3rd Gen Ground Clearance

Why are your front axles parallel to the ground? That doesn’t seem normal to me. That’s lower than stock ride height.

What do you have for coil overs?

 

Fox TRD 2.5s from the TRD Pros. Have been ever since I got the DB lift. Check the attached image

 

So you have stock length coil overs attached to the stock perch, a drop bracket lift, and no spacer? That doesn’t sound set up correctly. I’m not intimately familiar with drop bracket lifts, but I think they generally come with longer coil overs or a spacer to put the IFS back into spec. In theory the IFS just drops down 4-6” and everything else is the same.

How much up and down travel do you have? I’m guessing you have minimal up travel and tons of down travel.

 

Correct. The 4 main components effecting the actual "drop" is the 2 drop brackets bringing the diff down, the extra large spindle, and I have 4" Spacers on top of the coils.

Check this out if you're interested, I just had a thought about this
https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/drop-bracket-lift-thoughts.749534/#post-26694828

 

I heard a guy say it cost him 20 thousand (austrailian) to convert his land cruiser to portal axles

 

I think something is amiss. Your IFS ride height (and cv angles) should be the same as stock.

 

Exactly my thought. Which is why I'm having this weird issue with my ground clearance and wondered if the drop brackets and spindles could change for a 2' drop instead. My LCAs are taking a beating too.

Idk my travel length, haven't checked that tbh but attached is the kit. I circled the main components that bring the front end down

 

Someone with direct experience with drop bracket lifts will need to chime in, but I think you are off in the weeds doing weird things. I think something is not installed correctly or you received the wrong parts.

 

AFAIK, the coil over spacer and longer spindle should offset the drop of the diff and LCA mount in such a way that your ride height (and CV angles) remain the same as stock. You shouldn’t need to mix and match parts from different kits.

Also I’ve never heard of a 2” drop bracket kit. The ones I know of are 4” and 6”. 2” doesn’t make much sense because you can get that much lift with a set of coil overs or spacers.

This guide might be useful if you haven’t already read it.

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/the-ultimate-tacoma-lift-guide.509171/

 

Drop bracket hardware has to weigh a good chunk, much of which is sprung, so that may account for some of the loss of ride height.

OP, can you provide pictures of the entire shock and IFS assembly including chassis mounting locations?

 

Once upon a time, I had a 2010 F-150 with a 6” Rancho drop bracket lift. The front shocks were much longer than the original ones, and like Bilstein 5100’s, I was able to reuse my factory coils. However, there was a groove/clip setting on the Rancho shock that moved the spring perch much further up the new shock. This resulted in keeping the front suspension geometry pretty dang close to factory angles.

 

My truck identifys at 13.5 but in reality 8.0

 

Yeah!

 

The kit would not be so much weight that it would literally compress 650 lb springs down 1/8 of an inch. By that logic, every time I'm loaded up with full skids and gear, my clearance would be sitting around 8". The heaviest parts are the brackets and the spindles
Anyways, is this what you're looking for?

 

That makes sense but my kit utilized factory shocks so maybe the thought was to just make it work instead of making it usable

 

Maybe I can paint a picture here.
The pivot point at the diff came down bringing the inner part of the LCAs down and bringing the inner cv axle down. This shifted every component that looks like this \ and / to look like this _ because the inner connecting points pivoted down. The longer spindle didn't correct anything, it merely reinforced the control arms. My pic might be helpful

As for the 2" drop: that was me trying to take a concept from a different generation of vehicles and applying to mine so I can gain some of that ground clearance back from this pivot points flattening out. I think it'll just be easier to sell anyways

 

My truck sits about 11 and 3/4 inches off the garage floor, measured at the back of the skid plate. I always thought the lowest part of the exhaust pipe was the low point, I was surprised to measure the skid plate about 1/4" lower than the exhaust bend. Hmmm, after a double take, the lowest part of my truck is the drain plug part of the rear differential and that is about 10 inches off the garage floor. I learned something this morning.

 

I agree that it shouldn't be enough weight to make a significant difference, but something is compressing the springs assuming the drop bracket and spacer are the correct parts to work together. If the spacer, spindle and drop bracket are correct, they should be spacing everything down the same amount and geometry, preload should be maintained. Measure the shock length at ride height and compare to others with the same shocks. Eye to spring seat or even just spring length from seat to seat. Measure the spacer length, spindle from BJ mating flat to flat and measure the drop bracket from bolt hole on Toyota frame to bolt hole on bracket, on center. The drop bracket and spacer should be the same length/ distance if my understanding of how these lifts work is correct.

 

In any case, assuming the drop bracket lift is installed correctly, you can increase the distance from the ground to the front diff by using a different set of coil-overs. I have King 2.5 RR extended length coil overs with the preload adjusted such that my ride height is about 2" higher than stock. The consequence is that I have 1" less down travel (aka droop) than stock. (Not 2" because I get 1" back from the extended length shocks combined with SPC UCAs)

 

I measured my ground to skid plate (TRD skid oil change cover) again today with my stock Wranglers (30.6") and got 12". I have no idea how you could have 9.25" from the ground to your front diff. How did you measure? At the risk of insulting your intelligence, did you use a tape measure and forget to include the length of the cover (3" in the case of my tape measure).