New truck, questions on winch controller and suspension

I just left a truck shop and the lift is only around a 3 as it is. He recommended a leveling kit and switching out the springs as they appear to be quite thick for a Tacoma. He eluded to the possibility of the poor ride quality at highway speeds being caused by poor alignment. I mentioned that I wanted to lose the blocks and spacers and remain at 3” if I could get a better ride quality or go down if I need to. He seems like a super cool guy but he had no problem with blocks in the back and the price was a bit up there for the work.

So having left there , i honestly don’t know if I’m more confused or less. And I saw a screw in my tire while we were looking at it lol. The search continues...

As far as the wench and grill goes, I’ll order the controller and test it. Great work on that. I’ll come up with something for the grill, even if I have to make one. Something like that I feel like I can handle.

 

I don't think I've ever seen a 3" lift with balljoint spacers and a drop bracket. I think someone makes a 4" lift with the drop bracket, but not the balljoint spacers. I don't think that mechanic knows how high a stock tacoma is... Those appear to be stock tacoma springs (3 main leafs and an overload leaf) , I don't know what he means by "quite thick for a tacoma."

You already have a lift on it, and this guy was recommending a "leveling kit"?! So in other words he wants to put *another* lift on it. Yikes. More lift, if anything, will make your issues worse, not better.

**Don't have that guy work on your truck**

Depending on what you mean by a "bad ride", that's not an issue with the alignment. You'll get weird steering issues (drifting to one side all the time, etc...) or tire wear problems with a bad alignment, but not a rough ride.

Another reason a ~3" lift with higher end shocks is all around a better than this type of lift.

 

regular stance Tacoma:



lifted 6" Tacoma with larger tires:

 

Just because the spacers are 3" doesn't mean that it only lifts it 3". It's usually double that. I think you should find another mechanic.

I don't think blocks are the worse thing in the world. Brodozers use em all the time with taller blocks than that and they put down a lot more torque than a Tacoma does.

 

They also usually have giant chrome trackbars, and don't go off-roading with them.

 

No track bars on any I've seen in person. Some trucks come from the factory with a 2" block also.

 

Yeah, for a truck to come from the factory with blocks (Dodges, I believe) is laughably lazy engineering (if you can even call it engineering).

I see track (traction) bars a lot. I hear the chrome ones add like 10hp.

(google pic)

 

Agree it is lazy. I'm pretty sure Ford's come with them as well. No trac bar in the rearwith a Rough Country lift. Roomate had an 11' F350 with that lift.

 

Well yeah, you gotta spend more than $800 on a bro lift kit to get track bars, lol...

Rough country does make a separate traction bar kit for some trucks tho.

 

I’ve been MIA for a second while my buddy mechanic inspected the truck and I researched lifts. Good news: Everything checked out on the truck except there’s a bit of grease on my CV boots, but he said it wasn’t much to worry about immediately. I’m all in on losing all of this 6” block and spacer lift and getting an OME setup that will give me 2.5-3 “ and maybe 1” rake if I can achieve that. I’d like to get the the stiffer setup to support more weight in case I load up a bunch of gear ( even if I don’t intend to tow I’d like to have the option ) even if it rides a little stuff. I’m not 100% clear on which exact coils and leaf packs to order to achieve that. My searching has resulted in the 882 coils and the Dakars/ shackle setup. Insight on that would help a ton as that’s the last ( known) detail holding me back. Provided the upper control arms cooperate, and taking into account I may need shims for the drive shaft, are there any other things to consider before pulling the trigger?

 

OP: Look into an aftermarket wireless winch remote. It’s easy enough to install. It will let you hide the winch controller under the hood, when you fix/replace the butchered grill.

 

For the heavier duty OME leafs, I believe it's just an add-a-leaf you can get with the kit, rather than a stand alone "heavy duty" leave pack. And you can add the aal pretty much any time, so if you don't already have extra weight you carry around all the time I would suggest holding off on the aal, at least at first. The cost difference between getting the pack with the aal vs buying it separately is negligible.

When you do the leaf pack, just get new U-bolts, too. They're cheap, and it prevents you from having to be careful taking them off (a PITA if they are rusty).

As for your CV boots, while those won't explode on you, I would definitely consider new ones. Get a new (preferably factory OEM) CV, then rebuild the leaking one (or just bag it as-is) and keep it as a spare when you go off-roading.

A lot of people buy the CVs you get from parts stores with the lifetime replacement warranty, too, and just swap them out with a new one when they snap. But you definitely want to have a spare on hand just in case. I don't have one, but it's on my list of things to do for off-roading. I've never broken a CV, and I don't plan to, but most people don't plan to break CVs, lol...

 

You’re right, it’s probably for the best. I’m just trying to play it financially as smart as I can bc the the wife has been cool to this point and I just bought it and I’m instantly dumping money into it haha. That’s how it goes though. I want it to be legit. Here are some photos of it on the lift at the shop. My boys are resealing the transmission pan bc it was leaking through the old seal where someone put too much stuff on it and there was a broken bolt. At this point I’m starting to think her nickname is gonna be problem child - the truck, not the wife.

 

Another question: will this crossmember setup be okay to put with the 3” or does something have to be done to make it compatible?

 

That's the rub with the 6" lifts, the stock cross member usually gets cut (not exactly sure how, though) in order to have clearance for the bracket for the LCA mounts and the diff drop spacers.

I can't find a good picture of a "stock" front suspension without the skid plate to show the difference using google, so I'll get a picture of mine when I get home and post it.

From what I understand it's not impossible to do, so any competent fabricator should be able to retrofit it fairly easily.

The other thing is that it looks like you don't have bump stops, and the bracket on the right side of the pic (driver side) looks like it's been cut up or something (which is where the bump stops for the 6" would be).

 

So I need to add a new crossmember to the list? Maybe I’m the problem child for trying to tackle this without knowing what I’m doing first. Looks like it’s gonna be a learn-as-we-go. You guys have been invaluable with the advice and input. Thanks.

 

you can easily get a set of extended travel King coilovers, Deaver leaf springs (no lift blocks!!), and total chaos upper control arms; all around a better system for offroad

You can easily get all that, but not the rear shocks to go with it

-Mike

 

Possibly, that's just what I've heard, as I've never personally tackled a 6" lift before...

Here's my front end for a comparison, yours doesn't look to far off from mine aside from the obvious bracket, so you might be okay. Not sure what your rear mounts look like tho.

 

I'm currently running 5100s in the rear with my ext travel Kings, TC UCAs up front. While it would be ideal to have matched Kings, the 5100s work well enough for now. I plan to run them when I get the J59s, at least until I figure out what length shocks I need, then get matched Kings.

But custom length Kings aren't hard to get, you just call them up or talk to a dealer. Pretty easy. Not cheap. But still pretty easy...

 

95% of my time will be going back and forth to work and the remaining will be camping and playing in very intermediate trails and mud puddles. While I do want it to look cool and be real nice and somewhat future-proof, I’m starting to consider toning it back and I’m open to any suggestions for mid tier setup. I like the overlanding style side of things, which why I had my eye on the ome stuff at the top of my budget. I don’t want to break the bank though.