Ripcord's Spruce Mica Build

HABOOBS · Jan 16, 2019

Ripcord[OP] said: ↑

|April 14, 2018|

Tire Clearance:

35’s are big tires to try and clear on these trucks, especially without long travel arms to push them further out. But there is hope! There are a few surefire things you can do to eliminate rubbing.

-The big one is the famous Cab Mount Chop. Easy to do, assuming you have a welder or know one.

-The next important one is the front bumper. If you are keeping the stock bumper, you will need to trim it quite a bit. Going with a high clearance front bumper gave me all the tire clearance I needed in that area though.

-Another is the fender and flare trimming, you don’t have to do as much of that if you have extended bump stops. But I didn’t want to limit my suspension travel so I cut quite a bit as you will see.

-The secret sauce however is the alignment. As mentioned, I went with SPC upper control arms. The biggest reason for this is they have the ability to adjust the location of the upper ball joint which helps change the tire position up front. By moving the tire position forward, you can gain more clearance to the body and cab mount area. In order to move the tire forward, you will need an aftermarket front bumper for the tire clearance up front.

-One final note is on Wheel offset / backspacing. The ideal backspacing is just enough to prevent tire rubbing on the upper control arm, usually around 4.5” of backspacing or slightly less. As you push the wheel further out (with spacers, lower backspacing on wheels, or even just a wider wheel) the tire will make a wider arc along the steering axis which will mean it will rub worse on the pinch weld/cab mount area. IMO the perfect wheels specs for these trucks are 4-4.5” backspacing and 8-8.5” width.

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SPC Ball Joint Adjustment

As mentioned above, we will be using the alignment settings to move the front axle forward, creating clearance to the body and cab mount.

For the SPC ball joint, you can see here the range of adjustability you have in the upper ball joint position. Caster and Camber can both be adjusted independently of each other. There is also some factory adjustability at the lower control arm bushings to help reach your goal.

Picture taken on driver's side suspension.

What we want to do is move the upper ball joint as far forward as we can without letting the caster angle get too close to zero. This is where the lower arms come into play. You want to adjust both the lower arm and upper ball joint together to overall move the front axle forward without changing the caster angle very much. For the lower arm bushing cams, move the forward bushing in towards the truck and move the rearward bushing outward.

I ended up going with the F setting on the SPC ball joint. This, combined with adjusting the lower arms, moved the axle centerline about 1” forward. This is a HUGE amount when trying to help with your rubbing.

Watch this video for a summary of the changes.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/f2YhnldfI50

After all that, camber can be set with the slot in the upper control arm and toe is set on the Tie Rods of course.

I am able to get my alignment pretty damn perfect this way.

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Cab Mount Chop

The front cab mount chop is almost required if you run 285s (33s) or above. It consists of just trimming the mount and welding in a new low profile side. Was short on time, so I had a shop in Newhall do it for $150.

Cut a LOT off... the more the better.

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Fender Trimming!

There are two parts that must be trimmed, the fender flare and the fender itself. To get started on this, remove the wheel well liners.

Now remove the flares. There should be one bolt on each end and a bunch of plastic clips all around it. Be careful popping the clips off, the clips are replaceable but the receiving features on the flares are not… in fact it's probably best to just remove the clips from inside the fender instead of trying to pop the flare off. Clearly not how I did it, but it is what I recommend now that I have taken flares off.

You can see how much extra sheet metal there is beyond the attachment clips for the flare, this is what we are trimming off.

I decided to take about 3” off of the flares and fenders. I tried to mimic @inv3ctiv3 ‘s trimming lines, because damn his truck looks good! I also read through @tetten ‘s build quite a bit in this area. Why Toyota made the Tacoma flare 6+ inches tall is beyond me, it has always looked stupid with how big it is.

Masked flare to cut. I marked the cut so that the flare was 3.5” tall all around.

Cut flare using a dremel with cut off disk.

Cuts cleaned up using a stationary belt sander.

Now onto the fenders themselves. When working on the rear, be aware of these brackets that hold the bedsides.

What I did for these was move them away from the wheel well by one hole.

Fender marked for the cut. I wanted the fender to be ½” inside the flare at all times.

There is plenty of room behind the fender, so don’t worry too much about inadvertently cutting anything important.

Use some paint match to cover the raw metal from the cut.

Get some edge trim, you will need just under 20ft of each size:
1/32" for the fender itself (McMasterCarr 8507K14)
1/16" for the flares (McMasterCarr 8507K52)

I didn't add the edge trim until August, so the next few pages won't show any edge trim.

The next thing you want to do is replace any of the plastic clips that inevitably broke when you first removed the flares. I got 10x 10 packs on Amazon for $9, meanwhile the dealer wants like $1 per clip!

GRQV-0047616315

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B012SUQD0A/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

With all new strong plastic clips in there and a bolt on each end, the flares should be held plenty strong on there!

here is a completed picture!

.
Click to expand...

Hey man... How is this set up working out for you? I'm thinking seriously about making the jump to 35s but like you, do not have a LT system... Of course, we gotta cut alot and bash in the firewall and pinch welds, not to mention the re-gear... but other than that and the camber/caster adjustments you've mentioned, have you made any other changes to accommodate the tires?

Ripcord · Jan 16, 2019

It's been great, the caster tweaking really is what does it. Wheel it quite a bit and tire rubbing isn't an issue.

Taco505 · Jan 16, 2019

Dang Jimmy the truck is looking great and awesome catailog of the process wouldn’t expect anything less from you!

It’s Alex btw (John and Peter’s friend)

Ripcord · Jan 16, 2019

Hey thanks Alex! Long time no talk, what's new?

Horger12 · Jan 16, 2019

Taco505 said: ↑

Dang Jimmy the truck is looking great and awesome catailog of the process wouldn’t expect anything less from you!

It’s Alex btw (John and Peter’s friend)
Click to expand...

Hey! Alex!

Ripcord · Feb 27, 2019

|January 12, 2019|

My pod lights were going out and I didn’t like how I had an 18” bar in the 20" bumper opening, so I switched out all my LED lights for Element LEDs

The new pods are Amber Canons, they are SUPER bright! I was blown away when I used them.
The new Light bar is the Optix Pro 20”, it also has a backlighting function similar to some of the really expensive bars.

The wiring was done the same way that I did the previous lights, see details here: https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/ripcords-spruce-mica-build.552033/#post-17955764

Just the fogs (light bar is backlit only in this photo)

Light Bar

===============================================

Went snow wheeling after the install.

FLEM9943 by alex fleming, on Flickr

FLEM9892 by alex fleming, on Flickr

FLEM9908 by alex fleming, on Flickr

Taco505 · Jan 17, 2019

Ripcord[OP] said: ↑

Hey thanks Alex! Long time no talk, what's new?
Click to expand...

Ya man its been a long time but not a whole lot other than a new truck. I don't know if you remember my little red Tacoma but I just sold that and picked up a 2011 4x4 with 30k miles so pretty happy about that!

Horger12 said: ↑

Hey! Alex!
Click to expand...

Hey man! Not sure if you check out the NM thread often but I think we are going to try and get a little meet going sometime in the near feature.

Ripcord · Jan 17, 2019

Nice! that's exciting.

Ripcord · Feb 26, 2019

Small update, got gears ordered yesterday so that's nice.

Also I went snow wheeling this weekend with @NateMob and @JWaldz. We went to the Rainbow Falls area near colorado springs.

Bigpat_ca · Feb 26, 2019

The the canons plug and play?

Ripcord · Feb 26, 2019

no, they use deutsch plug. I just spliced into the factory fog light harness.

whitundra · Feb 26, 2019

Lets see some progress on the diy gfc!

Bigpat_ca · Feb 26, 2019

Ripcord[OP] said: ↑

no, they use deutsch plug. I just spliced into the factory fog light harness.
Click to expand...

Did you happen to do a write up or take pics?

Ripcord · Feb 27, 2019

whitundra said: ↑

Lets see some progress on the diy gfc!
Click to expand...

I'll be making a dedicated thread for that, due to the amount of information. But the wedge part is pretty much done, working on the spaceframe part this weekend. Probably be done in 3 weeks.

Bigpat_ca said: ↑

Did you happen to do a write up or take pics?
Click to expand...

Same way that I did the previous fog lights: https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/ripcords-spruce-mica-build.552033/#post-17955764

lookatthatdog · Feb 28, 2019

Where did you get the .stl for the ram mounts? Can I have them? Obsessed with your truck btw

Ripcord · Feb 28, 2019

I didn't have a solid model so I made one at work and printed it. Don't have that file anymore though since I left that job.

greenEFSI · Mar 6, 2019

@Ripcord I checked the whole thread but didn't see anything related to re-gearing. Have the 35's been ok without having to re-gear?

Ripcord · Mar 6, 2019

I am currently waiting on gears from ECGS, stock gears weren't too bad but in the mountains they were not fun.

WormSquirts · Mar 19, 2019

greenEFSI said: ↑

@Ripcord I checked the whole thread but didn't see anything related to re-gearing. Have the 35's been ok without having to re-gear?
Click to expand...

I've also been running 35s for almost 2 years on the stock gears... It's not that bad, but going up big hills can be brutal. Fuel economy isn't great though. If i could afford the regear though, I definitely would do it.

Ripcord[OP] said: ↑

I am currently waiting on gears from ECGS, stock gears weren't too bad but in the mountains they were not fun.
Click to expand...

What gears did you go with? I'm hoping to regeared sooner than later and put lockers in a well. I'm trying to decide.

Ps. The spruce mica is my favourite Tacoma colour of all time

Ripcord · Mar 27, 2019

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