Colinb17's kinda sorta build thread - now with 4-link and long travel

part of the reason they stuff so well is because i'm only at an inch of lift. if you're at 3'', you have a lot more preload to overcome to fully compress the front. it's not as good for jumping, but it handles bumps at high speed like a dream, and crawls really well.

 

Yeah, I'm sure I have a fair amount of pre-load... I'm thinking of getting some Icons with 700 lbs springs and hoping that holds up.

What size tires are you running, 33's? Did you have to do a lot of cutting to fit with only an inch of lift? I still rub a bit with about 2-3" of lift (it sagged a bit when I added the skids) and a 1" BL plus a bunch of hacking. haha. Although that isn't usually when crawling, just playing in the sand.

 

700 lb should do you well. That's really what i should be on, along with heavier valving.

i'm on 285 treadwrights, they measure closer to a 34 than 33.

i choped and boxed the cab mount and trimmed back the pinch weld. i did have the flares trimmed back as well, but those are gone now, so no longer an issue.

Lift height only affects tire clearance at ride height, so to truely fit a tire, you have to do the same trimming and clearancing for a stock height truck and one with 3.5'' of lift. I still need to take some more off of the pinchweld up front, but that's it. i too hit the pinch weld more when i doing high speed wheeling. ocasionally hear it rubbing while crawling, but that's usually on downhills with more weight on the front.

 

I guess that's true haha. I haven't had to touch my cab mount. 255's don't rub on it, but I've pretty much eliminated my pinchweld and beat the firwall back some while I was at it. I basically rub the entire fenderwell all over in the sand. Need to just cut the whole thing out and build new ones I guess. I couldn't imagine trying to clear a bigger tire... I'd be really screwed if I wen wider. 255's don't touch the flares.

 

going with a wider tire is no good for rubbing period, until you get to long travel, then it's just easy. but with the widers ones, if you don't space the wheel out with spacers or different wheels, you don't hav to worry about the cab mount, but you rub a little on the UCA. if you space them out, the UCA is fine, but then you eat your cab mount. vicious circle. can't wait for LT.......

 

Yep! Can't win for lose. haha Can't wait for LT either! Front LT is likely a long ways out for me yet though... What kit are you thinking of doing up front?

 

Probably the total chaos front, but that's still up in the air. with the ability to have a front kit at my door with just a couple clicks of the mouse or a phone call, i've been focusing most of my effort on figuring out how to build my rear. I really want to do the rear first, since the front outperformes the rear by so much, but that will entirely depend on where my job takes me in the next year. may just have to end up doing the front first, if i don't have my own garage again, and depending on when i can pick up all of my tools from florida.

 

Yeah, rear is what I am trying to work out right now... My rear sucks... TSB leaf pack with an AAL. Are you planning on going SUA in the rear? I am leaning towards getting the Engage 50T pack and just running some basic shock hoops with some crossbars for support and whatever length shocks I need, likely 16's or 18's. The other option is I might be able to get alcan to make some custom leafs for about the same price (maybe a little more) than the 50T's and I can have the add their orbit eyes (for extra money...) and get more droop in the rear when crawling.

As for the front, I like the TC kit. If I can't end up doing the Solo kit then TC will likely be the kit I go with.

 

I'm really not sure about under or over for mine. i have multiple designs for both, I really want to do a full bed cage though to work more travel out of the setup than a shock hoop. right now i'm leaning towards a 3 or 4 inch leaf pack, over the axle, with longer, fully fabricated shackles to to both handle the travel and geometry, and to get me back down around 2 inches of lift, and either new shackle hangers, or just reinforced stock ones. then some bypasses into the bed, and some hydrobumps and i should be good.

 

I'm leaning towards a shock hoop setup to save on bedspace and too allow me to keep my toolbox. They'll be tall shock hoops of course, but basically a very minimalist bed cage is the idea.

Only 2" of lift huh? I am hoping to get 3-4" in the rear and about 3" up front in the end. I just never seem to have enough clearance out on the trails, although going to 35's would be a good start too. haha

 

unless i can get a daily driver right away and a good sized garage (in which case i'll be doing a tube bed), i'll be keeping my tool box as well. I may angle my shocks towards the tailgate instead of the cab like most. I was talking this over with MJP2, and the physics of doing so actually makes more sense than angled towards the cab, becasue when the springs compress, the axle moves towards the rear, so rear angled shocks require less valving, and therefore create less heat.

Between some of the off camber situations i've been in, and taking some higher speed turns off road, i really value my center of gravity. with good line choice i've actualyl never really had ground clearance be issue. it's always been the fact that i'm not locked yet.

for refference, i used to wheel with the same one inch of lift on 265 all terrains. it was 100% about line choice.

 

I wish more folks understood this...

 

I wanted to do that as well, but everybody I have talked to so far said that the leaf springs actually move towards the front of the bed as they compress which is why leaning them forward is more favorable to backwards. Mine will likely still be angled slightly backwards but I am going to shoot for as close to straight up and down and as possible.

My problem with ground clearance a good line can't just fix... but I am trying to keep up with guys like this around here:

Yes those are 40's...


The Commanche is on 37's


Lots of lift and 35's


I think those are 40's or 42's...


That's not even all the rigs, but you get the idea... When I go out, I am almost always the only guy that is IFS up front... and I have the longest wheelbase too and usually the smallest tires... All of that combines to result in me having a hell of a time trying to keep up. haha My saving grace is that I am one of the few locked up front and sometimes my longer wheelbase allows me to take more interesting lines. There's a reason why I have killed 2 rear driveshafts now though and there isn't a spot under my taco that isn't scratched... but I got a little talkative about me there...

Anyway... I know what you mean about the center of gravity thing and I just hope to fix it with LT up front and trying to get to about 90" wide up front. Username (I'm sure you've seen his truck before) is about 91" wide up front and he said he can pitch his truck sideways on pavement at about 60 mph without lifting a tire

 

you can definitely cause forward axle motion with leaf springs, but it greatly depends on the arch of the spring, the arch at ride height, the location of the forward and rear hangers, length of the shackle, and angle at which the springs sit (is the rear eye higher than the front). if you look at the picture of username's truck that you posted, you can see that the front and rear eyes of his springs are at almost the same height. in a case like that, you will see rearward motion as the spring compresses and flattens out. a number of the guys however, have longer shackles without a flip, or otherwise relocated spring hangers, which cause the rear eye of the spring to sit significantly higher than the front. you will indeed get to a point at which the angle is steep enough to cause forward motion through the suspension cycle.

on a semi-stock setup such as what you and I are running, the forward or back motion is negligible until you go into negative arch, at which point it definitely goes forward. as you get into the leaf packs with more arch however, you will see the axle move rearward as it flattens out.

you definitely have a much different terrain type than i do. i can see why pure ground clearance and a wide track width is so important to your needs. even with the open expanses i got to wheel in florida, most of the wheeling i do is in very tight locations, as you can see in the pictures i just posted. while i would love to have a super wide truck for stability, the terrain i wheel just won't allow it. Luckily i believe i can pull off a 3+'' over kit, so many of the trails i wheel are so narrow, that the total chaos 2' over kit had to be put into consideration.

 

I see. That makes sense.

Yeah, I would rather my drag bottom issue over your squeeze through trees problem though. haha Less likely for me to end up with body damage from the trees getting too close.

 

I wish I had a front resi too it makes me jelly.

I just did the pinch weld chop/ fold and will be doing the cab mount chop this weekend. And when I get a new plate bumper upfront I'm going to do what Colin did and just remove the fender flares too.

 

Sorry Craig, page changed and i missed your comment. I wish more people knew it too. I say it so much, it would brobably be to my benefit to write an explanation in a word document that i can just copy and paste in every time.....

Yeah, the tight trails definitely add a whole new level of complexity to the off road experience. I have more dents than i can count, and more bare metal than paint on my skids, but i like to think that the truck enjoys it

if i buyt the front LT before 35s i'll be ok, but if i get 35s first, i'm going to have to completely cut out the pinch weld, and reweld some 1/16'' flat bar in there or something :goincrazy:

 

Hurry up an get your lt and sell me your icons.

 

I already gave greg dibs on the rears a year or so ago if he's still interested

you'll know when they come off the truck though

 

Ill take the fronts. I got those alcans for 100 bucks.