Issues after lift/rims

well my friend has a set of those sames tires on his ford ranger and to me they ride kind of rough to be just all terains.. almost seems as if they vibrate goin down the highway if you have a friend with some rims and tires to through on your truck to try out i would do that.. could just be the tires

 

Hmm never thought of that. I guess I'll start by looking into the lugs.

Ok man sweet, I will do that, I think that's maybe the next step...at least the cheapest lol.

Could be, but they road great and were pretty quiet with no problem at all until I put them on the new rims.

 

Well, I ordered new lug nuts and tried them out today and that wasn't the problem, nothing really changed much at all. Maybe rides very slightly better but not much at all. Vibes and pulsing still same as always

 

Too lazy to read the whole thread.

You probably can't get a satisfactory alignment for your ride height with the stock UCAs. That would be item #2 I'd check after balancing - and it sounds like you've balanced the tires to death.

Item #3 is driveline angle. Almost sounds like your rear shaft could be a bit out of phase.

Item #4 is some trucks just vibe after they're lifted, nothing's gonna make it go away, live with it or don't.

FWIW I get a new vibe every few months as I continue to take chunks out of my tires wheeling. The guys at the tire place love me.



Edit: The vibe that disappears in 4wd is almost certainly the front diff needle bearing. These trucks frequently have problems with that bearing when lifted. Search on here for info. The short version is that the change in angle of the CV joints in the front axles causes a bearing in the front diff to shit for some people. Needs to be replaced to resolve the issue.

 

Get hub rings your stock hub is 60.1 and the wheels you have are 78.3 you are supposed to have them if you don't the tacoma is hub centric.

Also you put in a 3 degree shim but did you use a degree wheel/level to figure out what your tailshaft was at compared to your diff in order to see what degree shim was really needed?

Just slapping in a shim as a guess is only a guess. When you lifted the front and the rear you changed your angles and some trucks like to get vibes from this others get by with no vibes or drivers dont notice it over loud tires.

Do you have any side shots of your truck?

 

Any idea as to how much it would cost? And after replacement, is it likely to fail again if my lift isn't changed? I used to have the diff. drop to help the CV angle, it did help it a decent bit, but don't know if I should throw it back on?

I've heard several times about the rings, you think that would correct the "bouncing" in the rear end? I just purchase new lug nuts to help better center it but they didn't really help me. And you mean side shot in general or up close of struts and such?

 

The upper control arms are only needed if you cannot get a proper alignment. If you trust the shop and they stated it reached proper spec there is not any need to change them.

Going back to the hub rings, the tacoma is a hub centric vehicle. Thus should stay hub centric. You have a aluminum wheel not steel so you can use a hub ring to make sure it is correct.

Also check your driveline angles, your rear end, driveshaft and tailshaft need to be at proper angles. Tossing in shims is just guessing all vehicles have to be correct of vibs occur.

Guessing is not going to help these need to be to spec. When the work is done ask for what the settings are and know ahead of time the answer so you can tell if the people you are taking the truck to know their stuff.

If you still think it is a tire problem. Just for giggles run your hand over all your tires and see if you can feel a broken belt in the tire, do this across the tread and around the diameter. You will feel a bump or rise in the tread that should not be there.

I was just asking for a whole picture of the side of the truck so we can see how the truck sits currently after you lifted the front and back.

_______________________________________________________

Wheel types explained below

Centerbore

The centerbore of a wheel is the machined opening on the back of the wheel that centers the wheel properly on the hub of a vehicle. This hole is machined to exactly match the hub so the wheels are precisely positioned as the lug hardware is torqued down. Keeping the wheel precisely centered on the hub when it is mounted will minimize the chance of a vibration. Some wheels are vehicle model specific and will come from the factory with a bore machined to match that vehicle. Some wheels are designed to fit multiple vehicle models and will use a centering ring system to reduce the bore size to match the hubs of different vehicles. These rings keep the wheel precisely positioned as the lug hardware is torqued down.
Some wheels are non-hub centric by design. These are known as lug centric wheels. With these wheels it is critical to torque the lug hardware with the vehicle on jack stands, off the ground. This allows the nuts or bolts to center the wheel and torque down without the weight of the vehicle pushing them off center.
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Driveline angles

http://www.4xshaft.com/driveline101.html

 

Diff drops do nothing for second gens.

As for the cost, the bearing itself isn't terribly expensive, but you do have to do some significant disassembly of the front-end driveline to get to and replace it. If you have a shop do it for you, it will be expensive because of labor.

As for whether it will fail in the future: possibly. Hopefully not, but it's not guaranteed.

Not necessarily; aftermarket UCAs add considerable strength, add travel, and allow more alignment options to help clear the wheel in the wheelwell.

 

Do you have any recommendations on what rings will work well for me or is it just a no difference in any brand kind of deal?

I've just about ruled out the tires being the issue, I think it's the needle bearing as far as my vibrations go and the rims as far as the balancing issues go.

And thanks for the explanation btw, that really helps a lot!!

Here's a pic and I'll throw one in of my rear drive shaft (I know its not the best but its dark out and one I already have) to maybe help give you an idea of what it looks like

 

I've read that several places on here, but it did actually help the angle on my truck. But you still say it's better off overall without it?

Ah I see, well ETaco has been helping me out a lot with info and linked me to a thread on how to do it, but I'm not very mechanically inclined so I would probably have to go the shop route. He also recommended that I replace the driver side CV as well. So I figure I'm looking at a pretty decent amount of money I will probably have to save up for a while, so if something were to actually "break" what would be the consequences exactly?

I want to get this issue straightened out first but if I ever have the extra cash or something new UCA's would be awesome!! But the stockers will probably be all I ever have.

 

Nah it didn't.

If the bearing seizes totally that could be bad....like flip-your-truck-on-the-interstate bad...that's a worst case scenario and unlikely. Honestly, the consequences could range anywhere from "annoying noise" to "driveline damage" to "driveline damage that causes you to lose control of your vehicle at highway speeds".

Honestly if you have some tools, a place to leave the truck disassembled for a few days, and a basic grasp of written english, the FSM could guide you right through this at essentially no cost but your time.

 

Holy cow lol, well I guess it needs to be looked into pretty soon then, because I've already been driving it like this since about mid August. Hmm, well that could be a possibility, only downside to that is its winter time and I don't have a real good roomy place to work on it other than the drive way.

 

I don't think you're in any immediate danger for some time. That said disclaimer: You make your own decisions about what service your vehicle does and doesn't need. In theory, any component failure could be disastrous. Most aren't.

 

Alright cool, the advice on here sure is a huge help though, the guy that installed my lift couldn't ever figure out what it was that was causing my problems.

And it ended up quoting above, but in your opinion do you think that my CV angles are not too out of line the way they are? And should the driver's side CV be replaced when I get the needle bearing fixed?

 

CV angles being "too high" is really a matter of personal opinion. Increased CV angles are going to result in faster wear, and possibly other complications like boot tears.

These items can all be repaired. How willing/able one is to do the repairs tends to play into what it "too much" CV angle. There are plenty of us on here running them "too high" and know we'll have an eventual problem, but we'll deal with it then.

Hell, CVs eventually die on stock cars...but where it may take 150 to 200k miles in a stock vehicle might only take 75k in a modified one. I run 3.5" or so inches of front lift. A lot of people say you "can't" do that because it'll tear CV boots on these trucks. While this does increase risk of boot failure, there's nothing stopping a willing individual from re-booting the CV axles as needed and carrying on with his life. That's just how things are when you modify vehicles - mods cause some problems, and you have to address them.

So, whether or not your CV angles are "ok" is up to you. The general rule of thumb is that if the fins of the inner boot are touching at resting ride height, you're going to have an earlier failure than if they are not. In the pics in your OP, it would appear yours are touching.

If the needle bearing is indeed the issue but the CV is undamaged, I see no reason why the CV would need to be replaced. The bearing is part of the front differential assembly, not the CV axle.

 

I see, well even with getting something like 75K out of them that isn't all that bad. I don't remember my measurements from stock but from center of hub to bottom of fender now is about 23.5" so I may be up there in that 3" range up front myself.

I guess that's where I don't understand the diff. drop being bad, it did indeed lower the angle of my CV's which may have kept them from rubbing so that's where I don't see it being a bad thing. However, I've read on here that it elevates the pinion out of oil as well so that's not good either. I guess you don't really get a total win when you modify anything lol.

 

That corresponds to roughly 3.5" of lift, but give yours some time. It's new, it will settle a bit. Typically regular cabs get a bit more lift being as they're lighter than the other cab styles.

2gen diff drops rotate the front of the diff downward. This has a negligible effect on CV angle (I remember someone on here doing math and showing it to be less than 3 degrees change in the CV angle) and does indeed rotate the front differential pinion up, reducing it's immersion in the oil bath inside the diff. It also changes the front driveline angle which without a diff drop is unaffected by a non-dropbracket lift.

And yes, you're largely right: almost every modification is double edged. The stock vehicle was a labor of love by engineers who took several years to meet a specific goal. We customize through modifications to go our own directions, but that doesn't result in the same finely tuned machine that custom engineering does. It also, however, doesn't cost millions of dollars like new vehicle R+D does.

 

Ah, I see. Well if I'm better off without it, I'll just leave it as is and hope the CV's last a while. I don't know a whole lot about them but is there any major warning signs to know when it's time to replace them so I don't end up stranded on the road? I mean I'm sure they're not at that point now or shouldn't be anytime soon, but I'd like to be prepared just in case.

 

CVs tend to make a lot of groaning and clunking/popping when they start going bad...and they usually take months to go from "going bad" to "broken". You'll have ample warning if you have a CV issue.

As for the boots, if you blow a hole in one of those it'll puke grease all over the front suspension, so just inspect regularly. I usually give my truck a good once over when filling up.

 

Alright good! I've got the groaning now but I think that's due to the needle bearing. There's no clunking/popping at all though.

So is that a real bad uh-oh when that happens or not something that'll leave you stranded or anything?