Last weeks 3 day drop project (blk 04 extra cab 5/6-1/4")

This is Drew's 04. It came to me with a DJM 3/4 drop and fresh out of the body shop. I have a lot of time into this truck and stayed up late addressing all the small details, mainly routing all the air lines and and electrical for the guage and stuff. Anyone can simply route stuff quick, but I did his the only way I know how, clean & factory looking.

This is the truck I located those MA803's for, (air shocks,he hauls a cool street bike made for tricking on) and ran into 1 problem when using these shocks....since they're technically made for a Volkswagon, the air fittings are on a different area of the shock body and interfered with the right exhaust mount. A simple bend of the bracket allowed the room I needed to get it to work.

deep notch





rear fender/liner trim to clear 18"x9" +50 w/245-40's



my normal front liner trim 18"x8" +48 w/225/40



Now my lowering tricks..

offset pin & hole on 3-1/4" tapered blocks to pull axle back 3/4" & keep drive shaft from pushing into trans too far. A common problem when using a drop leaf setup. This is how it should look. Pushed in more than this isn't good. This is at ride height.



Flip carrier bearing 180 degrees to get the bend out of the middle of the shaft and keep vibes away. This procedure needs to be done at ride height.



03's & 04's have big ABS brackets that I used to simply bend down to clear the notch, but I chose to trim his completely and zip tie the ABS wire to the hard line for even more clearance,

before



after



air system

They say not to mount the pump under the hood due to heat, but there really isn't any other logical place. I found a area on drivers side away from exhaust. I used a threaded hole and a OEM bolt, and tapped threads into my bracket & again used OEM bolts.





Tapped into horn fuse under dash with a little adapater that comes in the kit. Wired the guage so the light only comes on when you push the switch. This was the best place I could find to mount the guage. The fuse for the guage/pump is the same size as the horn and is located right behind the fuse panel cover for easy access.



The lines for the shocks aren't long enough to make it to the hood area, and I didn't want to drill a hole in his rear bumper, so I chose to mount the T behind the gas door and attach the line from the pump to it. This way, if the pump ever has problems, he can unscrew the fitting at the T and simply fill manually. (yes, he's missing liner tabs, blame the body shop, I used all the spares I had here on them)





bent exhaust hanger over slightly to clear air line on MA803



rolling at 20psi is like riding in a Caddy and Monroe recommends using at least 20psi for the bags inside



push the switch and air up to 100 in about 30 seconds. I think this was at 90psi. The pump is rated at 100 but will go higher, and the shocks at 150psi.











Plans were to use 4" blocks for a 7" rear drop, but this opens a can of worms and requires the bed to come off, the cross member to get notched, the bed brace above diff to be trimmed, and also the rear fender braces to get removed and the top of the liners to get cut out. Since he's going to haul a street bike, and the rear shock setup is in it's early stage as far as them being shorter than MA727's commonly used, I chose to play it safe and do 3-1/4" rear blocks with leaf removed. I told him to try to locate some 4x4 leafs in the future so he'll be back to having 2 leafs and overload (after he pulls one from the 4x4 pack) Once he tries this setup out a bit, he plans on bringing it back so we can swap the blocks out for some 4"ers and do the mods.

 

Im not a fan of lowered trucks but if its done right then it looks good thats a sweet truck man!!!

 

Thanks. From Granpas grocery getter to blvd blaster in 3 days. It doesn't look like it should have lawn mowers in back anymore!

 

Beautiful truck. Love it. I want to drop my 2011

 

Hey Beefed, Can you please do more 2nd gen tacos thankyou

 

Awesome work brian..

 

did mine in 2 brian ;p

where was the how to thread for rear fender trimming?