Daily driver stock/mid/long travel suspension

Since it's Friday.... The time has come to build some proper suspension.... daily driven, all weather, all temperature, high strength, long lasting, squeak, and noise free. This will begin by concentrating on the bushings and joints, and I have what I believe, at this point, to be nice solutions. We'll then Move on to Shocks, which is easy, Internal Bypass.

First are the upper arms and the inner bushings. After tons of searching, this OEM solution appeared. It is a combination inner bushing, the pivot is metal on metal, sealed, and greaseable. Some will recognize the pivot, the old style threaded inner shaft! This guy is a monster with a M30 shaft diameter. The next cool part of this bushing, is that it has a small cushion of rubber built in between the shell and inner pivot. It's not a lot, only about 5mm thick, but it will provide some noise and vibration isolation, with slight misalignment capabilities, but no rotation loads to beat the hell out of it. The outer dimensions of the bushing are similar to the stock Taco and Tundra pieces. Here are some pics of the bushings, They will require some machining so a through shaft can be utilized.

 

Here is the the lower ball joint that will be utilized. This is probably the most durable type, forged metal on metal, greaseable, steering rotation and suspension pivot functions are separate for reduced wear. Stock lower 35mm ball vs 41mm. Retaining stud/thread grows from M16 to M20. Toyota employs this ball joint on vehicles that have GVWR of 8500 - 12000 lbs. It is similar in size to the second gen Tundra/Land Cruiser 200.

 

I know, I get it, if it's not mounted in single shear and exposed to the elements, it's yawnsville.

 

More Friday ball joint pics. The largest joint has a ball diameter of 45mm, a smidge over 1.75”. A 1” bore uniball is 1.687”. Built to be axially loaded in compression, there will be no pulling out here.

 

Inner pivots look pretty close to stock bushings.


Until you peak inside. More pics above the sleepy Red Sox fan.


Two 16mm bolts will replace the one long 14mm. The cross tube ID is 14.5mm, perfect to run an M16 tap in. Bolts will have braces added out at the ends.