The Getaway...Crom's build and adventures

Got out in the garage today and added commercial grade grip tape to the rock sliders. I did mine is about 12" sections. Thanks to @MrGrimm for the source of the tape! It's

$14 3M Safety-Walk Slip Resistant Tread, Black, 2-in by 180-in Roll, 7635NA

3M Safety-Walk Outdoor Tread, Black, 2-Inch by-180-Inch. You can find it at HD or Amazon.

Because it's a 3M product the adhesion is incredible!

 

Solving the Dakar Leaf Spring Squeak

EDIT: This post was obsoleted by this post:

Dakar Leaf Spring Maintenance (holes drilled for isolators), Oct 2016

While in the lab today I successfully diagnosed and solved (for now) the horrendous squeak on the driver side leaf spring.
It was the 2nd leaf from the top down, vibrating against the main spring. I originally thought it was the urethane bushing, but it was not.

I jacked up the truck, drove the leaf springs apart, blew them out with compresses air, gave them a shot of dry moly lube spray, and installed some zip ties. The noise is gone for now. I am going to service the passenger side tomorrow and proactively do the front end of the springs as well.

Here is a video to hear how bad the noise was.

https://youtu.be/mtPfqzxJK2s






Edit: I had to add something to keep the zip ties from walking down the leafs, when the leaf pack flexes.


Three of the four are holding after a few month of wheeling trips. One broke and the zip walked down and noise is back. I need to fix that one and I know I need to beef up the zip ties, I used what I had at the time..

 

I serviced the passenger side Dakar spring today and leaf springs are silent again! Wooooo!

Awesome. Glad to hear. you're so close in Vegas!

I've been to DV, in every season, the place is vast and extreme, it kicks ass!

 

No I've only hiked on the Santa Rosa Plateau.A Death Vally trip would be great

 

I recommend it. I use a hi-lift to lift from slider, and jack thru all the rear suspension for the side I'm working on. Then I place a screwdriver between leaves, and hammer it in to spread the leaves apart.

 

I ripped out the factory shit rubber radiator support bushings and replaced them with polyurethane from Energy Suspension,

$28 9.4101G UNIVERSAL MOUNT

9.4101G. This thread was helpful. And thanks to @DrFunker for tipping me off to their existence.



Old


The best way for my truck, is to install the bushings with the larger bushing on the top and the smaller one on the bottom. This made a huge difference in how the front end behaves. Much more solid feeling and no more weird pops and clicks.


In 2016, I swapped to the ES kit bushings.

 

Well, now I have something else on my list of things to do. Mine only has 18 or 19k miles but has had plenty of "flexing" in its life. It has an odd creaking when flexing over something.

 

Something to keep an eye on for sure. I'll eventually do the body mounts but I'll probably wait another four years or so...

You reminded me of something... When my truck was brand new, it had a horrible creaking sound while going over speed bumps, and while off road. It was madness. While my truck was under warranty I made Toyota fix it. Their solution was to spray penetrating oil in the pinch weld. The tech had isolated the noise using chassis ears. A few years later when out of warranty, I did this myself to the passenger side pinch weld and it fixed the noise on that side. All this is documented in this six year old thread here.

 

Just a quick update. I got new tires. 60,116 Miles They are 255/85/R16 Toyo Open Country Mud Terrains. They are HEAVY @ 60 lbs. each. With the TRD wheel, combined it's about 84 lbs per corner. I mounted one by hand after dismounting my old duratrac. It was a serious endeavor. After that experience I took the other (4) to Big O tires and paid them to mount them up. I have Dyna Beads in them and they self balance when I'm rolling down the road.

I also successfully mounted my new full size spare under the bed. There were some metal tabs that needed some persuasion from the sledge hammer and after that they were flat as a pancake. I hope to take the truck to dirt this weekend to try them out.

 

Looks like you made a great choice on tires! Can't wait to see them in their natural environment!

 

Good to know that you can just take a BFH to those metal tabs to get a 33" spare to fit. I think most guys just end up taking a grinder to them but this ends up looking way cleaner IMO.

 

Very nice are you getting any rubbing yet from those? I'm still on the fence on buying that size or the 265/75/16.

 

Thanks! Feels really good to have new tires again.

Thanks. I think it looks great too and the tabs can be bent back too if necessary. It was really easy, 5-6 hits and they were flat.

The lowest part of my truck is the factory hitch. That fugger hangs pretty low, if that thing can get moved up it would help me a lot. A number of times, I ended up dragging it quite a bit while crossing a river bed in Death Valley to my remote camp site.

I too considered a HC rear with swing out tire carrier, but I'm in and out of my truck shell / tail gate way too much to have something in the way. I think I may end up with a HC bumper with integrated recovery points and still keep the spare under the bed. I would do it today if I had the $$$.

I would temp swap a diff tire/wheel combo and go for a test drive to confirm it's the tires and not something else on the truck.

I get some rubbing under compression while turning. I think it's the plastic wheel well liner. Not sure. I'm going to try and figure it out tomorrow.

I can highly recommend the 265/75/R16 tire size. I ran that for 40K miles and (4) years and they fit and performed great. Each wheel tire/tire combo was 65lbs. No rubbing, spedo was perfect, power / torque was perfect. No regrets running that size. When the Toyo's wear out I may go back to that size. I don't know yet, too soon to tell.

 

I got my high clearance from CBI, and then home built a swingout. There is definitely a cool factor to the swingout on a high clearance bumper, and it was convenient to have the spare easily accessible along with the other items I had mounted back there. That being said, the handling bothered me. I makes a difference to have the weight that far back and my suspension suffered. Probably not as bad for those that have less weight in the bed than me but I hated it. The accessibility aspect of it too drove me crazy. I carry stuff that is longer than the bed quite often and not being able to lay the tailgate down to carry those items was getting old. I finally gave up on it and decided to remove the swingout. The spare will go back underneath as you have it and it will stay there. I had it there before and went through some mildly technical trails without it being a problem and the truck rides much better with the weight there.

 

Thanks for commenting. Your experience mirrors TacoDoc's. He too ran a CBI bumper with swing out tire carrier for a number of years and then in 2012 he had Demello build him a custom bumper and put the spare tire back under the bed.

 

I'll be mounting a HC with swing-out, awaiting delivery...anticipatory thoughts that for me, it'll be a two person lift to get a spare on or off that mount. May just keep the spare undermounted, and use the swing-outs for Roto-Pax plus the propane tank.

too funny here on 08.03.20 reading thru some of your threadlines. That HC bumper has been the best. the swing-gate with drop down table gets used for cooking and eating. carrying an 84lb spare wheel has its lifting-it there issues. and I carry extra fuel plus propane. been worth it for me.

 

looks good. let us know how they ride.

 

Tomorrow I'm pulling my JBA UCA out and putting stock UCA back in. While I'm at it I may pull out the OME shock / spring and put back stock suspension. Not sure about that but I'm going to cut away beat back anything that gets in the way of the tires.

 

X2, what's up?