allenfab's 95 Tacoma build

Dom’s t4r is on 3” with 35s. No tub

 

Honestly, what Dom has with his T4R is kind of irrelevant to what I'm trying to achieve. If it was just a question of clearing 35s, then sure, a little time with a BFH and I could probably do that if I got wheels with 4.25" BS...probably, but I don't like the idea of raising my CG while narrowing my track width. Of course, raising my CG even more so I can widen my track width may not be a great trade-off either. Remains to be seen.

 

Not to hijack todds thread but what exactly are you trying to achieve besides go wide and tuck your belly and raise your drivetrain for staying in Florida and not going to hardrock. I know you are limited with what you can do but honestly will it benefit you much for Florida wheeling?

 

Time to freshen up the rear suspension. New bushings in the 63's and I'm adding back a third leaf and removing the overload. The traction bar is being removed completely as it was binding and with it's non-adjustability, I wasn't going to be able to make it work. The traction bar bracket on the axle cracked and began to peel up on the housing, so I ground out the crack and added some weld. I'm going to knock off the factory spring perches and weld on the ruffstuff "anti-wrap" perches that I've had on the shelf for years. Hopefully that will be enough to prevent most of the axle wrap.

I'm also tossing around the idea of trashing the brake hard lines and doing braided flex lines to clean things up and get them up more out of harm's way. Still undecided.....

 

I’m guessing you’ll want to add a traction bar back on again. Anti-wrap perches aren’t enough to keep my rear from wrapping. A bar is night and day for me on AP mini-truck springs

 

You're probably right, and I'm anticipating that I will honestly. I'm going to wheel without it and if the axle wrap is extreme, I'll build another bar.

I've already got a design in my head that I believe will be better, and I'm going to make the axle mount higher than the old one to keep it out of the rocks more.

 

Always easy to add one back in.

Glad I’m not the only one that has struggled to keep my bracket from tearing the axle housing. Makes you appreciate the amount of force put on an upper link for sure.

 

Now that I have slept on it, I will probably go ahead and add one back and skip the hassle of changing the spring perches. I think I will go ahead and move the traction bar closer to the center of the axle too. I think mine was too far to the passenger side.

 

Yeah, I can tell you the perches help a little, but you still get a little wrap with them. Of course, you could use the perches AND the bar and maybe take a little stress off the bar. I would say definitely move it inboard though. Use it to protect your driveshaft as well. That's what I was thinking on when I did one.

 

I'm going to put the new springs in it and double check my pinion angle, if I think it should be pointed up more to help with vibrations and clearance from the ground, I will do the spring perches. I think the pinion angle is good but I may move it up slightly more anyway. It's not like doing so will cost me anything, the parts are already on hand.

 

I dunno if they'll do the same thing to yours (or even if they did it to mine, if could be just the 5125s have a higher nitrogen charge on them), but before we put them on the OGT she was sagging a little in the rear. She's level now, so you might notice a slight increa in ride height with the longer perches. Or not. All I know if the rear end of the OGT rides SOOOOO much smoother with the work you did to it. It was night and day difference, even from when the Dakars and Nitrochargers were brand new.

 

I'm going to get a little more lift I imagine when adding that third leaf back in too. I still want to ditch the Bilsteins too and go with the radflos, but just not ready to put money into those yet

 

The "new" old 63s are ready to go in, complete with new bushings, spring pads, and a slick coat of paint

 

Nice! ...but is that a 4runner axle in the background there? Work for someone else or are you planning a disc conversion for the Q-tip?

 

I'm going to play around with it. It's literally the perfect axle for my truck.... disk brakes, 64.5" WMS (exact same as my front axle), same spline count, but the differential is an 8" instead of the 8.4". I really wish I could just swap the whole axle in but I wasn't that lucky. It was free, so if it ends up I cant use anything off of it, I won't take a loss.

 

Is the axle toast or you just don't feel like cutting all that crap off it? I mean, because if I'm not mistaken, which I might be, but your detroit should still fit in an 8" diff. Not sure about the gears, but I thought the only difference between the 8.4 and the 8" was the 8" didn't have the carrier bearing truss. And hell if it came down to that, you have the skills to cut the diff cover off an 8.4 and weld it on to an 8", assuming the bolt patterns on the third line up.

 

That's what is holding me back actually. The 8.4" pattern is slightly bigger.

 

Ah, okay.

It is fun to play with stuff though to experiment with what might work.

I'm thinking about pulling the bottom end, pistons, and everything I can off my 3.4L boat anchor to make it as light as possible and bringing it over on the stand so you can modify my motor mounts to be 2" higher at your leisure. I think there's enough space to lift the motor and trans 2" without lifting the body, so if we already had the motor mounts done when I come over to do the throw-out bearing and the new crossmember, we can just put them in as well and mount the crossmember in it's permanent position.

Later on I'll worry about lifting the body and we can adjust the front bumper when I have you make my rear one which for what I have in mind is going to be ridiculously simple. But if you looked at my build thread, Interco is about to introduce the exact tire in the exact size I was looking for. It's like fate or something, haha. The OGT is going to be so fucking awesome!

Edit: Heck, if fortune smiles on me, I might have the bold lifted by that point.

 

Zero chance that you can lift the powertrain 2" without lifting the body. Tolerances are super close already around everything like the top of the transmission and back of the motor. I was slapping the underside of the body with everything in the stock position before I went to poly mounts. Not to mention, your exhaust is going to have to be modified because that is going to be raising up to with the powertrain

 

K, I thought I read in that one guy's SAS thread (the one you got a lot of inspiration from) that there was enough room to raise the powertrain. But it probably doesn't matter anyway. If things go the way I hope, my very next purchase will be a 2" BL lift kit. I've done enough of them in my day that I can probably put one on in my sleep, haha. Luckily I'm not in a rush to get the OGT back to operational (don't want to drive it too much with a toasted throw-out bearing), but I do want to get those diffs from you, so I might grab my uncle's trailer and haul that boat anchor over to you with the T4R so you can play with the motor mounts and grab the diffs from you so I can contemplate putting that open diff in the front so I can stop tearing crap up and be ready to send the current diff off to ECGS.

Edit: And I'm going to have to come up with a senior citizen-quick release-cab step to attach to the slider so if I ever have to take Mom somewhere in the OGT she'll still be able to get in it, haha. She has a really tough time now. 3 more inches up and she won't have a prayer.