Lowered B.S. Thread

Brah I wouldnt mine trying that's out either maybe ot could help with the stupid taco lean maybe just cranking to right before it raises me then hopefully keeps me from bottoming with full tank and my spare on I have about an inch between the front of the pumpkin and the Crossmember at least until I notch it

 

It works super good with my bike in the back but i hve it cranked on the highest setting so it raised me up a bit. I gotta lower the tension down and see if my truck drops back down. it should, ill keep you guys posted. barely fits behind the driver side qa1 tho. BARELY!

 

Shit i wonder if would fit by my shocks cuz they are chodes!!!

 

Progress has been kind of slow on my build, but there has been progress none-the-less. I'm kind of glad I didn't do anything with the Air Ride kit yet as now I'm having second thoughts after seeing jmarquez808's Road Master solution.

Anywho, I got my BLHM done. I'm glad I took my time on this mod as it is very easy to mess-up.



Got my parts back from the paint shop. They did a nice job... the paint is really shiny and all the plastic texture is gone. Hopefully the paint won't chip off; I guess time will tell. I ordered some 3M VentureShield, but it sounds like I need to give the paint some time to cure before putting the clear bra on.



Painted mirror covers...



Crappy picture of the back dropped 4" (The front of the truck is on jack stands, making everything look weird)...



New Raybestos rotors with black paint coating to hopefully prevent the rotors from turning into balls of rust...



I'm working on the front end as time permits to put the DJM arms on. Hopefully I can make some progress on that this Saturday.

 

^^^^Get it!!!! Love the rotors man, I want those!!!

 

Dayum bro i cant wait till its dropped

 

Goin up for sale this weekend. $10k and $10.5k with all the other non-installed goodies.. keep an eye out.

 

Ship it to my door please

 

SingleCabGuy... you're just going to roll around with holes in your fenders now? I'd suggest painting the flares and slapping 'em back on. Are you going to get different tires? Looks kind of weird to have a lowered truck with super tall tires.

 

He is lifting back up and he is going to be pluging the wholes.

 

it's time bro. I am ready to buy a house and have another vehicle I can fit the whole family into.

 

Where they easy to install the rotors?Once you get the caliper off should be easy to install right? or is there some special trick to it

 

Yes, once you unbolt the caliper, the rotor will pretty much fall off (unless it's rusted on the hub).

For those of you who install the DJM kit, how the #$@% do you get the steering stop thingy off the lower ball joint? The photo below isn't my truck, but that's the peice I can't get off the ball joint to save my life

 

You gotta leave those two spindle bolts on and lossen the ball joint nut and give ot some spankings with a hammer till they give then done its impossible to take it off like that unless u got magic.powers but yeah live it bolted and unblot the bottom nut from the balljoints and then you can split it

 

I have a tool that you crank down on it that will remove the ball joint out of the spindle. Maybe 20 bucks at oreillys. Works really well

 

We sell those at my store but idk I forgot to pick one up so me and my hammer had some convincing to do and we won

 

I pretty much have already beat the ball joint to a bloody pulp and the steering stop plate didn't budge. I had also bought and tried a "pickle wrench" with no success (other than messing-up the ball joint boot ).

I just topped at AutoZone and got a universal jaw puller (kind of like the tool I posted above) and finally got the part off on the driver's side (passenger side today, hopefully). I can't believe how much force it took to get it off. I don't think I ever would've gotten the part off with a hammer.



Replacing the struts was a bunch of fun too Started out with calling repair shops that might have a spring compressor to see if they'd swap-out my OEM struts with the new Bilsteins. One shop (Firestone) said the won't work on parts they don't sell (what the...?!?! ), one shop quoted $40 per strut and one quoted $85 per strut and said, "It's really hard to do the struts on a Tacoma" (which I thought was B.S.). With all that in-mind, I went to AutoZone and got a $35 strut spring compressor tool and did the swap myself. I don't see what was so hard about the replacement... I think the $85/strut shop was wack.

What's interesting about the Bilsteins vs. the OEM struts is that the strut rod is a little shorter on the Bilsteins, which means you need to really compress the springs in order to get the top plate back on. I'm not sure if this will have any impact on the ride height of the vehicle or not since the spring perch seems to be at about the same height as OEM.

What's tricky about replacing the OEM struts (or at least was for me) is that you need to really be careful about how the top plate is mounted. If it's rotated too much one way or the other, you won't be able to bolt-up the bottom of the strut. Once the whole thing is bolted together, you can't move the top plate at all because of all the spring pressure. For this reason alone, I'm gad I didn't go to a shop and have the struts swapped, 'cause chances are they would've lined-up the bolts wrong and I would've had to make another trip back to the shop.

I managed to get the top plate on "close enough" and found that I had to mount the bottom of the shock to the lower control arm first, then hope the bolts on the top could be coerced to fit in the frame. Whew! All I can say is that this project is really tiring me out, but I'm getting closer to "more lowz"!

 

I'm wondering if Toyota changed something for the 2013 models or "I'm just lucky". I've read a bunch of posts about lower ball joint failures in earlier Gen 2 Tacomas, so maybe things aren't as *easy* to disassemble any more.

Anywone want to buy a slightly used pickle fork? If you hit the end of it, it makes a sound like a tuning fork

 

LOL! No kidding! You should just put wing-nuts on your suspension so you can do tool-free installs

 

I used regular spindle separator or ball joint separator. A hammer for min e would have destroyed everything. Ill post a pic of it later.

Bro fuck those spring compressors. Put ur truck on jack stands. Use your jack placed underneath the lower control arm. Put everything in place then jack it up and guide it all into place. There no way the spring can fly out and hit you that way and its super fast. Removed and installed mine just with a jack.