Dirtbag Build

We do have a garage. Just a little too full of bikes at the moment. Which is one of the main reasons for buying it so it’s easy to throw the dirt bikes and mountain bikes in the bed.



I’m not sure yet. We are keeping the fiberglass topper so we might just run that in the winter. I am curious how it will hold up to big snows but honestly in the 2 winters we’ve been here we haven’t gotten THAT much snow in town. Didn’t shovel the driveway once this year.

 

Hey I'm curious on why you went with 2.5" of lift rather than 3".
Narrowing down the spec on my set of alcan's and trying to decide between 2.5" and 3".

Has your rear height settled at all since the side shot you posted here? Assuming that was with an empty bed too?

 

Yeah that was an empty bed. We've only put 300 miles on since then so it hasn't settled much at all.

I went 2.5in for a couple reasons. I didn't want the driveshaft angles to be tooo extreme especially when empty and we use the bed a lot for loading dirt bikes and things which is harder the higher off the ground it is. Originally I was going to go 2in but figured it would settle and I could go with a slightly lighter spring rate if I went a little taller. Also the pictures I looked at of peoples trucks w/ 3in lifts just looked to be a little higher than I wanted. I'm happy with the 2.5in, I personally wouldn't want ours any higher.

We still need to load it down and take a trip and really put the suspension through its paces.

What spring rate are ya going with?

 

Gotcha.
I'm not too concerned with driveshaft angles personally. I have a buddy with a set that's for a 3.5in lift and he doesn't have any issues.
Also, when talking to Alcan they said that the height shouldn't change much between loaded and unloaded. They arch the springs to a set height and the number of springs they put in the pack will dictate the spring rate and the amount of weight it can handle.

I figure a 3" lift should settle just a little bit after usage which will put me closer to level. Plus I would rather have a tiny bit of rake rather than be squatting, personally.

The reason I asked is that the picture you posted looks very similar to the height of some people's rigs with packs set for 3" of lift. It seems to be inconsistent, but then again everyone has different load outs so who knows. Lotta variables.

Rear axle of my truck weighs 2060lbs empty with no topper, and 2600lbs with topper and fully loaded for a trip. So 540lbs. Approx 340lb of gear excluding the ~200lb topper and bed platform.
Factory rear weight of my truck is 1980lbs I'm told, so that puts me at 620lbs.
I asked for 650lbs over stock to account for another 30lbs of gas in a 5 gal jerry can, but I'm thinking about taking it back down to 600lbs for when I'm not fully loaded to the max.

I'll be curious how much yours settles if at all after loading it down with some weight like your moto and fiberglass topper. I would have thought you would go with a heavier spring rate considering your topper is easily 200lbs alone.

 

Awesome truck and nice thread. Wondering if you could talk about your bed platform set up for camping? I'm looking to make something similarly temporary and simple. Thanks.

 

Thanks!

Its 2 sections. The first is just a sheet of 1/2in plywood with 3 2x6s that sit in the slots in the bed. Then the part by the tailgate is a smaller section of plywood also with 2x6 supports but the sides have piano hinges and flip up so it can be removed with the topper on. The reasoning was so we could take that out and slide the whole thing back to access stuff up in the corners by the cab. Its worked great but if I had to do it over again I would change it to make it lighter.

I will try to get some pictures later.

 

What slots in the bed?
Do you have have a drop in bedliner?

 

No just spray-in bedliner. The ridges in the bottom of the bed going lengthwise, I thought all our trucks had them. 2X's fit in there perfectly.

 

I haven't done a very good job of updating this thread lately so here's a bunch of pictures of our adventures from the last year.







We took a trip down to Utah last spring with some friends that I need to find where those pictures went. Otherwise we've just been using the truck around Idaho. We got an older Nautique this past year which has been awesome.








Spent a bunch of time dirt biking and mountain biking




Spent a lot of time gathering wood for our wood stove.


In the fall we spent almost 2 weeks camping in the mountains and hunting elk and deer.














This was eska in the tent that morning



This is her today

 

In terms of the truck, we got a softopper which was amazing especially with the dirt bikes.



I installed a custom Alcan leaf pack. It was spec'd for 2.5in of lift and 300lb load capacity over stock. Our axle weights when fully loaded for a trip were 2800lb front, 2680lb rear for a total of 5440lb. That was with the fiberglass topper when loaded up for our Utah trip. Needed to cut the exhaust pipe as it was hitting the new leafs.




Also installed a set of custom ADS piggyback shocks with 9.5in of travel in the rear.




Those were a little bit of an adventure. They took months to get here and when they arrived they had the stem tophat for the 2nd and 3rd gen tacos.



So I sent them back to get the top hat switched out and was informed that they actually do not make a top hat that works on our trucks. the problem was that I broke a shock shaft on our Utah trip (not a huge fan of bilsteins durability) so I needed a replacement sooner rather than later and all the other shock companies were months out. So I had ads install a top hat for a spherical bearing and found a pair of bushings that would work in place of the bearing. I just needed to ream out the little lip.


I also just want to say even though they screwed up, ADS customer service was fantastic.

 

Oh interesting. Never really tried sliding a 2x in there.

I'll be curious on how much your rear sags, if at all with the new 300lb rear springs when loaded to your 5440lb weight.
That's 700lbs over the stock 1980lb rear weight...

Truck looks great though!

 

Recently got a chance to take a road trip down to new mexico. This is how the springs looked fully loaded up. I'm pretty happy with them. Hopefully they hold up.

 

Recently went on a road trip south to do some snowboarding and visit some frends.











Started out at steamboat. Just slept in a parking lot so we were close to the mountain for the next day. It was a hot sunny slush fest at the mountain.



Next stop was winter park. Our friends recently got a little dry cabin up in the mountains near there that we got to stay at which was awesome. Got to snowboard with them 2 days and the resort happened to get a decent amount of snow while we were there which was great.



Last stop was Taos. Our friends live in a tiny home out in the desert there. Its a really cool set up. Again we got super lucky with the weather and the mountain got dumped on.









Found our twin



Best looking tesla I've ever seen



It was an awesome trip. Only casualty was on the way back we ended up driving through an ice storm with crazy high winds and the drivers side ADS coilover is now puking oil. Everything on the drivers side of the truck was thick with ice. I think what happened is the shaft ended up icing up and then tearing the seals.

But other than that the truck did great. I couldn't be happier with the new rear suspension. It performed worlds better than the old setup.

 

Great thread and awesome adventures! Keep them coming! And Ska is wicked cool! Great Dog!

 

Nice build

 

Nice! Yea doesn't look bad at all. Looks like it handles the weight no problem.
I've been happy with my leaf pack so far. We'll see how it does this summer when I run without the topper on some trails.

New mexico trip looks like a blast.
Where do you put the cooler when you sleep in the bed?

Makes sense about the ADS seals going bad on the driver side in those conditions. With that side being tilted backwards in the factory mount position, the seals are more exposed to road debris and elements than the passenger side.

 

Appreciate it!

It was actually the front one. Rear shocks held up. 19k miles on em. Sooner than I would have liked to have them rebuilt but o well.



In the meantime got em swapped out for the old beat up SAWs.



In terms of the cooler when we take the big yeti it just goes under the truck since it doesn’t fit in the front seat. It’s certified bear proof or whatever it’s called and we’re normally not by other people. It’s not ideal but haven’t had a problem so far.

 

Ah yea the front would make more sense. Gotcha.
Yea 19k isn't very long so kind of annoying forsure. I would rebuild the passenger side one as well while you're at it so that they're both fresh.

Nice, yea under the truck works. Although I have heard of some people getting their yeti's really trashed by bears. Not to mention being pretty scary waking up in the middle of the night to that happening.

 

Got the ADS shocks back on the truck. Just in time for a long drive back to Wisconsin for a wedding.



Had @TMFF at 303 shock services do the rebuild. Would definitely recommend

 

Also last month got to go to Mt bachelor with our friend Austin and his awesome Chevy express camper. He custom built most of it and did a super good job.



Our friend gave him an rc replica of his van. Helluva lot cheaper to wheel that than the real one.