Can leveling a truck really be this hard?

The coils are color coded, but I can't find any info on what colors are supposed to be on what side. I found a few threads about it but the colors on mine don't match up with the ones people were talking about on here.

 

What colors do you have?

From what I've seen the coil with the double colors is driver side(mine were yellow-yellow).

 

Here's my passenger side

Here's my driver side

Paint looks like it was rubbed off by the spring compressor on the driver side but I have two different colors on the passenger side so maybe that's a good sign

 

Basically I have 5/8 inch of spacers on top of my driver side coil and I'm sitting level. That means that I should have 1 1/4 in of extra lift on that side. Correct? Did I have over and inch of lean before my lift? Is that possible?

 

Interesting thread op, I too had issues with the lean. For me, I initially started with 1/4" top plates on both sides, as well as the OME 10mm trim packer on the drivers side. I still had the lean. Removed the 1/4" top plate on the passenger side and viola, no lean. 10mm = .394" + .25" = .644" of spacer total on drivers side. And I have had zero issues. Wether the spacer is on top, bottom, middle, damn who cares. People run 3" spacer lifts and they work fine. I wouldn't sweat it!

 

I appreciate the words of encouragement. I drove it a fair amount today and it really feels fine. I just really wish I could confirm whether my coils are on the wrong side or not

 

Also just not sure about stacking spacers either. If it was one spacer I think I would feel better for some reason...

 

If you have 5/8" of spacers on one side, it might be fighting the swaybar if you have it installed. Might not be much, but enough to make it appear level. Maybe try unbolting one of the swaybar links from the spindle and see.

 

You should be fine with the spacers stacked. They aren't going anywhere because they are captured.
You will get a little more drop on the driver's side because you've essentially moved that strut down relative to the frame of the truck. The only draw back here is your upper control arm may contact your coil spring on full droop. IF it does, you can install some limit straps (see my avatar).
Like Hawforne said, you can jack the front of the truck up, get the front wheels off the ground and see if there's contact.
Unless there's significant contact, you'll be fine. Just drive it.

Let us know if it's hitting.

By the way, Hawforne sounds like a dick.

 

I jacked it up this morning real quick. My floor jack ran out of travel before I could get the wheels completely off the ground but it was pretty close. The strut assmebly seemed close to the control arm but wasn't touching and when I checked the other side it seemed like almost the same amount of clearance, so I don't think it's an issue... gonna jack it up one more time all the way and make sure but I'm feeling a little better now.

 

I assume M.E. stands for mechanical engineer. In my expierence engineers make shitty mechanics.

 

Ijust posted anout this on other thread. For leveling all I needed was a set of front 5100's. No added spaces. Not a single issue for three years and trucksits almost perfect with a slight lean to rear. I think people are overcomplicating their leveling. Should only cost 350$ with install for a set of front 5100's

 

Did you have a lean before you put the 5100's on? If not, you shouldn't have a lean now. The 5100's using the stock springs would not create a lean because as you said, the stock springs are side specific to make up for it. If you didn't have a lean before, and you do now, i would guess the springs got crossed up and are on the wrong sides.

If you had aftermarket springs that are not side specific, you would need the lean spacer to account for that.

 

Yes I had a fair amount of lean before install before any work was done. Almost all tacomas I see have a driver side lean, so the side specific springs don't seem to be enough to stop the lean. I definitively needed spacers or something to get it level. I had two chevy colorados before this and they both leaned as well...

 

The color coding of the coils is a bit of an unsolved mystery. This is the best info I have seen.

courtesy of @Evenflow:
The coil with two coils marked the same color is the drivers side in my experience twice and I have the read the same on TW. My Sport and my wife's 4runner both had an additional coil on the drivers side, IE: 5 coils on passenger and 6 on drivers. When you have two identical appearance coils one is still a higher rate that the other. If you have them on a 5100 from the stock to 1st notch the coils will actually spin on the lighter passenger coil but the stiffer drivers coil will not spin. Grab the CO by the coil and the rod end and see if you can spin the coil the one that you can't spin or twist has more pre load = driver side...hope that helps

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/which-coil-goes-on-driver-side.335271/#post-8870313

 

Mine were grey/grey on the drivers side
and green-blue/grey on the passenger
time has removed all but one of the paint markings now

@Justinlhc:
"From what I've seen the coil with the double colors is driver side(mine were yellow-yellow)."

 

Gotcha, mine had no lean stock but i needed the spacer when i went to 884's, that why i asked. good luck figuring it out, seems strange.

 

This may be an obvious question, but have you jumped up and down on your sliders or runner boards a bit to re-settle the suspension? Or was the shop far enough of a drive that you burnt through half a tank of gas? My 2010 DCSB, even with rebuilt suspension and drivers side coil cranked a bit tighter, still seems to lean sometimes.

But I have to say, its my impression that taco lean is weirdly random. Sure after filling the tank it can be obvious, but sometimes it'll be empty and I see a lean, or it will be full but I won't see it. If I turn hard right to park the lean stays, if I turn hard left I level out (bushing are greased, nuts torqued to spec so its not that). Anyways, I can't see a consistent pattern with taco lean, so I've mostly stopped worrying about it.

 

I definitely agree with you about the lean being random but I just wanted to straighten it out as much as possible before alignment and stuff since everything was taken apart anyway. Going to try to just ignore it but now I'm a little sketched about the spacers not giving me the amount of lift that they are supposed to. It honestly seems to drive fine and its pretty much level all the way around now so I guess I should just be happy...