Battleship Jones: 2015 Tacoma DCLB Build Thread

Nice truck, man. A lot of parallels in your use and build.

@DaVikes turned me onto your thread since I asked in another (https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/icon-2-5-c-os-king-14x700-springs.212046/page-10#post-13799379) about 650# and 700# coils.

I ended up buying a set of 14", 650# King coils to replace the 13", 600# Eibach I currently have on my FOX. Reading your thread I see you went with the heavier. Have you been happy with them? Not too stiff?

I'm going to go ahead with the swap since I'm only putting the ARB bumper on at the moment and I'm sure they'll hold the 2"ish lift I'm after.

 

First off, thanks! You've been around long enough to know it's a constant struggle to balance needs with wants. It would be very easy to end up with an empty wallet and a truck built way beyond the purpose I need it to serve. I try to remind myself of this all the time to ensure I stay focused and don't rock the boat too much.

For every day driving the 700lb coils are a touch on the oversprung side with the truck and just me in it. It definitely rides like a truck in those situations and doesn't roll too much sans swaybar. Once I start to get a few passengers in there and a few hundred pounds in the bed (setup for camping really) things really smooth out and the ride becomes much more compliant. This is compared to the 650lb springs that were preloaded pretty good and were still too soft with just me and the truck, not to mention any appreciable weight on board.

I think that was a long winded way of saying yes I'm pleased with the swap. As it sat prior to the 650lb springs were always going to be a compromise to my loaded ride, the 700lb springs would be a compromise to my unloaded ride. I'd rather the latter than the former.

Not sure where in northern CO you are but if you are ever curious to know how the 700lb springs ride shoot me a PM and you are welcome to take my truck out for a spin.

 

I'm just south of Ft. Collins. I would take you up on a test ride sometime, that's very generous.

We'll have to wait and see how things shake out. It'll be interesting because right now I haven't done much adjustment on my shocks, the right side is still set where FOX put it and I added a few turns to the left to compensate for the lean and dual batteries. I'm happy with the ride normally and a touch more height would be nice but not critical.

That's why I went ahead and bought 650/14", since I should get a slight lift and compensation for a bare ARB bumper. I just can imagine 700# springs being necessary unless I want closer to 3" of lift and run full steel skids. My winch has synthetic line, too, whenever I get around to cleaning it up and getting in that should have less impact. Also mine's an Access Cab, so never more than 2 people.

I don't see a ton of people with FOX doing 700#, it seems more Icon owners do it (at least seem to talk about it). I wonder if this has something to do with the difference in feeling of a digressive damper.

 

After 2 years and 30K miles the OEM brakes were in poor shape. They still had plenty of pad and rotor life left but were exhibiting strong vibes and steering wheel oscillations coming down the mountain passes. Definite safety issue that I decided couldn't wait so I went ahead and got some EBC stuff in the mail to replace.

Nothing too crazy to write about, it was more or less your standard brake job. I decided to go with EBC Sport Rotors and Yellowstuff pads. It's supposed to provide maximum stopping power, albeit at the expense of brake dust, for those who need it. Given that I anticipate towing a decently rated trailer in the not too distance future, I figured this was the appropriate combination for me.

Standard steps for doing a brake job, remove wheel, spread pads and retract pistons (I chose to open up the reservoir cap and let it flow backwards into the reservoir instead of out the bleeder), remove caliper, then use M8 bolts on the rotor jack screw holes to pop it free after it inevitably corrosion sticks itself to the hub. Do all that and you should have something that looks like this.

IMG_2021 by Tim Souza, on Flickr

Then comes the fun part, putting it all back together! In reality it's not so difficult as it is time consuming to make sure you adequately grease all parts that need to be greased. First up was putting a very light coating of anti seize on the hub to prevent the rotor from corroding to it next time I need to get these apart.

IMG_2025 by Tim Souza, on Flickr

Instead of shims and pads between the piston and the pad EBC provides a set of inserts that press into the piston bore. Their purpose, according to the literature, is to prevent vibration and noise. Cool, in the trash go the stock pads and shims, a light layer of grease on the contact surfaces, and I snapped the inserts into place.

IMG_2022 by Tim Souza, on Flickr

Carefully slide the rotor on making sure not to get any anti-seize or grease onto the braking surface, then bolt the caliper in place. I torqued the caliper bolts down then started in on the pads. Greased the back, greased the sides where it can contact the caliper, and greased the top and bottom pins the pads ride on. Dropped them in place and put all the clips back on, and boom, new brakes!

IMG_2023 by Tim Souza, on Flickr

IMG_2024 by Tim Souza, on Flickr

Rinse and repeat for the other side. I made sure to turn the key to the ON position and pump the brakes a few times to bring the pads to the rotor. They are still good and firm, so no bleed is necessary this time around.

The brakes ground a little bit the first few stops as the coating from the pads starts to wear off as does the coating on the rotor. After say 6 stops they stopping making noise and felt pretty smooth. Per the instructions I'll baby them for the first 1,000 miles. Time will tell if they deliver a marked improvement over the stockers.

 

I would hold onto the stock shims/pads for a while. I wish I could remember where it was but I read a report about someone who swapped out some brake components, was very unhappy with their new brakes, and found out those shims and clips that pair with the OEM pads are annoyingly pricey if you want to go back to OEM(apparently they do not come with normal brake pad kits and have to be ordered separately) I had the EBC yellow recommended for a brake upgrade, so I will be swapping out the OEM for them soon too.

 

Good to know! I'll go dig those out of the trash then. If initial impressions are any indications I will have no need to retain them, the EBC stoppers are working pretty darn well so far and they aren't even bedded in yet.

 

Sounds good, hopefully they help out me with the stopping power too, armor and 35s increase stopping distance quite a bit.

 

just went thru your whole thread, nice truck! and great pictures

 

Sub'd!

Great looking truck neighbor! Howdy from 100th and Simms!

 

Thanks neighbor!

Give me a holler if you ever need any help on your truck. I did spy that you have that fancy new crawl box to put in.

 

Probably not for a few months, but at least it's now safe and sound in my garage!

See you around!

 

Thanks for the great write up and adventures! Definitely learn a lot on what I want to do/ where to go with my truck in the future!

 

Sweet build and awesome pictures!

 

Very good thought out build

 

Thank you!


It's been a little while since I have updated this thread. I haven't stopped doing stuff, just haven't taken the opportunity to update this thread. So in the name of catching up, the first thing I added recently were a set of Total Chaos bed stiffeners. They first came to my attention a few months ago and my initial impressions were that they were a bit of a superfluous item but could perhaps be useful for folks who needed additional lashing points or a CB mount. More on that later of course.

Over the past few months it seemed to be that I could see a bit more daylight in the rear view mirror in the tailgate to bedside gap. I couldn't be 100% positive as it was like watching grass grow, it's so slow that you never really notice until it's big. So I checked things out a couple of weeks ago and was displeased to see that my truck was displaying the dreaded splaying that can come along with the composite bed and having significant amounts of weight, in my case a topper, resting on the bed sides. This picture is post bed stiffener install, but you can see how it permanently pushed the bedsides out leading to an uneven gap along the tailgate. Sad face.

IMG_2225 by Tim Souza, on Flickr

How do you know if your bedsides are spreading and if you are a good candidate for a set? Check out the gap in the bedside to sheet metal support. Again, post bed stiffener install so it pulled it back a little bit. These two pieces should be flush. Clearly they are not.

IMG_2227 by Tim Souza, on Flickr

How else can you tell? The metal support starts tearing. It is not exactly unheard of for this to happen, but that's little consolation. I wish I had caught this sooner.

IMG_2226 by Tim Souza, on Flickr

Installation is pretty straightforward though it requires drilling 6 holes, 3 per side. The instructions Total Chaos provides are pretty good and I mostly followed them with the basic premise being tighten bolts from bottom to top so you don't snap any of the bolts. I used a ratchet strap on the tailgate latches to pull everything in before snugging the bolts down to try and bring things back in line. I may try again to adjust things and see if I can bring them in some more, but the good news is you can see the bedsides/rear end wagging a lot less over bumps.

IMG_2229 by Tim Souza, on Flickr

Not sure what else I can do at this point. I'll have to try perusing the parts diagrams to see if these can be replaced. The other side has 2 cracks in it, so apparently it's not just an anomaly. Word to the wise, you may way to check out your truck. If you have heavier loads like a topper or a roof top tent on bed bars, you might want to consider these sooner rather than later.

 

I really have to get caught up on updates.

Recently I've been exploring alternative means to get back some MPG as all of these mods are sucking gas. This led me deep into studies of physics and I came across some interesting work on aerodynamics and the science of dimpling. Dimpling is what helps golf balls fly further and I was thinking that I could take advantage of the principle to perhaps gain some aerodynamic advantage over the current state.

I mapped out a plan in my fluid dynamics program and executed it pretty neatly I think. Not everyone will like the look or agree with what I've done, but only the haters will be able to disagree with the crazy MPG gains I'll be seeing.

IMG_2351 by Tim Souza, on Flickr

Cracked and chipped off some paint with this one, but it probably won't be a big deal.
IMG_2350 by Tim Souza, on Flickr

IMG_2349 by Tim Souza, on Flickr

IMG_2348 by Tim Souza, on Flickr

Figured I'd do the windshield as well to induce laminar flow over the roof. Hard to argue with results!
IMG_2347 by Tim Souza, on Flickr


Just kidding of course. We got blasted by hail that was hearty italian meatball sized yesterday afternoon. The parking lot at work was carnage, blown out windows, windows in buildings were broken, most cars had moderate to severe damage. Most of my body panels got fairly well worked over; the bedsides, the driver's door and the driver's side rear door were spared. It is currently sitting immobile in my driveway due to the windshield, so now I have to wait for the insurance agent to come by and assess the damage and see how bad it's going to be.

 

Turbulent flow and boundary layers, FTMFW!

Seriously though, I fell bad for all of y'all. That really sucks, and it looks like we're potentially getting hit again.

Did you get anything at your house? It didn't look like I got much at all down by Standley. Thankfully, my truck was in the garage. Benefits of having to shelter the exposed tub welds that aren't sealed up yet, I suppose...

 

Got nothing at the house but we were getting battered in Lakewood. The parking lot at work looked like a war zone. I guess if we are going to get more hail it might as well come when the damage has already been done. It can't get too much worse right?

 

Let's hope not... Seeing all of the carnage on here was brutal!

 

I heard about the hailstorm on the news this morning, they said around Denver the hail stones were like baseballs.