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

Is everything tight in the rear? Did you move leaf spring hangers. I wonder if the steering wheel just got hit and needs to be corrected. I doubt swapping packs from side to side would do anything.

 

I double checked the main eye and shackle bolts this morning before I drove it to work, and I know the u-bolts are torqued.

The more I research, the more I think I may have have changed the thrust angle a bit when I reinstalled the leafs.

 

Hmmm haven't looked yet... but it doesn't hit so that's good.

And you don’t have axle relocation plates or anything?

Could the frame have been welded back together twisted? Maybe the bumper wasn’t square?

 

It’s certainly possible, but I really hope not. It would be just my luck that I ‘fixed’ the truck so well that I fucked it up.



And I’m not running relocation plates. I did remove a 1/2 taco lean spacer from the driver side, which was there during the last alignment, so it’s possible that had some effect.

 

Did you have some sort of crossmember on the frame when you took out the factory ones like a rear bumper or tac a crossmember in place? I doubt it but it is possible that you warped the frame when boxing it and with no real crossmember it cooled in a crooked shape. Id take it to be aligned and see what they say.

You can also have someone follow you while you drive down the road or someone drive it for you to see if it drives crooked.

EDIT: It'd start taking some measurements from factory points to see if anything has moved. Get the truck on flat ground and get it leveled side to side while you still have the bed off and measure to make sure the rear frame is still square and same height on both sides.

 

I kept the rear bumper on the whole time. But like Mike said, who knows how well it kept things together. Honestly, I didn’t put to much effort into leveling and measuring angles and stuff because my hope was that the bumper held the frame in the same relationship as it was before all the work. I also really took my time during all of that welding and went back and forth from one rail to the other to let the frame cool and not just dump a fuck ton of heat in one area.

I’ve been reading online obsessively and I really think it could be as simple as just clamping down the u-bolts with a little bit of rear axle angle. I’ve found a few sites that flat out state that an off center wheel is almost always a thrust angle issue due to a misaligned rear axle. And since it drove straight before it went on jack stands (no big lateral hits off road or anything), I’m cautiously optimistic that that’s the cause.

But I’ll try to redneck measure the thrust angle tonight and see what I find. Sounds like an alignment is in my future anyway, so I might try to find a place that does free checks.

Thanks for the assistance, man!

 

Do you have leaf perches that have multiple holes, or axle relocation plates, anything like that which might be skewing the rear axle? If it’s driving straight though, just with the steering wheel cocked, that doesn’t suggest an alignment issue.

If you get a “4 wheel alignment” it should tell you if the rear axle is out of line, or if the tie rods just need to be adjusted to get the steering wheel back to center.

 

Thanks for chiming in, Dan. I appreciate it!

It’s definitely tracking straight, at least as far as I can tell on our ridiculously crowded roads here. It’s just slightly off center.

The shop I use at does a 4wheel alignment “check”, so I’ll know right away if the thrust angle is jacked up, which is looking more and more like the case.

I’ll double check the perches, but I’m not running any relocation plates.

Thanks again for jumping in.

 

Just throwing this out there. If you have an oil leak and it's hitting the D bushing on the steering rack it's pretty easy to knock your steering wheel center out of alignment.

 

Sure sounds like something about the rear must've changed, even if the height from side to side changes a bit you can throw off the center of the alignment. Not a huge deal, if it drives okay and not all crabwalky then it should align back up fine

 

Good point, Ryan. Thankfully, no oil leaks.

Thanks, Zane.

I think it is crab walking a little. In my internet research, which basically makes me an expert, if the rear axle is rotated slightly the truck would need to turn the same direction as the rear steer in order to drive straight. Pretty sure that’s exactly what is happening because I wasn’t as careful as I should have been on the reinstall.

 

I'm right behind you, just waiting on the extra muscle to show up. We're just placing the bed on the frame tho. I'll bolt it down and finish buttoning it back up this weekend.

 

Paint your fenders sometime

 

F that. Penetrol will shine them up nice and black.

 

Nice, man! You’re almost there!

By the way, do you know if you can add a swingout to the Coastal Off-road rear bumper later, or do you have to order that from the get go? I’m seriously thinking about saving up for one, but I’m still strongly opposed to a tire swingout if I can avoid it. But if I’m forced into one at some point, it would be nice to know if I have to provision for one from the beginning.

Haha! The whole fucking truck needs to be detailed. The poor paint has a shit ton of grinder dust and paint overspray on it, because I obviously couldn’t be troubled to protect it while I was working on it

I’m hoping a clay bar and wax will help rejuvenate the paint, but we’ll see. What do you use for that sort of thing?

And yes, the flares look like ass. I won’t be doing the heat gun thing again, so it’s either paint or the stuff that Mike mentioned.

Penetrol, huh? I’ve never heard of that. What have you used it for, Mike?

 

I have yet to clay bar the truck, but I do plan on it at least once to see if it's worth it. Right now I just wash it and spray wax it, but at least once a year I'll actually wax the thing

 

Literally that. It was cheaper than Back to Black and would last about a month before I needed to reapply.

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads...1st-gen-edition.138573/page-2992#post-8906007

Throw back.

Look at that perfect paint and no scratches or dents...

 

I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be a problem ordering the swingout later on if you decide to. Brandon, the owner, is a great guy and very easy to deal with.

 

Where'd you get your body lift? I'm thinking I might need to do a 1/2" to 1" just for the bed. It'll screw up the body lines but I don't really give a fuck. Just looking for info now anyway, I need to mess with it this weekend.