Wisconsin Tacomas and bad financial advice

Thank you sir! I wouldn't have guessed that was the spot based on the last TW outing, gives me something else to check out for photos!

I am having decidedly less fun with tires right now. Haven't been driving the Taco much for a while because I know it's time for some maintenance. Drove to work a couple times and now my front driver tire is cupping like crazy. Suspect my Fox shocks have more problems than I thought. Glad I paid all that to get 14k miles out of them before they ate my tires lol. Not sure how well it shows in the photo but basically every other tread block is going at an angle, never seen anything like it before. Suspect this is due to the DSC problems they have had on the newest PES series which mine have never really worked all that well.

Glad I kept my old Bilstein 6112's around, they might be going back in temporarily for the August trip just so I can make it. Worst part is I was seriously considering to finally install the 33's that Jason sold me but that's off the board until I get shocks sorted out. Deciding if I have time to rebuild them myself this time or send them in due to time constraints...

 

I'm assuming you got an alignment after the lift, but it might be worth getting it looked at again. With the abuse we put these things through, it could have easily gotten knocked out of spec.

 

Good price lol. And I shouldn't be giving truck advice seeing as how I driven mine underwater now. Twice.

17? Bring em down to 12 where they'll actually flex

 

SPC upper control arms? @Camerasandcoffee had a little experience with tires getting chewed up by a bad SPC ball joint. Check for play. It seems they have been having a bad run of ball joints for a while.

 

If it wasn’t for the sliders, the body panels would be all messed up lol.

 

Yes, alignment should be good. I have the LCA cams and other adjustment points marked to visually see if it gets knoced out of whack. Wear pattern would be different too and not cupped but good ideas.

That I had not considered, good call. I was concerned about those from the beginning but initially had good experience. As time goes on I like them less and less.

 

Absolutely! I wish I had sliders. Damn.

 

You are pretty close to 4x Innovations, no need to make wishes just do it!

 

I was very surprised to find that my ball joints had worn after a year. Especially being greased every 5k when I rotate the tires. Just discovered yesterday that the bushings are worn as well when I went in for an alignment.
I put in a call to their support yesterday to try to start a warranty claim. We will see how that goes.
Ideally I need this all sorted before my trip to the UP on the 20th.

 

Ouch, yeah I need to go take a look at mine. About a year old for me too, greased more than every 5k because if I let them get to 5k it was the only time I heard a little noise. Since I bought mine from RockAuto as re-boxed Mevotechs I doubt they are going to warranty anything so might be shopping for new UCAs (likely JD Fab, they were my #2 before SPCs won on price).

Money is spending faster than I make it and it's all thanks to this thread, appreciate the hard work you guys put in lol.

 

Damn! I should probably check on mine. Ball joints were greased 2 years ago.

 

2 years?! What kind of UCAs are you running?

 

Speaking of UCAs and ball joints...



I give Ironman 4x4 credit for stepping up and fixing the issue. I'm waiting on my letter to get mine replaced.

 

BDS. They weren't really on my radar, but they were recommended by my off road shop. So far, I can't complain. They seem to be built similar to the Bilstein ones.

 

The SPC situation is unfortunate. It still seems to come up regularly on the 4runner forums.

Do you still have the factory UCAs? I doubt going back to stock will cause any clearance issues, but you’d need to be willing to live with the lighter steering feel, since your caster numbers probably wont be able to be adjusted to spec.

I’m running factory UCAs with about 2.5in of lift, and was a few tenths of a degree below the spec range (mid to low 2 degrees). She feels a little bit more lively on the interstate that way, like I like.

 

Hmm…As much as I would like to take credit for showing you the clunky hood latch sound solution for the sound you were hearing, I suppose I could be wrong and it is a suspension sound. Hopefully not, but at least Ironman is stepping up regardless

edit: wait a minute…if the ball joints are bad…could you ever trust your tires ever again? Lol….after all, maybe they’ve started scalloping. Once they take a set, even microscopically, it just turns into a tire equivalent of a road turning into washboard. The only solution may start with M and and with a T…or I guess an N technically speaking.

 

Ahh got it. Yeah those Moog joints don't need quite as much maintenance which is nice. Those are good arms and joints.

I still have the OE arms laying around but if these SPC UCAs are the culprit I think I'm switching to JD Fab. Called them earlier, they have them in stock and excellent service/response.

Edit for the memes:

 

I concur

 

So if I'm going to get tires before the snow flies I think I want to pick up a 5th 3rd gen TRD Off Road wheel and do the proper 5 wheel rotation. As much as I'd like to put new tires on fancy new rims, I think I've spent enough on this rig in the last year.

Before I venture into the scary other regions of TW, I'll ask here. Anybody got one laying around they'd like to sell to me?