Marlin Crawler's upcoming HD LCA Frame Brace Kit

Anyone have these installed with BAMF IFS skid? Saw Mully had BAMF lca skids. Need to install my kit and most likely will need to trim. Thanks to all that post in here!!

 

Sucks man sorry, This happened to me, as stated with LCAs out the welding can pull them apart.
here is a pic of how it was fixed. It was cut then the control arm mounts properly spaced and welded

 

Thanks for the pic, that is a great idea for a fix after the fix. These brackets are beefy and I got no complaints with them. Being my first real welding project I have a bunch to learn, but thought I tacked it right and took it slow so it would not move. Now that I have the passenger side cut and prepped, I'm going to take added time with a bolt in the drops.

 

Gonna have to trim those skids. Real easy, and good luck with your truck.

 

Has anyone used these with the Bison Cam Stop Kit? Curious since they use an octagon shape cam, if it would interfere with the braces since they are round.

 

Curious to know this as well

 

Hey BroID, Was the spacing between the drops out on yours, or was it the spacing between the front and back drops? What I'm seeing is that the front and rear fit, but the front poly bushing on the rear of the LCA is being squashed and the rear bushing on the rear of the LCA has the gap. Besides the obvious that it should have been done with the LCA Installed from the start, does this sounds like a good fix to the upgrade? I'm looking to measure and ask the dumb questions before cutting and grinding. Feedback from the boards is helpful!



When I got home and greased the joints is when I noticed the gap.

 

Spacing on the drops was out on mine after being welded in. LCAs where out when welded and I believe when the kit was welded in it pulled them apart. I was unable to keep an alignment afterwards and had a bit of play and wobble in the LCA most specifically the rear.

 

Even with the gussets welded around the lower arm pivot , the spacing has some flex in it. I think this is a good thing as it will “clamp down” as you torque the bolts down. It also allows it to “open up” when loose so you can remove the lower arms if needed. The bushing inner bolt sleeve will ultimately determine how wide the final slot will be when tightened. You should measure all the inner sleeves , bushing widths and even outer sleeve tube widths to confirm.

this is another big reason I went with uniball inner pivots. Once tight between the misalignment spacers , the uniball and lower arms will absolutely not make contact with the mounting face or flex at all. This is opposed to a bushing which will either flex about the inner sleeve and cause the metal outside bushing tube to scrape against the chassis. If torqued too lose or even too tight the poly bushing can bulge and excessively wear against the frame pivot walls. Also, in your case , with a uniball pivot you can simply add a washer or shim washer in between that gap and not effect the uniball at all. That won’t be the case for bushing . It’s overall a sloppy “getter done” pivot , intended to supposedly reduce maintenance and “sound”. Absolutely sloppy and loosely goosey IMO. Most people who don’t like heims or uniballs have never even ran them on anything in their life yet are so opposed to them for ... reasons????

 

I just picked up the TC LCAs about 5K miles ago. It would be a shame if the HD braces shorten the life of the bushings. I still have the OEM LCAs and might need to go backwards. Going with a hiem/uniball joint makes quite a bit of sense for the LCAs. Hindsight being 20/20 and all....

 

Dropping this pic for those with or looking to get rci skids and the marlin brace kit. I notched the lca skids for full clearance while cycling the suspension. The front skid and transmission skid had to be notched as well to clear the rear marlin brace.

 

Install the bison stop cams yet with the marlin HD brace? Curious how much additional work it took with this combination

 

Check this out... https://jdfabrication.com/collections/toyota/products/tacoma-2016-lower-arm-pivots-899-99

Whats the added maintenance like with uniball frame pivots? I live in Salt Lake and the winter use of MagChloride is terrible for the undercarriage. I bought TC lowers to help eliminate some possible headache but Im not yet 100% convinced it was the right move

 

Where I live in dry San Diego (not by the beach) it has been absolutely zero maintenance. For my lowers nothing so far. For my uppers that I ran on my old truck it was no issues for 3 years. For the 1.25” heims I ran on my previous ranger it was 4 years of heavy abuse and no issues , or sounds. Compared to my poly bushing and delrin bushings I have had in the past there is much less wear and sound. But that’s here in So Cal and mostly desert off roading.
If you spray them with dry Teflon Lub that might protect against corrosion I suppose. I know the misaligned spacers and ball is stainless steel . However , the cup, snap ring and bolts are non stainless, 4130 or high carbon steel which can certainly rust quicker .

I would try it even if I move to a place that salts roads. Wash off everything with water then spray Teflon lube all over. I mean that salt issue isn’t just for uniballs to worry about. Technically any part you get now (coil over shocks , springs , control arms ) and even all your stock parts are going to be victim to that road salt . Why worry now lol. If you don’t want to rust uniballs then technically you should not even run coil overs because they have small 5/8” uniball pivots themselves.

 

You're very right. The salt issue isn't just for the uniballs. I'm super diligent about keeping my undercarriage sprayed off... I'll just add the teflon lube to the mix every time. I wonder how Fluid film would be? I imagine it would just cause more accumulation of crap on them. Thanks for the thorough reply!

 

Well started welding the brace tonight and nobody told me how crappy welding on your back is. Was pretty decent at welding on a table but this a little tougher than I thought. Def helps if you weld with the arms on with not separating the tabs. Mine are perfect and I haven’t had any bushing issues. Did catch some powder coat on fire for a sec but shot some water and it was fine.

 

Finished up the gusset this weekend

 

I really like the general idea of this kit, I just wonder if it would be possible to add one more plate over the top of the control arm mount , to "box" in the entire structure. I was seriously considering the JD Fab kit, it just seems to be complete overkill for my application. I just want the stinking control arm mounts to not buckle under any stress.

 

How much should it cost to have this setup welded? I wanted the JD fab but it’s $1000, then a shop wants $800 to install and that’s not worth it to me

 

My local Tacoma shop charged me 4hours for welding on the TC cam gussets. This kit is supposedly faster to install…