Bent frame?

How much offroading do you do? Any rock crawling? Ive knocked my fenders out of place before and had gaps at my hood . Might be something like that w / classic taco-lean

 

A moderate amount. I'm in FL, so there's not tons. But the truck has been to Appalachia, and the Ozarks for some offroading, and it's been snatched out of sticky, FL mud a handful of times. I'm not ruling that out, but I'm not sure that explains the binding hood.

 

Might be several causes then. do you have your alignment numbers ? Maybe post those as well , there are some pretty savvy suspension wizards on here....

 

Alignment specs, cam tabs, and some pics of the front suspension.

 

Caster is cool. Camber is fucked. On the driver's side, and because you have a cross camber of over .5* you will be pulling due to camber. Most likely on the driver's side of I remember how the pulling phenomenon goes.

You have a suspension issue. And because you have that horridly heavy but stellar performing X2 it is likely wreaking havoc on your core support, bushings for the core support will be more than shot if you have OE bushings. You need to pull the bumper back a little so you can see what those bushings look like and also look at the core support winglets right beneath the headlights. Those are major trouble areas if you do any sort of offroading outside of rock crawling with heavy batteries up front.

This is a multi layer issue absolutely.

I need you to take a shot of the frame on the rear before the leaf springs begin. Those are crumple areas in the event of an accident and usually wrinkle when an impact is received.

 

If you had some normal lower control arm cams it could probably be aligned just fine.

 

This problem existed long before I put the bison cams in. And no, it still.coulsnt be aligned properly. And with the oems I had to get another alignment every time I went off-road nearly. With these, at least I'd doesn't move.

 

Oddly enough, it didn't pull with these settings.

Here's the core support bushings. the passenger looks....odd. like it's wonky at the top. I'll post pictures of those frame areas shortly.

 

Core support is starting to crack on drivers side. Order energy suspension bushings. Are the bushings a solution to the heavy battery, or do I need to look at moving/supporting it?

At the red arrow, I also noticed what looks like it could be some rippling. Not sure exactly what it looks like when the frame crumples though.

 

Just as I suspected. Replace those core support bushings with energy polyurethane type. Preferably all around the entire cab and not just the core support. Look into getting a way to either support or move the battery to the bed, back seat, or even the frame entirely. Then recheck from there. Your frame has some bending going on. Not much you can there unless you have it pulled, so address what you can and then see how the truck sits visually after that.

 

Yea, the core support bushings will be here today. I'm thinking battery will go to the bed.

What's up.with that bushing, looks goofy right? And what about that rippling? It's very similar on the other side. Does it look bent to you?

 

Unrelated but you go to that amped fitness lol. I go to the one in bham.

 

Ha, I was actually at a restaurant in the plaza.

 

just thought it was cool cause not many of them out there haha.

 

@JeffBoyardee , the one question that I have not seen asked is this that follows.

On level ground, have you loosened your suspension hardware, at all of the pivot points? Doing this at Ride Height only. Lower control arms, lower front shock bolts, UCA bolts, rear leaf spring bolts (including hangers).

Then obviously re-tightening them.

If by chance they were tightened other than at Ride Height, then they (pivot points) could be "locked" into an off position.

 

It's pretty normal for the core support bushings. They are junk right out of the factory really. Why Toyota continues to use them KNOWING that there are heavy items placed immediately above them like the battery and other related items is beyond me.

It absolutely looks bent to me, and that's just the area I can see. There's no telling what else is going on. The frame rippling in the rear indicates that at some point the frame was impacted so hard that it caused the metal at that weaker point to start bending. I believe it might actually be a planned crumple zone in the event of an accident based on it's geometry and location.

 

I have not, but I will try to do that this weekend. I may also try swapping springs right to left.

 

i know you are trying to identify the issue causing these symptoms, but have you tried adjusting your hood so it no longer binds? there is some level to adjustment at the mounting points

 

The rippling in front of the leaf hanger is normal.

 

A little update. I changed the core support bushings after finding the cracked wing. No change in the hood level, etc, not that I expected any, but the bushings were definitely shot. Going to order the rest of the body mount bushings and do those soon, as I'm sure they're shot at well at 140k. Then I'll loosen retighten the suspension bolts and see if there are any changes.

Will the new core support bushings help to avoid further damage to the core support, or should I still plan to relocate the battery?