2000 Turbo Taco - Race Truck Edition, to include wannabe fabricator and machinist stuff(PIC HEAVY!!)

I see what you mean, you want to change the bushing as well as adding the adjustability hmm.. wonder if instead of a custom bushing if maybe a shim could potentially work out for fitment. Suppose this is sort of the same as making a bushing effort wise. Guess another alternative maybe a custom cross shaft? Certainly this has its own set of issues?!!

SPC should just make these for the 5 lug, they got the nice ones for the 6 lug folks already..

 

Stay away from SPC products with x-Axis joints (their sealed heim thing). They don't hold up well, mine have play and have only been on three wheeling trips in a single year.

 

I am also researching custom cross shafts. Lol. It wouldn't be that difficult with the right material and tools. The only thing that truly needs done is both ends of the cross shaft need to be a standard diameter to fit common pivots like heims or whatever. The design can remain the same. One of my other ideas was to take a piece of round tube steel that had a press fit onto the ends of the cross shaft, weld them up, smooth them out, then turn them down to .75 to fit the size rod end that I wanted to use (screenshot above). What's shitty is the cross shaft stock diameter is 18mm or .708". Which only leaves .05" of material from what you add on to it. Which is not a lot. I've also toyed with bronze bushings and aluminum bushings which can be replaced as needed.

 

Thanks for this insight. Is this a regular heim or some kind of special off-road joint?

 

They use them in some of their product lines in place of poly bushings. They're nothing special just spherical bearings (like heims) but with a dust boot. They're internally just not made super well I guess, probably because the ball rides in a nylon/delrin cup rather than hardened metal with a teflon liner like a regular spherical bearing.

https://www.spcalignment.com/home/291




My upper control arms unfortunately have them, I'd much rather have a poly bushing. I'm actually contemplating turning an adapter sleeve to press into the arm to accept some poly bushings from off the shelf.

 

That makes sense why they'd wear out faster than a standard heim. Have you looked for standard spherical bearings to replace them? They can be pricey but if you don't have to change them often that'd be a plus. But a standard modifying them to just use standard bushings should be pretty low effort.

 

Actually no, I hadn't thought of that... be really easy to weld in a cup for a regular 3/4" spherical bearing into them and make a few round stock spacers for the shaft. Hmmm, might have to do that.

 

With the front end off the ground, my tires stick out a mile. Once the front end compresses, they sit flush with the rolled fenders. Probably why I see course workers staring wide eyed when I go by with a tire off the ground.

 

I'm willing to bet you could press those bad joints out and the cups or whatever that are welded to the arms currently are a standard size. Then you just find a spherical bearing that is of the material you prefer and press it in.

 

Got the right control arm tacked together and mocked it up to see how it lines up. So far so good.

This first pic is just laying the cross shaft across the arm to see how everything lines up.


I made a point to NOT destroy the driver side arm yet because I've been using it to measure stuff, and I'm glad I did. I used the uncut arm as a jig. It turned out to work really really well. Lol. Every once in a while I have a decent stroke of genius!






Here's some extra info for anyone that's interested in the basic ball joint flip to get somewhere around 3 inches of drop. A lot of guys (myself included) think slim bump stops are necessary when lowering. While cycling my suspension through when I mocked up the control arm I realized something. I hit max travel on the upper ball joint and started to pick the truck up. I stopped and looked and saw that the (slim) bump was NOT touching the frame yet. If I hadn't removed the ball joint boots to inspect them I don't think I would have noticed this that fast. Now I'm thinking I gotta find a way to change the angle of the ball joint. It never ends!


Here's an example of why bump-steer is such a problem with the ball joint flip.

Stock outer tie rod angle


Flipped outer tie rod end(which I plan to do with a stud conversion and heim joint outer tie rod end)


For those that are interested in the QA1 coilover conversion should be aware of this as well. This basically ruined my original QA1s and I didn't realize it until I saw a puddle of shock fluid under the truck one day. The part number that is used isn't the right length for the full droop of the stock suspension. Which isn't really a big deal for every day driving and maybe short time periods with the front wheels off the ground. At full droop, the shock hits it's internal bump stop and the upper control arm is not resting on their bump stops, which over time destroys the seals internally.

 

I like how them control arms are coming together, keep it up!

I also had QA1's on another car that leaked after a year of weekend only driving.. I was running too low though and it would bottom out pretty hard over large bumps (just a handful of times like train tracks) and I think this caused my leaks. Hence I decided to stick with a spindle/coil drop for the Tacoma for simplicity and to maintain the suspension geometry Mr Toyoda designed these trucks with.

Any thoughts of the spindle drop to resolve any bump steer going on?

 

My only argument against trying to maintain Toyota's suspension geometry is that this thing was never designed to do what we're doing with it. Who knows, maybe I'll discover something that people haven't published knowledge for this type of thing and I can document it all here. Lol

Nothing against just using a drop spindle, since I was looking at purchasing a set or sending mine to that guy on Instagram that mods stock spindles. It was just a large chunk of change for a single mod. If I can piece together something to fix the angles within the limitations of what I have, it's worth a shot to me. Maybe I'll stumble upon a cheap set of spindles that I can send off and get "dropped" then swap out later on. Projects, amiright?

 

Heck yeah brother, you've come along ways and your truck seems to be doing pretty darn good already.. I am with you, no need spending dough if you can resolve issues with some creativity in the shop that you also enjoy. I'm betting your efforts and direction will continue to improve your fine machine, love what you are doing here!!

Perhaps I am alone in this, but I for one am hoping a video camera mount is part of the project plan so we can see her in action after all is done!

 

I definitely want to mount something in the rear at least during a couple runs or test\tune or whatever to show how the rear suspension is working. That's what I'm most interested in once it's back going again for sure!

 

I finished modding the upper control arms and got them mounted up tonight. I totally forgot to take some pics after I was done with all the welding, but I'll pull it back apart anyway to paint them and get some more pics then.







First time the knuckles have been back on in a long while and wheels and tires fitted to check some more clearances.

 

The front end is fully assembled (for test fitting and clearance/stance checks) and on the ground for the first time in a couple weeks. Pretty stoked to have a "roller" again

 

I don't think I've ever noticed how much the front bumper sticks out until this photo... truck is looking good back on the ground!

 

Lol. It's the "fatlip mod". Bumper is from a 99-02 4runner.

 

Helps you cross the finish line quicker...

 

Safety first when racing Tacoma's!!

Ive considered going with the early smaller front bumper for more off road clearance on my 3rd gen 4runner.. but not enough to get it into my project queue just yet. You could obviously drop a bit of weight outside your wheelbase and all the way up front going for the smaller bumpers to get a bit more balance and better weight distribution. I got an extra black 2002 bumper laying around I'd donate if you were handy or want to pay shipping.

The larger bumper surely knocks cones out of the way better though!