helpfull tip it is an absolute necessity. IE: if your leaf pack is 2” thick and you do not maintain that true stack height you will never get your tabs placed properly. Depending on if you are spring over or spring under you will be off by +/- 2”. For the DIY home installer a simple chunk of wood cut to the same stack height as your leaf pack works too.

 

I would agree for spring over as you need to account for the thickness of the pack for bump placement. But it's not necessary to be exact for spring under, just need to do something so you can snug the ubolts

 

@Arcticelf, @snowsk8air2, @Hawk373, @Evenflow,
Thank you for all the helpful info, I appreciate it. I think I can start tackling this today or tomorrow. I’ll hopefully have time to disassemble both packs today.
One of my concerns was knowing where to mount left and right on the axle. Do I want the shocks toe-ed in or out? Or not?
At ride height or compressed?
Again thanks for the help I’ve been and will keep searching for useful info on this.
I’m SUA with DMZ Kit and cage 16” triples.

 

1) assuming the truck has been driven, there are witness marks on the frame from where the bump hit. If it's a clean build you'll have to cycle to properly set the bump location, although the high can be determined with this method

2) absolutely correct. Doing some quick math, using 10 degree shock angle, and worst case assumption for shock travel (fully drooped, 16" shocks) it's 1/4" off. If you're at ride hight or somewhere in between it will be substantially less.

 

Looking from the rear the shocks should be straight up and down.
Tim has always, and recommended to me that I notch the frame 3/4”, but he also acknowledged that plenty of guys who haven’t notched have had no contact between frame and shock. He does it for piece of mind; I felt the same. Just maintain a minimum of a 1/2” from the frame and you should be ok.

Seems daunting, but notching was actually one of the easier parts of the install. When you’re cycling the suspension after tacking in your lower mounts: at full compression scribe a line from the back of the shock to the frame; at full droop scribe a line from the front of the shock to the frame. Make approximate 45 degree cuts inward from those lines 3/4” deep (or whatever your preference) and then cut the top and bottom to pop that piece out.

I just made cardboard templates for fill plates. Wish I had my press brake at the time for an even cleaner install.

 

Since you have the bed off, make sure you account for the bed thickness where the cage bolts through it when setting up your lower shock tabs. Worst case you don't and end up with a little bit bigger safety gap, but just something to think of

 

Not done with it yet but made a hitch bike hauler out of some scrap metal shit I got for free lol

 

@2002 tacoma s/c LT was trying to figure out how to get a couple mini bikes on his truck

 

That's why I kept the hitch reciever....ain't a proper "truck" without a hitch lol

 

We were brainstorming awhile ago and I can't remember what he was saying about wanting or not wanting to use a hitch carrier like he uses on his 3rd gen 4runner, but I figured he'd like this either way - looks meaner like what Mad Max would have used for his moto.

 

# truth

Mine's ready for a test more than down the street this weekend. 1300 miles to pismo and back will be a good test.

 

you gonna strap the back tire too ?

 

Hey doods when I cycled my suspension I still have about 3” at full bump and another 3 at full droop.
It seems I won’t be able to use the 16” to the full potential. Am I fucking this up?
I bumped at slight negative arch.
How do implace the shock to use the most properly?

 

Yea I'm gunna add some stuff to tie it down solid.

 

Any pics with the shock mocked up? Did you stand on the axle at droop to make sure it's fully drooped and not binding up somewhere? Something isn't right. I'm bumped pretty close to full bump on the shock, and drooped with about 1.5" left. Talked to Tim at DMZ about doing modified shackles or modifying the hangar to get that last little bit, but he said the leafs start to separate at the limits of his kit. Said it could be done to get travel numbers, but it's not really well used travel.

 

No I’ll stand on the axle tomorrow lol.
Good idea
Should I mount so I have the shock longest at full droop?

 

I went with shortest at full droop since it is harder to gain uptravel than down travel. But like I said about what Tim said, gaining droop with this setup really doesn't gain you much performance other than a number

 

I take pic tomorrow

 

Can you take some pics of your rig at the axle? So I can have an idea of where your at?