Order of Operations

New to the forum so excuse me if this has been answered a million times...

I bought my Tacoma used over a year ago. It's a 2013 Sport 6-spd with about 60k miles. The tires are starting to wear down so I'll be in the market soon. I'm also looking to do some modifications to my truck, which include a new off-road front bumper (leaning towards the ARB) and a lift kit. I understand that the after-market heavy duty bumpers add weight, and thus reduce the lift, of the truck. Since I don't want to drop $4k-$5k in one month doing everything at once, I'm looking for recommendations on the appropriate "build order." If I'm looking to attain a certain ride height, what should I do first? My initial thought was to add the bumper first, take into account the depressed front end, and then adjust my suspension setup appropriately. After I have the suspension and bumper set up I would replace the wheels and tires. Thoughts?

 

So are you saying bumper and suspension at the same time? If so, that sounds like a solid plan. Are you trying to fit larger tires?

 

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https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads...iscount-tire-direct-ebay-sale-is-back.515282/

 

What type of use will it get? How worn are the tires? A lift and bumper are of no use if the tires are not great. I personally went suspension and wheels/tires first. I needed tires and it gave me the clearance and traction initially. After that I went sliders and skids as that gave me some protection I need for most wheeling. Bumper is on my list but felt that until the wheeling gets super heavy that could wait. Either way just make sure you go heavy on the springs if you add a ton of armor. I went 650 as I was not sure but should have gone 700 since I am going all plate armor.

 

I was trying to imply the opposite...if I wanted to do both (not at the same time), would I put the bumper on first and then do the lift? Or do the lift, install the bumper, and then adjust it afterwards.

 

There isn't a real order of operations for something like this. However having the lift first certainly does make fitting larger tires easier.

In my opinion, or at least how I'd go about it in your situation would be to save up and do the OME (Old Man Emu) complete lift kit with the heavy springs and the ARB bumper at the same time. ARB is OME (same brand) so their lift with the heavy springs is built for their bumper.

Or were you leaning towards a different lift?

If you add 200# to the stock front end you're going to have a bad time with a very droopy and spongy front end. On the flip side, if you lift first and opt for the heavy springs you'll have a very stiff ride up front until the additional weight is added.

Wheels and tires can come last and tailored to your liking at that point.

 

Either way would be fine. I had a steel plate bumper on my Nissan frontier for a couple years on stock suspension with no problems.

 

PEMDAS

 

Haha. That's what I thought when I saw the title.

 

This summer I added an ARB to my truck. The engineer in me made me weigh the bumper and then what was removed. Without a winch an ARB bumper adds 131lbs (net wt added) on a late 2nd gen. I lost less than 1/4" of lift. What I have found is that the hoops over the headlights do block some of the light bleed and make an exaggerated cut off. I ended up adding some spacers up front to level out the truck and thus raise the cut off.

 

Thanks for everybody's input. I'll look at the OME...

 

I'd replace tires first if they are almost done because the other stuff won't keep you out of a ditch in the winter

 

I came here for the maths....was disappointed

 

Tire and wheels will be last no matter what. Youll need the lift and the bumper to determine what size tire you can fit.

I wod do bumper first.
The size and weight of the bumper will determine what coilover you put on when you do your lift. Some bumpers are heavier than others depending of you want high clearance, hoops, winches etc.

Then after you get the bumper and you know length and spring rate coil you need for your lift then you can see what tire size you can/want to run. That will determine what size lift you want.

Then after lift comes new wheels and tires.