Burt, The Old Man With friends Daryl and Donna

Retaining ring pliers are worth the money if you'll be dealing with that sort of clip more than a few times. I use Knipex 4510170 and they're great. They appear to have been replaced by 4511170.



https://www.knipex.com/products/cir...ng-ring-pliers-retaining-rings-shafts/4511170

 

This reminds me, I need to look at my 4Runner hubs. They aren't releasing.

 

Cool I will look into a set. I have had a couple sets in the past but always seem to break of loose them so I just get snap rings done without them now.

 

It's pretty easy to pull them apart and I bet they are just gummed up. There are only a couple moving parts. A lot simpler than the Warn hubs I have dealt with on D60s.

 

Just make sure you don't lose the tiny spring or ball bearing!

 

I pulled mine apart today and they were here rough. I actually ended up grabbing new 2 new Aisin ones. I also grabbed new CV axles since all the seals and boots were getting rough. And decided while I was at the parts store to pick up Tundra brakes.

 

Got everything wrapped up Sunday. Nearly a complete front end.
JBA Uppers
Coil Bucket Gussets
6112s
Perry Parts Bumps
Plated Lowers
OEM LBJ
New CV
New Aisin Hubs (Coming today)
Tundra Brakes
New Stainless lines.
While everything was out I pulled out the sand blaster and and cleaned off the frame and coil bucket. Since it was the last section of the frame that hadden't been striped and repainted.
I will do by alignment after work today and be able to put some miles on it. Then on to the rear in a few weeks.

 

Damn looks awesome!

 

Were decided to get out this weekend but actually take Donna. We figured it worth taking it out once before we rip the suspension apart on it.
While I don't have time for the dual battery install. But I did throw some wiring at it yesterday for the fridge. Before I sold the Project M I took the power panel out of it and it was perfect for the rear of Donna.

With some 10ga wire from the Blue sea fuse box to the back we have plenty of power for the fridge, phones, camplights and Starlink if we decide to throw it on the roof.

Probably the only trip the 3rd row will ever go on. After this its getting deleted so the fridge can sit on a slide and we can gain 6'' of storage back.

 

** This very much should have been 2 posts, so prepare for a long read.

Back to Basics​

It was finally time for the first trip in Donna. We have enough parts on the way for it I figured it should be taken out and used at least once to have a baseline before we tear into everything.
Having done some of the required mods already like a fridge outlet, air compressor and good tires I set about planning a trip around a stock 4Runner. We decided to head to an area neither of us had been to, mostly because its surrounded by area we found more interesting. At 3 hours from the house its a perfect weekend spot and seemed like a good place to spend a couple nights out.

With the 1st air down completed, using the my favorite deflaters I donated to Donna once I sold Roger.

While EXTREMELY hard to find these Trailhead deflators work flawlessly after 10+ years. Picture from a couple years ago.


I had mapped out around 120 miles of dirt to form a loop through the Rabbit Ears range. Unfortunately that wouldn't all go to plan.

Since we left Friday after work I had planned out a campsite not too far from into the trek allowing to drive for only an hour or so. Though being the longest day of the year we had plenty of time.

After a fairly uneventful dirt road and about 1/2 of trail we landed at the planned camp for the night Cliff Lake.


There was a family there fishing and seemed to be having some good luck, pulling out a few Brooke trout.

We also had beautiful weather, escaping the 100° temps of home for 72° mountain temps up at 10,000 feet. It was a bit windy at this point but nothing too bad.

Delaney had gotten here first taste of driving Donna off road and had enjoyed it, getting to play around with Hill Descent Control and understanding why it sounds like the truck it falling apart while using it.
Having been a few years since I had owned a 4runner it felt quite familiar and it didn't take long to remember how capable these rigs are even in stock form.

My 4th gen from 10 years ago. 4.7 V8 and all.


We both took some time to soak in the views, thinking how this is really a near perfect campsite.

As the suspension is beyond soft in the rear we opted to ground tent it this trip as the RTT likely would have caused us to bottom out constantly. Having not camped in a ground tent in a couple years we were fairly excited. We picked up an Exped Duo LW+ as well since it fits both the ground tent and RTT.

Here's where things went downhill and photos stopped.
After making dinner, grilled cheese. The wind picked up, it had been breezer through the afternoon but it was starting to get violent. After heres 3-4 trees come down we decided it was time to pack up and head away from the trees. As well as be able to make it out before trees fell across the road. So we packed down everything, and in about 10 minutes were heading out.
I remembered seeing a meadow at the base of the turn up to the lake and knew its a quick easy spot without trees, even if the wind continued there wouldn't be a risk of them coming down.

That's when we ran into the second problem.

Excuse the terrible photo.
As we pulled into the meadow we glanced around and found a nice spot to set up the tent. But as we got out of the 4runner Delaney noticed a set of eyes watching us from about 75' away.
Thinking originally that it's probably a dear, we hung out for a moment waiting for it to wander off. But looking at it a bit more, the eyes were a but too close together for deer. They also seemed to be moving closer, then crouching and waiting. Deer eyes also shine a white color, moose, common in the area, red. Yellow-Green tends to be 2 things, Mountain Lion and Bear in our area. With making enough noise that would scare aware even the more brave deer/elk. As well as throwing a couple "warning" rocks in an attempt to make it move so we could identify it. It just would slowly creep behind trees inching closer. As well as a second matching set of eyes popping up 50' away.
After around 15 minutes, we decided it best to move along and find a new camp a few miles down the road. Talking about how Donna needs a bit more forward and side lighting for finding camp at night. Right about then is when a moose ran out into the road about 30' in front of us, luckily nothing happened other than a bit of a scare, since we were only going 20mph we stopped quickly. She stopped and stared for a little before heading off into the woods.

We drove for another 15-20 minutes. We used the satellite view in OnX to find a bit open area and pulled it, did some checks for eyes, dead standing trees and anything else that we had encountered. After deeming it good to go, we set up the tent and sleeping bags, and crawling in ready for bed around 11:30pm.

After a wonderfully uneventful sleep we woke up to a new area.

Having found what seemed like an old staging area for quarry/ logging we were able to have a bit of a slower morning.

I set about cooking up some breakfast burritos. Delaney packed down the tent. Enjoying the calm morning and warm sun.



Around 9:30 we set off, wondering if we were going to encounter downed trees. Which we did, however running into out first one right around the same time a F250 had also done it, him having a chainsaw was a bit better than my hand saw. I had decided last minutes I didn't need to bring any of the 3 chainsaws I have...
We helped move the cut logs from the road, and headed down the road doing this 3 more times.
Eventually he turned back as they were out for a morning drive and it was approaching lunch and the kids were hungry. We headed one wondering how many more trees had fallen. Luckily one more more that was easy managed by the hand saw.


Bouncing in and out of BLM/Forest service we made our way through the mountains and down in to the scrub land below.

We were just about done with the southern section of the route and were going to turn and head back north, almost completing a full loop.


After bouncing through some BLM road we hit the only real obstacle of the trip. A section of mud that had claimed a Rental Rzr. Typically I am fully against RZRs as I often find them off trail stuck in mud. However I was happy to find one that had stuck directly to the trail but unfortunately had gotten a bit bogged. They had another one with them but no strap since they were visiting from Texas. With a couple chats we figured it wouldn't be too had to help get them out as long as I could get across.
Delaney said that I was the one to drive in case I got Donna stuck.

After seeing the Rzr sunk up to the doors I walked through a few sections of mud to find it had a nice firm base 4-6" down. I picked a line and slowed inched in.

All was going well.

As the Rzr was in the road "cut" I went just next to it up a small hill.
About here is where I ended up diffing out, not having a rear locker I figured I lifted a but far up the hill and back up a bit. In the back you can see the Rzr nose deep in some slop.

I adjusted my line over about 2" but that lead me to dropped the driver rear in to a deep pocket. And stopping my ability. Backing up was starting to hit the rear bumper on rocks that had been thrown in by previous travelers. I backed up as far as possible and we grabbed the Maxtrax, threw 2 under the rear tires and we drop right up and out of the mud. It's why I won't travel anywhere without them.
At this point the phone got put down as we got working on the Rzr.
We were able to get 3 Maxtrax under it, 2 on the back and one on the passenger side front. A quick chat with the drive letting him know to idle out, wheel spin will make everything worse. I threw a strap from the hitch to the back of the Rzr and with a fair tug got him one the maxtrax where he was able to just back out of it.
Following the line I took across both Rzrs were about to just put across and head back to return them before there time limit was up. Very thankful we had come down this otherwise empty road.

the Aftermath, you can see the Rzr had followed the trail just it was just the deepest part and it bellied out hard.

After spending a half hour or more cleaning the mud off the maxtrax we decided that a Roof rack mount was on the shortlist of mods since we were keeping them on the floor of the backseat. As you can see, cows are in the area for water so the mud wasn't the best smelling thing.

After some food we moved on.


Picked up a little hitch hiker.

Onto our next section of mountain.


This on this section of road the forest service had decided to close to road a road before we were to cross it, however they didn't put a sign up until we were 15 miles deep into it. Alerting us the road is close a couple miles down from the top, just a couple miles from where it reconnects to the highway. I had checked MVUM maps before leading and even the FS Road condition chart they all said open. However I guess they finally decided to post it on facebook 2 hours after we came to the closure sign. After back tracking all the way back to the highway we and seeing a lot of other fresh closures we figured it was a good enough sign to air up and head home.
We then found the air chuck had been misplaced at some point and after searching everywhere, we started the 15 mile drive down the highway to Grandby, stopping at the Ace to but and make a new air chuck to fill the tires.

Since the temps had bumped back up into the high 80s, ice cream was also in order.

3 hours later we were home and I set about cooking the steak that would have been that nights dinner. All in all a great trip. But a lot went wrong in the 24hrs we were out. However its better to have that on the local trips than our multi week trips 15+ hours from home.

 

Started on tuning the suspension.
The goal of course it is sit the shock in the ideal range of shaft travel. These 6112s look to have 5.5'' of shock travel. I believe these Tacomas use ~1:2 ratio in the suspension. In a perfect work meaning 11'' of vertical wheel travel out of a 5.5'' shock. That's the maximum travel in theory. There likely are other hard limits, like bump stops for shock protection, limit straps for shock/ball joint projection and the physical limit of travel in the Upper and Lower Ball Joints. Then CV Axle Travel and Tie Rod end travel will limit down travel. The goal being to use as much of the shock shaft as possible while not risking other parts of the truck, the basics of all suspension.
For my truck in particular, CV angles on road aren't much of an issue with manual hubs. They will just sit stationary except off road or in winter driving. Its still something I want to keep to a reasonable level.

My usual Rock isn't enough for Burt anymore.


So the rest of the shots and measurements came from the Forklift.

Lifting from both front driver in the first test and then front passenger in the second test.
All measurements are Hub to Fender, it's the only way to measure this in my opinion.

Current Ride Height before adjustments.
DF 23
PF 22 7/8
PR 23 1/2
DR 23.5

Driver Front Lifted
DF 19
PF 25.75
PR 16.5
DR 29.5

Driver Rear Lifted
DF 26
PF 17.5
PR 28.25
DR 29.5

DR Droop when lifted by a jack 25.75

When compressed the front shock shaft still have 1.25'' of shock shaft that with the Perry Parts bumps compressed about .5'' and the second factory bump stop just starting to engage.


When fully extended the shock currently is the limiting factor. However, I need to pull the Coilover and see how much further the CV axle can go before binding up.


What does this all mean.
If my ride height is at 23'', full droop is at 25.75'' and full compression (CO installed) is at 17.5" That means the the complete travel is currently 8.25". But I am sitting too high in the travel range. 2.75" of down travel and 5.5'' of up travel. Ideally the best set up sits at 4.125" for both up and down travel. Technically there are 2 ways of achieving this.
Option 1, To lower the ride heights, lower this the preload by 1.375" will get me there. Then I will sit at roughly 1" overall lift and have even up and down travel. This works if the range of motion is set and we are limited up and down by hard limits.
Option 2, move the shock further down while decreasing ride height. As the shock shaft still has 1.25" of unused travel and the upper travel is set at a good limit. No tire rubbing on the fender, nothing is running into the frame etc. But the lower limit likely is the amount of travel the coilover has. but lowering the upper mount, or spacing the coilover off the frame a little it will push the the lower travel range further down. Increase droop, but also increasing the amount of shaft used in compression. This however does have some issues in making sure you aren't over extending Ball joints, CVs Brake lines, Etc.
Currently my Plan is to decrease ride height and preload by 3 or 4 notches on the 6112s (out of 11). Hopefully dropping ride height by around 1-1.25"
See where that leaves me in the travel range and ride height. Then add in a 1/4 top hat spacer to bring the ride height up a .5" This should mean I am closer to the 4.125" of up and down travel, though down travel may increase slightly (.5") But under full compression leave around.5-.75" of shock shaft exposed. I don't want the shock to bottom out and leaving that amount will allow for additional bump stop compression. but have a "safety factor" in place.
The Lower limit will eventually be controlled by a limit strap, and the strap will limit it around .5" from the max travel and be adjusted and the straps stretch.

The Rear will need a ton of work, but that's for another day as well as for when the truck is weighted with the bed rack and tent.
By no means is this is perfect and best way to do all this or even going to work. But its what I want to try on my truck to see if I can squeeze the best amount of useable travel out of a stock LCA and a fairly basic Coilover and UCA combo.

 

After work I pulled some things in the front end apart and started to see what the limits where.
First was seeing how much down travel I had before things start to bind.

It looks like the ball joints CV and Tie Road all have about 1" of down travel left in them. At this angle I was still able to turn the CV by hand with very minimal binding. The outer tie road seems to be what was binding first, as well as the spindle gussets were getting very close to the coil.

This appears to be the limit of everything. The upper ball joint has a hair more movement is it but its also getting to its limit.
This is the level in which I will set the limit straps for.

I pulled the coilovers and got them pulled apart, Dropping down to notch 5 on the passenger and notch 6 on the driver side.

This reduced overall height by around 2" but reducing the reload really softened up the front end of the truck.

Then to bring ride height backup a touch I put my 1/4'' top hat spacer back on adding .5" of lift.

This resulted in a change of full droop going from 25.75 to 26.25. And changing ride height from 23 to 21.75, which is slightly lower than I aimed for, so I ordered up a 1/2" front spacer to add .5" to the ride height. Based on the measurements I then should site around 22.25-22.5" which is my goal. As well as under full compression I should have .5" of shock shaft still remaining to prevent them from bottoming out. Droop should also increase to right at 26.5-26.75, still within the range of travel all the joints had and just before cv bind. This will then be strapped at this height to reduce stress on the coil bucket.

 

I remember going through all that, there is a big difference between my Bilstein's and ADS for droop, the Bilstein's have more.
My front ADS springs has settled a little. I may need to add my 1/4" spacer in as well. Or I may adjust the preload.