Lefty's golden taco.

They grow up so fast

 

What a journey!

 

Thanks man !! Sure has.
What yout truck like ? I see that you've been on here since 2017 and this was your first post.

 

Yes it’s been a few years since I joined. I had a T100 back then and then went truckless for a number of years. I just picked up a ‘03 TRD extended from a family member and am looking for inspiration from some of these bigger builds!

 

Finally got some time off work and the motivation to do some work on the truck. Still need to order some parts but I have plenty to do in the meantime.
Got to use a new tool on the lower ball joints. Made it so much easier to unseat them from the lower control arm. I rented it from autozone last time beacouse my other pullers kept spreading apart. This new puller is a little fiddley to start but seats nicely and dosent tear up the boot. A couple of turns with the ratchet and POW!! Easy peasy!.
OEMTOOLS 27170 Heavy Duty Pitman...

$63 OEMTOOLS 27170 Heavy Duty Pitman Arm Puller Pull & Repair Pitman Arms, Bearings, Collars, Gears, & More Light Truck & Car Repair Tool Adjustable Jaws Simple, Effective, & Useful

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The air impact made quick work of taking off the cv axle nut. Didn't have to try and wedge a bar between the wheel studs or have to put everything back together. Just a Zipp!! And there off. So next is to pull the axles and lower control arms off. I'm gonna change out the bushings in the steering rack too. Iv trying to get the shocks sent out for a rebuild and the fittings changed so I can get the resies mounted.

 

So the front is in hovercraft mode, which seems to be a theme at my house. Finished getting the lower control arm off and new bushings installed on the power steering rack. The rubber bushings on the rebuild rack sure allowed for a lot of play .I should have just replaced them when I got it. Lessons learned I guess.
The new control arms are ready to go now I just need to see if there supposed to have washes or just run them without. Should be cool to see the difference between the polyurethane and the white line bushings which allowed for a lot of play.
Definitely need to order new parts for the upper control arms.
New durobumps. I've put a whooping on them.
My lower ball joints have a lot of play in them so I'm debating on which to get.

 

Apparently I've put the durobumps through there paces.they work great but there durability is definitely suspect.

 

Pricey, but Total Chaos LBJ to Uniball conversion
https://www.chaosfab.com/lifestyle/blog/lower-uniball-conversion-1st-gen-tacoma-3rd-gen-4runner/

 

I'm aware of them . Other types prices are going up too for uniballs.
My main concern is the bilit aluminum will it holding up or will it crack?

 

Brown Santa delivers!!
I didn't sleep for shit yesterday because I had to sign for the delivery, but I'm super excited!!

So these are the parts to rebuild my upper control arms , new bushings, uniballs and the installation tool.
Oh and the new lower control arms uniball jt. Hopefully it plays well with the solo power control arms.
Hopefully I can get it done relatively quickly. The shocks are at the relbuilders tell sometime next week.

Also I reached out to durobumps well see if they warranty them. The bumps have been awsome, the new arms have strik pads. May be time for some cans.

 

Well I haven't been as productive as I'd hoped battling some gastritis. But the upper control arms are off . They were super dirty .so I decided to give em a good scrubbing and then turned to the frame .it's looking kinda ruff with some surface rust , so it got a good cleaning and decreasing in prep for some paint.
This was the less dirty arm.

Coffee was definitely kicking in on the second pic.
These uppers have been on my truck for about 6 or 7 years now. And actually looking somewhat ok. I haven't dailyed my truck in about 4 and a half years so they probably only have like 45k on them.

 

Got everything cleaned and a initial coat of paint on the frame.
Before

After

Had to call it for the night ended up clearing off my work area so that I can start rebuilding the arms and getting everything together.

 

Figured 1am was late enough to stop harassing my neighbors before getting a noise complaint, although my neighborhood was once referred to as having culture. So probably not lol. Anyways,..
Got the control arms taken apart ,cleaned and put back together again with new bushings and new uniballs. I picked up the installation tool because it will work with the new lowers too. The old uniballs came out so easy I probably could have done it with a c-clamp and a couple of sockets. But having the right tool makes it easy too. The bushings were a little tuffer and had to go in the vice to get the center sleeve in.
Taking one of the lower ball joints off while the knuckle was on the table, was a bit of a challenge when you can't run the air tools. Got it done and the threads a bit chased out too . Which is difficult too because the break sheild is in the way. And there's not a socket that fits the tap ... and I just realized I need to try a wrench..... test fitted the new joint.

 

Well Zippy, my newly named air impact made short work of taking off the other lbj with the knuckle on the table. Managed to get the treads cleaned out . Had to use a crescent wrench to turn the tap.
Snugged up the new joint on the new arms after having to move them twice. I thought I was being smart by torquing the down then realized there was now way they were gonna move buy hand to get lined up.
Got the CV's out and realized that the passenger side seal was leaking. So I'm going to fix that today as well as picking up the rebuild shocks.
Also got in contact with durobumps, said that there sending me a new updated set. Nice!!

 

So my day things were gonna just happen on there own time. Was able to pick up 1 pair of shocks, my front diff seal and had lunch, at an old stomping ground and took in the sights.

Finally got home after a nap got to work on the truck.
The seal looks to be the wrong size ,so that sucked.
Burned in the resivor mounts ,Installed the upper and lower arms .then changed the ball joints ,again! For whatever reason I thought the passenger side was the left. So now everything is on the correct side. So the seal well I guess I'm gonna rock it and see what happens. I wonder if the other CV's weren't sealed right.
So this is where she sits.. had to call it an early night since my daughter just flew into town and needed a ride.

 

Almost done.

 

Was able to get some more work done on the truck.
Cycled the suspension. My tierods are binding on the last inch or so of trave.,and my knuckle brace is hitting the coil bucket. Otherwise it cycles about 9" of trave without the shocks..
Through a slightly bald 35 on to see if it clears .

It dose tuck, but hits the inner part of the upper flair and it rubs just a tiny bit on the firewall section of the flar. I'll see how it looks after an aliment. The plan is to goto a 285/75/17. So I think I'll be good without having to tub.
New durobumps are in and the tires are on it. All that's left is to set the aliment cams where they were before and then set it down and finish torquing everything with the weight on it.

This is how it's currently sitting. Ready for flight.

 

Welp she's all back together,


The aliment was a bit off. I drove it around the block to see if the springs would settle a bit.it sounded like something roasting there tires especially when hitting the brakes.
So I did the best I could to straighten it out. I got it the best I could. I probably should have reread the DIY home aliment but I didn't.
I have an appointment for next Wednesday to have a shop make it right. At least now I can drive it there without scrubbing the tires off.

It looks like the ADS has 650lbs springs so the truck is sitting a bit taller but the valving is definitely softer then the icons. I can now feel how stiff the back is compared to the front. I'll probably crank the damper up a bit .

 

Since I'm sitting at the alignment shop again. It's been a bit of a struggle getting everything to play nicely with each other. After everything was back together I had to wait a week to get my aliment.

Post aliment I was getting bad grinding noises which developed after a full lock turn . I thought it was just my dust sheild so I pulled the sheild out a bit and I barely got my truck out of the driveway and the grinding was back.
Which ended up with me pulling and replacing the tire and brakes about 4 times.

I'll finish this later. Trucks done and I still have a bunch to do. Leaving on a trip . Hopefully I'll be on the road by 12

 

I really need to get better at having things all done and tested before going on a trip but life happens and I'm a bit of a procrastinator.

So my fancy new lower ball jts really liked my dust sheilds and the fat new CV's were doing there best to rub up aginst the Ads shocks. I don't believe any of this was happening before the first alignment, but that's probably beacouse it was so far outta wack. I have a vido ill try uploading later.
So I ended up having to wait a week for the first alignment, probably because it's tax season and everyone had some money to burn IDKN. Anyways I get the truck back and the guy tells me that the steering is gonna be tight for a while and will need to break in. And he's not kidding the truck wouldn't really return to center unless manually moved. So I drive it for a bit and it's a handful on the freeway catching the ruts and borderline dangerous it not gently corrected. So on some side streets I started really trying to cycle the steering by doing some big S's and I hear the brakes rubbing. I thought I must have bent the sheild while cycling the suspension. It's happening before. So I pull back on the sheild ,hop in the truck ,back outta the driveway and when I started going forward the break noise is back and worse than ever. Obviously some major inspection is in order. So I pull my tire ,low and behold I see my cv is rubbing the lower shock cup, that's not good. So I surmised that the alignment moved it forward. So I call the shop that did my alignment and explained that the truck is handling like crap and parts are rubbing. They can't get me back in tell the day of the trip. Awesome!! So I did inquire about my problems on the first gen section and one of the suggestions was to try offset spacers for the shocks. I looked at my shocks and sure enough they were equal sized. I happened to have my old icon shocks handy,which happened to have offset spacers. Popped thoes bad boy's in and I can see the light between the shock and cv. After I put the tires back on and the truck still up in the air I give the tires a spin, and it's still rubbing the dust sheild which sounds horrible if you've never heard it. It's like the death of a bearing noise. Some selective prying seems to quite it down ,tell the test drive. Same thing quite while backing up ,tell i the crank the wheel and go forward and it back to grinding on the rotors again. So back on the jack and off with all the bits. I can see where the dust sheild is contacting the rotors, it's right behind the arm of the new lower ball joint. All I can figure is that due to the higher placement of the ball joint arm and no steering stops on the lower control arm and high caster alignment, is allowing the tierod end to push in the dust sheild. A few minutes removing material with the angle grinder no more rubbing. Sweet silence.
I keep my new aliment apt the shop gets me in early and let's me watch they have a fancy machine with all kinds of lazers and computers. They pull the caster back add a bit of camber and tell me I need to go abuse it. I informed them I planned to do just that.