Betterbuckleup's 2000 taco build & BS

I had a deaver 3 leaf aal. It wasn't bad but it couldn't handle any weight whatsoever.

By the way great job on your sleeping platform that looks really good.

 

Gotcha.
Yea that's been my experience with my Dakar's with the AAL. Blows through the travel real quick
Worked ok with no topper, but don't do much good now loaded up.

Thanks! Stoked to start putting it to use and see how it holds up

 

@seen20

How do the leafs ride with an empty bed or not loaded out.

 

Way better than I thought they would. I haven't loaded it down yet only driven it empty with the softopper on and its been great. Its soft and just a tad floaty in the first little bit of travel than progressively stiffens up. Makes it soft over small bumps like going down a forest service road and progressively handles big bumps and potholes really well. I'm super happy with it so far. The rear end of my truck now feels better than the front.

 

Damn well that's reassuring to hear.
I use my truck a lot not loaded out so I was worried that it would ride like a brick in the rear with some leafs spec'd out for a bunch more weight over stock. Especially for when I take my topper off in the summer.
I'm currently the opposite of you. Front handles way better than the rear. Need to fix that.

 

Went up to Reno for New years.
Screwing around at Moonrocks is always a good time.

Enjoying the new topper. I'm looking forward to spending some more time in it when it gets a bit warmer out.

Also installed some Hella 500FF's a bit ago to add some extra light on a budget. I can supposedly retrofit these with some HID's which I might do down the line.
I'm trying to keep all my lights at the same color temperature around 3500k-4000k. Eventually I wanna replace my ditch lights with some diode dynamics of the same liking.

DSC_3363 by Ian Lennox, on Flickr

DSC_3360 by Ian Lennox, on Flickr

DSC_3345 by Ian Lennox, on Flickr

DSC_3340 by Ian Lennox, on Flickr

 

Been doing some prep to get things dialed before KOH.

Installed an in-line fuel filter without the element onto the front differential breather because it was puking more often than I liked.
Blew out the existing vent to clear it out.


Went to upgrade the pressure switch on my ARB dual to a 150psi cutoff switch for better locker engagement, but turns out the dual already has that switch. I guess the ARB singles are the ones that have the lower psi pressure switches.
So that's reassuring.


Installed some of the metal outer door handles since mine was starting to crack. They feel way better and more satisfying to open.
Also doubled up on the sound deadening on the inner skin on the doors while I had the door card off. And closed off the big lower hole.


Made a mount and ran some wire wrapped in split loom back to the bed area for 12v power to power some lights and other accessories. I later swapped out the mounting hardware for some stainless nuts and bolts
Used a 12v quick disconnect plug for the panel so I can hook my trickle charger up to the back of the truck if I want to as well.


Went to grease my UCA's to find that one of the passenger bushings had split. That's what I get for neglecting that. Fortunately I had some spares, so I installed new ones on both sides.
Forgot how much of a PITA it is to do the driver side though with pulling that bolt out.


One of the driver side bushings was starting to get wallowed out too.

I later realized that the passenger side bushing likely split because it was the closest to the exhaust intermediate pipe that connects to the manifold. Right where I was having that leak before. So it was likely blasting exhaust heat right onto that area contributing to it's demise.

 

Started doing some prep for KOH and for installing my new Alcan leafs.
Took off the bed and topper yesterday. A cherry picker made removing the bed real easy.



Removed the spare tire carrier and cleaned the frame. Then applied some primer to the inside and outside of the frame for prep before welding on the frame plates.

The inside of the frame cleans up pretty nice after wiping it down with some brake clean. Pretty much no rust at all. The only rust was on the top of the frame rails. I used a wire brush on my angle grinder for those surfaces before painting.



The fitment is pretty trash on the passenger side frame plate. Gonna be fun trying to fill a damn near 1/4" gap. Might try and use a C-clamp to close up the gap a bit before welding. Don't have much faith in that working though.

 

Got both plates burned on yesterday.

Clamped the sections where there were significant gaps to make it easier to fill in.
Happy with how it turned out.





Sprayed it with some more primer and now I just have to figure out what I'm going to do for the spare tire crossmember.

 

Perfect time to throw that LSPV in the trash too.

 

I'll get around to that at some point. Don't have enough time to deal with brake lines before I leave next week.

 

Got the springs installed last night.





Ran into a few hiccups along the way though. First was with the rear OME shackle and the bushing in the leafs.
The metal sleeve in the bushing that came with the springs isn't big enough to allow the greasable bolt on the OME shackle.
For now, I will run without the sleeve until I can get alcan to make me a new set bar shackles with the right bolt size.


Second is the durobumps U bolt flip kit that I got. I was surprised to find that the U bolts are a larger diameter than the dia of the rear axle housing. Although I confirmed that this is normal with the vendor and a couple other users on the forum. Seems that poor U bolt fitment like this is common with U-bolt flip kits I guess. This same 9/16″ x 3″ x 7.75″ U bolt is used across all gens of Tacoma.


Today I'm gonna start working on the shock crossmember and a spare tire crossmember.

 

These past couple days I've been working on the shock crossmember and figuring out a spare tire mount under the bed.

I set the upper shock mounts as high as possible. The lower mounts I initially set based on the amount of shock shaft showing and how much travel I had between the bump strike pad and full compression on the bump (~1in).
Although that didn't work because after drooping it out, I found that the shocks were acting as limiting straps preventing full droop. It was close though.




I then repositioned the lower mounts so that the shock was 1/4" shy of full extension at full droop of the leafs. So all I have to do now is set my bump height a little bit lower. If the shock body was a bit shorter, I likely wouldn't have to adjust my bump height.

I guess on the bright side, it's pretty well up and out of the way from getting hung up on any rocks.


I only need to add about 3/4" or so to the strike pad, so I'm not gimping the up travel too bad.

All the paint is drying tonight and the bed and topper should go back on tomorrow if everything goes according to plan. I'm pumped on how everything turned out back there. Got everything packaged together pretty nicely.

More pictures to come when it's all buttoned and everything's torqued down...

 

Just found this thread, lolz

 

Where ya been bro

 

Put the wraps on everything last night. I'm whooped.

Pumped on how the rear turned out. Was able to get the spare tire raised almost 2 inches from the factory mount height. Should be quite a bit more stiff back there now too.

Everything clears the bed. Only had to make a cutout in the middle of one of the mounting crossmembers for the straight tube that goes between the tire carrier and shock crossmember.

Everything is primered and then painted with rustoleum satin enamel. Sprayed the inside of the frame best I would with eastwood internal frame coating. Painting was kind of a pita with the cold weather. What helped was running the spray cans under some hot water for a while to warm them up. Otherwise it would dry uneven and splotchy.







These are the cuts I made to the OEM spare tire crossmember. Plasma worked great for making quick work of that.

The one downside to this setup, is if/when I want to go to a larger dia tire. Pretty much not possible to fit anything more than a large 33 under there. Even with this tire size, I would rub on the top of the rear diff cover under full stuff. It would have been worst if it weren't for my bumpstops


Frame tie-ins:




In addition to all that, I got some other things done that I was meaning to do.
Added some more reinforcements to my front skid to hopefully prevent it from bending in the middle as much



Drained and refilled the crawlbox.

Welded some material onto the end of the crawlbox shift knob to prevent it from vibrating in it's socket when going down the road which was annoying. It's a real tight fit now with no front to back movement.
You can see the spot where it was rubbing/vibrating on.




Also chopped the exhaust since I decided to move the passenger shock to the same crossmember as the driver side. Just welded on a piece that I chopped of to do the turndown. Interestingly, there's a bit more exhaust drone in the cab now, but bearable.

 

Nice work on the frame reinforcement and shocks!

 

Like the extra clearance for the spare. Might have to look at my 4runner to see if I can move it up as well. Not much chance squeezing anything over a 33 in there regardless. Should stiffen things up a lot back there!

 

Thanks!
Was getting tired of the feeling of saggy springs and of bottoming out the shock on the driver side before the bumpstop.

Yea I'm sure you could get creative with the stock configuration and doing some similar cutting and welding. Just probably have to chop and weld those lengthwise support arms on at a higher height for the front to back stability of the tire.
But yea, with some measuring I surmised that there's absolutely no way your getting anything bigger than a 33 down there without bringing it more rearward into the bumper.

 

Nice job man this is awesome. I love what you did with the spare tire mount. So much better than the swing outs everybody has, and tying in the frame bracing to it, so good.

Can't wait to hear how ya like the new leafs.