[HOW-TO] - 1st Gen Tacoma Rear Shock Relocate

Let me preface this by saying I am not an engineer, this idea is not original, and I was peer pressured into writing this. Okay, minor details aside, if you have a first gen you've probably noticed a lack of performance shocks available for the factory locations. There are your usual suspects like all manner of basic white can shocks from; ProComp, Rancho, Rough/Tuff Country. Then you have some OEM replacements like Bilstein 4600s, KYB, Gabriel, and Monroe. There are even some oddballs for increasing load capacity by having an internal air bladder as well as having a normal emulsion shock in their center. Now those are a decent group of brands but they only are designed to cover the stock amount of axle/suspension travel.

So what can one do if they want to run some performance tunable shocks from manufacturers like King, ADS, FOX, F-O-A, Radflo, and Walker Evans? Well they need to do some measuring, cutting, welding, and then order some damn shocks! I will state at this point that I'm not responsible for your actions after reading my post, these are general guidelines and steps and much of the actual measurements and shock choices will have to be determined by your driving and off-roading preferences and your current suspension choices like leafsprings and shackles.

Alrighty, so unless you are a master child TIG welder or have been raising one you'll need to remove your bed first to gain the clearance to measure, mockup, and weld in an upper shock mount. Pretty easy to remove, just six 17mm head bolts to remove on the underside as well as your tail lights and tail light wiring harness clips.

0209181246 by Zane R., on Flickr

0209181305 by Zane R., on Flickr

Might I also suggest since you'll be spending a decent amount of time working on the rear of your truck and you'll have to clean and prep welding surfaces anyway that you might as well take your truck to the local carwash now and give it a spray to get some of the dirt and grime buildup off.

See nice and clean! Well sorta :/

0209181349 by Zane R., on Flickr

Due to an overall lack of weight and force when the truck is disassembled it would be pretty tough to measure the full travel of your leafs with all of the leafs in the pack. So instead we will measure the thickness of the pack fully assembled, then we will take out all but the main leaf so we can flex everything with a floor jack.

0209181627 by Zane R., on Flickr

0209181922a by Zane R., on Flickr

It is at this point it helps to know what you're striving for. In my case I was striving for what most would consider normal flex for leafs that would avoid wearing them out prematurely and still tuck my tire decently. Typically people go for completely flat or just the slightest frown to leafs to avoid over taxing them. When we flex our trucks it isn't typically a high impact activity but when you bottom out over a bump at high speed or hit a pothole and come back up quickly those can be much more high impact (momentum and inertia are just a bunch of dirty bitches laughing at us from across the bar) and much more harmful to the suspension. So we don't want to allow the leafs to go too far frowned under high impact because that has the potential to snap leafs and rapidly de-arch them (been there before, the stock setup actually allows lots of frown).

Ouch!

IMAG0623_zps5986e077 by Zane R., on Flickr

So this ended up being the upper bound I chose for the axle to be able to uptravel (actually ended up shifting it up by another two inches but the picture is really just for illustrative purposes), remember to be thinking about the additional amount your axle will be moved down by when the rest of the leaf pack is present.

IMG_8058 by Zane R., on Flickr

Okay, team huddle, this is where you can do one of two things... you can either use shocks you've already purchased to determine where you put your mounts (maybe not the smartest idea unless you got a great deal), or you can use the extended and collapsed measurements of the shocks you want to purchase to help you position your mounts. You should also be thinking about what kind of mounts you'd like to weld onto your truck as well as upper bar size and material.

For this particular project I chose to use 1.75" .120 wall HREW steel for my upper mount bar as I knew my mounts would be close the edge of the frame and I had no worries to speak of when it comes to possibly bashing it on something considering its height. I also chose to use mounts from RuffStuff Off-Road Parts as their mounts are made from brake formed 1/4" plate and are already pre spaced so the tabs are very well reinforced and at the ideal spacing for aftermarket shock heims and misalignment spacers. It is also worth mentioning that I chose to do a u-bolt flip at the same time because keeping those bottom plates that come stock is absolutely pointless once you move the shock mounts anyway.

Here's a pic showing what was put on, also worth mentioning some of the stuff on the table was for installing a new leaf pack because I had to replace mine anyway so I went about doing that during this project.

0208181508 by Zane R., on Flickr

0207181515 by Zane R., on Flickr

Alright, with our shock lengths in mind, we can begin to mock-up mounts and start gluing some metal together. I first began by just using some welding clamps to find a place to position the bar where it would be very high and could keep my shocks close to vertical when the lower mounts (which stick out and bring the shock angle down) are all accounted for as well.

IMG_7996 by Zane R., on Flickr

A little measurement showed that the position the pipe is clamped in wouldn't interfere with mounting the bed and kept the shocks high and a bit forward when mounted. So that became the first boundary and was tacked into place.

IMG_7999 by Zane R., on Flickr

Now that we have our upper boundary it is a good time to have a look at the axle and your new upper pipe to see what kind of lateral boundaries we have so we can avoid having the shock collide with the frame or leaf pack (as they sometimes do in the stock config). I settled on about 3" to the edge of mount from the edge of the frame.

IMG_8053 by Zane R., on Flickr

IMG_8055 by Zane R., on Flickr

So I looked in my collection of junk and couldn't find a plumb bob, I also realized it was basically pointless to try and use one for locating my lower mount on the axle becasue the truck isn't lifted perfectly level relative to the pull of gravity. So instead I put the shock in the upper mount and bolted the lower mount on so we could use that to locate it on the axle.

IMG_8057 by Zane R., on Flickr

Now I used the point at which the shock bottoms out to set the angle at which the bottom mount rides on the axle, it would be wise if you know your shock covers the entire travel of your rear suspension to set the mount about 1/4" to 3/8" lower to make sure bottoming out can not happen if your bump stop were to compress more than usual. This may not be necessary after you take the finished thickness of your leaf pack into account. Now more welding occurs.

IMG_8044 by Zane R., on Flickr

IMG_8045 by Zane R., on Flickr

Might have gotten a bit artsy with the pics haha

IMG_8116 by Zane R., on Flickr

Alright, at this point I put the shocks back in and verified fit and travel before finish welding everything. Warning lots of welding photos....

IMG_8140 by Zane R., on Flickr

IMG_8138 by Zane R., on Flickr

IMG_8004 by Zane R., on Flickr

I am adamant about proper reinforcement when dealing with the Toyota frame because it is so thin, so I made sure to make some plates to tie it into the strongest part of the frame (the outer wall) so there is no risk of twisting and bending from shock loads.

IMG_8197 by Zane R., on Flickr

IMG_8214 by Zane R., on Flickr

IMG_8223 by Zane R., on Flickr

IMG_8228 by Zane R., on Flickr

It's at this point that you can begin to reassemble the rest of the truck and shoots some primer and paint on your new parts.

IMG_8232 by Zane R., on Flickr

Don't forget to use all your measurements to help make new bumpstops and risers so you don't bottom your nice new shocks. My rear is almost complete, gonna be putting my new King reservoir shocks in soon after a little bit more modification but this setup would have worked great with the F-O-A shocks I mocked it up with. The day I finished this I bought Kings because rebuilding the F-O-As was going to be a challenge. But here it is with both the F-O-As in place and some stand in Ranchos I used so I could take an impromptu trip to Moab...

IMG_8176 by Zane R., on Flickr

IMG_8172 by Zane R., on Flickr

IMG_8180 by Zane R., on Flickr

The Ranchos aren't quite the right length for the application and were binding because of their solid rubber bushings, but here they are haha (Photos of them courtesy of @m3bassman)









Well, I hope this helps someone who is interested in relocating their shocks, I am by no means done tweaking it. There's lots more I need to do to my leaf pack and bumpstops to be where I want to be. But that's the nature of modding.

 

Looks good man! I need to re-re-do my shock relocate, I may use the round tube above the frame rails idea for the next setup.

 

Thanks, felt really good to do something on this truck that was just sorta done as I go. You'll have to show me how yours is setup tomorrow, I remember you're using 12" shocks but I don't remember how the bar tied in.

 

This should be happening as soon as it warms up over here and we scrap a good piece of 1 3/4 .120 DOM at work. Anything under 6' after a cut job gets tossed. Scored some 3/16 HR plate being scrapped the other day for a bumper so gonna grab a plasma soon. Great write up this is a big help.

 

Outstanding write-up. Great narrative and photos.

Do you have a close-up photograph of the upper shock/crossmember/tube with the bed mounted? I know its got to be very tight in that spot.

 

As it so happens I do, it's before I've added the side reinforcement plates but it shows the fitment is close!

 

Wow, that is close. Looks like the tops of the shocks have a bit more tho. Overall, looks to be very well planned out.

 

I too will probably go this route whenever the time comes for this

 

Very nice job, Zane! I’ll definitely be referring back to this when I finally get around to my relocation.

I just got new shafts with welded rod ends that I’m going to swap onto my 10” King 2.5s. Between that and my 1” BL, I should have quite a bit of room to get the upper mounts up as high as possible.

 

That body lift and your overall suspension height makes you an ideal candidate for this, if I had an additional inch on the upper side that would be a game changer.

 

Hopefully going to do my final bit of commentary on this tomorrow since I'll have time to adjust my mounts for my Kings.

 

what size shocks?

 

Mine are King 2.5" diameter 10" long reservoir shocks with welded rod ends so they fit better in the space constraints.

 

Marked

 

Nice! Thanks for sharing.

 

Hey Zane,
So here goes my first set of questions for you:
What is the importance of measuring the thickness of the leaf pack fully assembled?
Did you pick up both upper and lower mounts from RuffStuff?
What does welded rod ends mean? ....mind showing me a comparison of the two?
Why didn't you box the frame?
These are all things I'm considering while I'm back there messing with the rear.
Thank you

 

I'll start with the leaf pack thickness question. Your leaf pack thickness at the point where the ubolts grab it is essentially a lift block, as such it moves your axle down however thick it is when assembled. When we measure, we do it with only one leaf in so we can flex easily. You'll never achieve more flex with all your leafs than with the one so it lets us set our upper and lower bounds, but those boundaries need to take into account that the axle will be moved down a bit because of the additional thickness of the remaining leaves. This wouldn't be a problem if we mounted our shocks to the top of our leafs but we attach them to the axle so it is important.

Both of my mounts are from RuffStuff (great guys and great products)

Welded rod ends essentially allowed me an extra inch to fit 10" stroke shocks in. They aren't as necessary if you decide to put 2" diameter shocks in instead of the overkill 2.5" I did. Here is the difference, as you can see in the picture a standard billet aluminum rod end requires about an inch of room to be threaded on to the shaft securely, I chose to forgo the option to change rod ends (at least without changing shafts) and have welded ones so that my shocks compressed lengths would be sorter.


I didn't box the rear because I was on a time crunch before a trip to get this all done and it is easy enough to take the bed off and go back to do that later. Nothing I've done would affect boxing the frame if I choose to, but when you box there are things that need to be removed and some that need to be reworked like the LSPV and the crossmembers for the tire carrier. Just too much to get done in the 3 days I allotted myself.

Lemme know if you have more questions or if I was unclear

 

Think you can send me the link for both front and rear? I tried looking for the rears yesterday but I couldn't find them.
Thanks.

 

https://www.ruffstuffspecialties.co..._Code=R1988-8&Category_Code=shockbracketstabs

https://www.ruffstuffspecialties.co...ode=SBRKT-175&Category_Code=shockbracketstabs