Front bump install

Short little tutorial on my ‘12 Taco front bump stop install. 2”x2” travel FOA hydraulic bump stops and cans. not real sure I have much faith in these FOA bumps. If shipping conditions are any indication, they’re not gonna last. Not happy at all with FOA this far, but maybe they’ll at least work well. Simple install, this is a daily and no plans for a 2nd bypass “yet”, so I put these in the factory bump locations. Seemed like the easy and logical thing to do. Home Depot 2 1/4” hole saw. I blew up a saw on each mount, $20 each, but it worked well. Saved a shit load of grinder time. Cycled the suspension and set the stops so that the UCA would stop cookie cutting/punching hockey puck size divots in my inner fender. Used 2” aluminum bar stock as a heat sink while welding. Tightened the pinch bolts and welded away. Tubes kept their shape. Re located the previous owners upper limit strap location to get it away from the bump. Not sure exactly how much usable, strapped and bumped travel im cycling now. I didn’t check, I will later. I’m gonna say, 13ish inches. Only thing I’m going to do is add a 2” gusset to the back/under side of the cans where the tubes are unsupported. I’m sure it’ll be fine but I’ll still add them. Haven’t had a chance to test yet, hit a parking lot jump and got airborne but they barley touched on landing. Maybe used 1/4” of the bump travel. About all I can do in town. I set them at 200psi for now. Now to start hacking the rear end....

 

looks really good

 

Looks good, how far from the bump to LCA? on my 1st gen with Solo Motorsports LT kit and 2" bilstein bumps I was off like .5" so I shorted my bumps to 1.5" and went to a pressure of 235, going to try 250PSI next.

 

At normal ride height it’s about 2 1/2 to 3” up travel until it hits the bump. not to bad considering.

 

Also the bump cans are squared to the bottom of the factory mounts. They’re not just “set in there”. The hole saw made decent holes, but not strait. But the final positions are perfectly perpendicular to the factory frame mounts...

 

You didn’t cycle it with the shock in?

 

I’ve measured it fully compressed with the spring on. I did that cause I wanted to see if it was coil binding or bottoming in the shock. The shock has a tiny bumper on the shaft, but because of the way the previous owner set it up, there was not even a rubber bump stop anymore. The UCA hits the fender right at full shock compression. So I didn’t want it to keep hitting, that’s where I set it.

 

Reading "put new bump in old factory position" made my eyebrow raise. Well done though! Awesome welding

 

having run a bunch of FOA stuff, i would open it up and make sure its clean. They arnt bad for the price but do require some "pre" work

 

Yeah..... they came loose in a box and they shipped the cans upside down in the tubes so they got wedged into the cans and damaged the stops. The other stops slide out of the cans and and we’re loose around the box with no packing getting messed up and dinged. And one can was missing a nut/bolt. And all 4 schrader valves were loose and wouldn’t hold any pressure. And the actual shafts are nicked and banged up. I sent them an email but no response. I mean, damn guys... WTF? Did Ray Charles assemble these and Stevie Wonder pack them? I guess we’ll see if the even work...

 

Hopefully the pinch bolt is clocked enough that a secondary shock won't hit it. I did mine this same way but put the bolt flush out (had Fox cans and wanted the Fox pointing out). When I went to put on bypasses they hit the pinch bolt. Now I have ground down pinch bolts and mounts. Good idea on the hole saw too. I did the grinding method.

 

Yes they are. Saw that when I was cycling. Good thing too, where I wanted them the would have hit...

 

I would throw some gussets on the factory steel, your bumps have a lot of leverage on the OEM bump pocket because of the drop down brackets

 

Yep, I mentioned that in my post. Already have them cut, I’ll weld them this weekend...

 

Nice welds

 

Here’s the gussets done and I relocated the upper limit strap location so it’s basically perfectly perpendicular now at full extension...

 

Looking good! I was tempted to use your holesaw trick to mount mine but ended up cutting everything off the frame to start fresh

 

Looks really good, but. Foa is trash stay away, much better luck with the Locked offroad bumpstops.

 

Can’t stay away from something that I’ve already bought and installed....

 

Very clean install! Wish I had considered some different options when I installed mine but they seem to be doing fine for now.