Betterbuckleup's 2000 taco build & BS

Damage report from the Rubicon.

Fucked my rear driveshaft when were trying to rush through Buck island. Got cocky and tried going up an obstacle without a spotter.

The vibrations weren't as bad as I thought on the drive home, but definitely there.
Picked up a spare driveshaft from an 01 double cab at a scrap yard and mated up the rear half with my shortened front section.

Going to have the other one shortened to have as a full size trail spare.





At one point on the trail I also lost all brake pedal feel and it went completely soft. Checked the master cylinder and there was no fluid.
My driver side banjo bolt on the caliper had been hitting my coilover and loostened itself and leaked out all the fluid.
I took a grinder to the head of the bolt to shave it down some and then added more fluid to the reservoir and was good to go.

I ordered Tundra brake stuff to upgrade and then I'll bleed the entire system at that point.


Also noticed that this part of my crossmember got damaged. Gonna try and hammer the "wings" back into place and then weld them up from the topside.

 

Had plans to go camping at the Rubicon springs this last weekend, but our plans were foiled when the smoke rolled in Friday morning.

I'm normally okay with camping in some smoke, but this was so thick that there was no way I wouldn't wake up feeling like complete shit the next morning.

Truck did great otherwise though. It was nice being able to be in an enclosed cab with AC on recirc versus my buddies who were in an open top jeep.

 

So after doing everything short of tubbing to clear my new 295's, I decided to just get the Solo arms since I was able to get a discount too.
I was limiting my uptravel a little bit too by spacing up my bumpstops to prevent the little bit of contact in the wheel well that I wasn't able to clearance.

So last week I busted ass getting them installed and aligned before going back to the Rubicon this last weekend.
I hate how you have to pull the steering rack to remove the rear most cam bolts.

It's a very well built product that looks great. Took me one weekend to fuck up the powdercoat on some rocks though






Good comparison with the stock arms showing the LBJ being 1 inch more forward




The OEM LCA's seriously put up with a lot and I've never had any issues with them.



I was surprised at the bushings they provide with the arms. Not sure what material they are, but they almost feel like delrin. Firm as hell

EDIT: Was told they are black urethane. Firmer than a standard poly bushing, but not as hard as delrin.



Rather than use a poly based or PTFE based lubricant for the bushings, it was recommend to use C5A antiseize (copper based).




So one thing that discovered that nobody talks about with the Solo arms is that with moving the ball joint forward, you also loose steering angle. The OTR mounting location also moves forward with the LBJ which gives the tie rod a more limited range of motion since it has to reach further forward to turn the spindle.

I'm not stoked on that part, but it's not the worst thing. It may get annoying on the trail in some of those tight turns. I guess it could also be beneficial for the sake of not putting you at full mechanical bind on the CV's though. Also more tire clearance to the frame at full lock.

Installed:


I kinda wish that the arms had threads on the other side so you can have the same OEM bumpstop configuration. It only allows for one bumpstop.
It was nice having the factory bump in addition to the duro bump to make the very end of the stroke at full bump much more progressive. I found that on the trail I was going through the travel a bit easier with there being only the durobump.

 

Bummer about the Rubicon trip. Hopefully these fires are under control here soon ish.

Them Solo LCAs tho

 

Yea, I'm hoping our Deer valley trip coming up here isn't impacted.

 

Yeah, hopefully not, but I'm mostly worried about the our Rubicon trip in September.

 

Yea that too.
Also we need to at least take Friday off for that weekend if we're gonna do the whole thing.

 

You really don't want the bushing to move inside the arm, just the sleeve inside the bushing. Not sure if it will cause you and problems, but I would remove the anti-seize from the outside of the bushing/inside of the arm.

 

I have Friday and Saturday off for the weekend we've talked about.

 

I've had no issues so far and that's what Solo told me to do for install and what they said they do for every one they install themselves.

Okay sweet. I still need to put in for my time off for that trip.

 

Yeah anti-seize everything - bushings should last a good while and solo does all their personal trucks that way.

 

So did the Tundra brake upgrade to help cope with the extra weight as well as eliminate the banjo bolt hitting the coil over and loosening that I ran into. Not to mention, one side of my passenger caliper was dragging I believe because one pad was wearing faster than the other so upgrading solved that issue too.

Went with the wheelers braided line, Napa Eclipse reman calipers, OEM rotors & pads & hardware.
Dealing with the frameside brake line connection was a PITA cause you get fluid everywhere and the flared fittings are pretty small.


Where I trimmed the dust shield to clear the calipers and rotor. lots of hammering and bending. Went a bit overboard with how much I trimmed on the top section, but oh well.




size comparison of the caliper compared to stock.



Torqued the banjo bolts down to what Wheelers spec'd which was 14 ft-lbs or so. Upon bleeding I found that both were leaking at the connection to the caliper.
FSM torque spec is 22 ft-lbs so I upped it to that and it stopped the leak on the driver side. Passenger was still leaking.

I changed out the crush washers and then also doubled up them, but none of that helped. Still leaked.
Next day I went out and got some new crush washers and then disconnected it and tried to even out the mating surface on the caliper to create a better seal.
Plugged the hole in the caliper. Then started with a file, then went to 200 grit sand paper, and then 400 grit.
No leaks after that fortunately, but I'm going to keep an eye on it and if it starts to leak again I'm just going to go to hardlines or maybe try and smooth the surface some more.






Problems aside, the braking is definitely better.
Those Yokohama MT's were howling when I was slamming on the brakes from 60-10mph on the break in procedure.


This bleeder bottle thing made bleeding the brakes so much easier. Especially with how many times I bled them with the leaking I was trying to fix.

$30 Allstar Performance ALL11017 Bleeder Bottle with Magnet and Check Valve , White

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00F9XHVKA?ie=UTF8

 

Finally threw together the footage from the Rubicon

https://youtu.be/KC7WtEjYvXI

 

Sex!

 

nice

 

Got my driveshaft back from the shop after being shortened, retubbed & balanced.
They went with some super thick wall .134" beef for the rear section. Shouldn't be messing that up anytime soon.

The other one will be kept as a spare.








Weight of the new 2 piece DS vs old 2 piece DS:

 

At some point maybe I’ll borrow that spare, while mine gets shortened and retubed. Definitely going to follow in your foot steps with that .34” beef

 

yea I was actually just thinking that. Measure your current DS front section length and I can tell you if it'll work or not.
This one has a 21.5" front section length flange to flange to work with my M/T setup

 

Actually is .134 not .34 my bad.
.34 would add an insane amount of weight. Still should be beefy enough.

 

lol I was curious how it was only like 4-5 lbs more