Shadow of Intent, Eubeenhadd's T4R and adventures thread

Firestone finally "fixed" my alignment. It drives straight, the cam tabs are still ugly as hell but bent straight. Also went back to Windrock to take some friends to the mountain top. They're jeepers, but only because they didn't know the value of Toyota 4x4's and they don't want to start over.

 

love the simple build man looks great. enjoy

 

Simple is good so far. These things are a lot more capable than people give them credit for I think

 

i agree. i have had two 4runners and two tacomas. i've never needed King shocks, long travel or 900 lightbars to have fun and get out there and keep up with other more expensive rigs.

 

Decided to go flex it to the limit and see what parts of the suspension were closest to maxed out. Rear flexes really well, about 1" from the bump stop, front is nowhere near it. It's a shame you really can't disconnect the front sway bar.

 

Sway bar? what's that? I took that bar off over 90k ago
They do make disconnects now.

 

I'm planning to keep mine for a good while longer just because I log lots of miles on the highway. Those disconnects look pretty cool but $750 for the good ones are not in the budget lol. The air link ones are super interesting to me though, being able to flip a switch in the cabin for full vs half function is pretty neat

 

I'm 90% on the highway myself. The other 8% is street driving, and 2% offroad. Wish that last number was higher, but the closest park is over an hour one way, and I don't feel like going that far just to wheel for an hour or two before heading home.
But if you want to keep it, there's a few options out there. Some are extremely expensive though. I've always wondered if a high dampening short throw shock could just be bolted up like an end link and just toss on a spacer to lock it.

 

Yeah I'll take it off for big trips, without skids right now it's trivially easy, but I would prefer disconnects.

I think that's basically what these could be. It's like a 50% disconnect until you add air.

https://www.apexdesignsusa.com/products/toyota-airlynx

 

Wonder how long they last. It looks like it adds a balljoint to the bottom of the upper balljoint, in place of a nut. and from the little clip, looks like it'd be taking a beating.

 

Still not dead!

The 4Runner is holding up well. I just ordered some True North Fab front recovery points and some soft shackles and a rear shackle hitch point so I'm capable of recovering and being recovered on the trail.

Still need to install my Spartan locker. 255/75 MT's aren't going to happen before ATR, and with a sudden change in life plans might not happen at all, I think I'm going to be going to 255/80 Load E when these tires wear out.

I like the OME suspension. Stiff shocks front and rear with 885/895 springs is perfect for low speeds, technical trails, high loads, and in theory towing which I may be confirming in the near future with a toyhauler RV. However, because I plan to do some higher speed stuff in due time I'm going to start planning out the next suspension stage: 6112/5160's should support a build that's equally capable of 1/3 high speed forest service roads/sandy dunes, 1/3 technical trails, and 1/3 basic bitch overlanding IE a lightweight wedge RTT and some basics in the back.

I also want to invest in some BTF Fabrication high caster LCAs. They shift the lower ball joint forward (rather than UCA's which move backwards for caster correction) giving more firewall clearance while they add caster which means bigger tires for any given setup, short of moving the whole subframe forward. I don't like poly bushings but they're an acceptable cost to an otherwise perfect solution for caster and firewall clearance.

I'm also writing this down so the idea is somewhere public:

I'm going to start investigating an interesting way to setup high speed and high flex suspension front and rear. A buddy of mine suggested air springs front and rear because you can link them side to side with a solenoid to reduce the roll resistance on the fly AKA you can get a LOT of flex at the flick of a switch. Being worried about bag punctures I was not interested at first, but ORI Gas struts are similarly charged with nitrogen and in theory could be linked left/right the same way at the fill ports, and they put up with real hard use when wheeling. Combined with those airlynx above, you could get an IFS rig to flex a ton because gas transfer would drive the unloaded tire down a lot almost like a solid axle would. The moment you want to go back to high speed stuff on the highway or offroad, you just pull onto a level surface, repressurize the airlynx so the sway bar is back to 100% function (this can be done with onboard air like lockers can), make sure the body is level, and flick off your link solenoids so left/right act independently again. I feel like this sort of setup is best combined with a long travel setup and would allow a LT truck to flex out when you want to hit something low speed and technical.

Between these two ideas (ORI vs conventional spring/shock) I think this vehicle will lean towards conventional, but if I snag another 4R for beating on that one will be all-in on LT+ORI because that can be a true rig, whereas this truck needs to be a DD in the meantime

 

https://www.marlincrawler.com/product/lca-frame-brace-2003-2009-4runner-fj-cruiser-gx470

https://kpoffroad.com/product/best-alignment-cam-upgrade-kit-cam-eliminator

https://www.chaosfab.com/product/2003-2009-Toyota-4Runner-Lower-Control-Arm-Cam-Tab-Gussets-59860

Doing a little cross shopping of cam tab setups here. I like the marlin deflectors, but I think the TC/KPO style plate replacement is a better tab setup than the reinforcement of the factory ones. I do like that the MC setup would (presumably) not need an alignment afterwards but given that my front right cam bolt is seized up anyway I'm not too hung up on that.

Oh yeah, and this LCA is calling my name again. I don't like the poly bushings, but caster correction at the LCA that moves the tire further forward of the BMC is 11/10.

https://btffabrication.com/collections/toyota-1/products/03-09-4runner-high-caster-lca

 

I'll raise you the JD Fab lower pivots. It'll cover all your bases.
https://jdfabrication.com/collectio.../products/copy-of-fj-cruiser-lower-arm-pivots

 

This does massively interest me. The aluminum skid checks my wheeling boxes, the caster correction is nice, and the alignment tab fixes are 11/10. I'll have to price it out against my other options for the front, but that's already cheaper than the LCA+cam tab gusseting

 

Talk about some shadow of intent.

350lb of Lincoln IdealARC next to the cooler in the back here. I'm going to do all the armor welding on this thing, and maybe a good portion of the fab work. I don't like the couple hidden winch mounts I see on the market for instance and would rather DIY that, same for rear bumpers/swing outs/recovery points. Also probably going to build my own hitch skid because I'm not a fan of the existing ones on the market.

 

I lied about 255/75R17's before ATR, I found a set for 300 on Jeep rims. Hopefully I can get them mounted before this weekend and get the old rims sold quick.

 

Another wild idea: drop- in ball joints and rubber bushing 2" long travel control arms. Most of the arms on the market are focused so much on getting every inch of travel and forget that a low maintenance option that doesn't need 10k of investment into bumps, special coils, and short-lived hardware can be an 11/10.

 

I did this with 295/70R17 Falken M/Ts on Gladiator rims. I listed the rims for $300 and they went next day. Just check your local market for those style rims and toss a price under the usual and they usually go quick.

 

You can get sealed uniball options now, which can mean the best of both worlds. What would be nice though would be arms that aren't over $1k and accept universally available balls so you aren't forking out money on some proprietary maintenance items. I would buy a better LCA if it was cheaper and had easily replaceable wear parts. Uniballs are nice in that you don't need a 2-10 ton press to get the things in and out of the arms.
These aren't sealed but are cheap to weld in, and are lifetime rebuildable for $24 afterwards. https://www.tmrcustoms.com/products/lifetime-heims-rebuildable-uniball?currency=USD

 

I plan to! They're already off the rims I just need to get them posted on FBMP. Apparently the guy couldn't get rid of this combo at 300 but I'm hoping being closer to the city helps. Either way I'll accept basically any offer that covers a set of Yota rims so it's a quick swap for wheeling vs daily.

Yeah something sealed is the key. The factory setup is shock travel and bump stop limited and lasts years to decades, and I'd like to at least attempt match that with another arm. These trucks already have a lot of little maintenance items and I'd prefer not to add to them because driving is more fun than wrenching.