Lift Disaster, Dispair, and Correction

Control arms are installed correctly. Take the sway bar relocators off and give us an update after

 

That sucks that things didn't work out as you had hoped, is there a good 4x4 shop that does installs nearby that could check the work ?
Our local 4x4 shops do wheel alignments as well, and they are used to aftermarket stuff.

 

Okay, I may test it with the bar off to see how it goes... But either way I will remove the relocators.

So, again I will try to find my alignment paperwork tonight, but is there any chance I can lower the front and still keep things mostly aligned?

 

Didn't you post that the 5100's are already set to 0?

 

Yes, I was looking at getting 884 coils as my 5100s have extremely little down travel left and top out all the time.

 

What is the part number on your Bilstein shocks? I can see the 24-2393 but I can't make out the rest of it. What makes you think they are topping out, do you get a big clunk or something?

The cushion at the top of your spring looks either misaligned or doubled up. The spring end on my shock are rotated inward so I can't see what mine look like. Check both sides and make sure they didn't put both cushions on the driver's side and none on the passenger side. If so, that could cause the lean and the clunk possibly.

 

I'll have to try to find the part number. If I go over anything that allows the front to extend more than just a slight get I get a very violent "SLAM" sound in the front and I can feel it shake the truck harsly. It definitely does not feel good! I'm afraid to go over bumps or anything at normal speeds as I don't want to break shit.

If I put a jack under the front and I raise it up and told the front tires are off the ground I measured the before and after hub to fender measurements and found that both sides have less than 1" of down travel. It was like 0.7"-0.9" or something like that. I don't wheel or anyting but I definitely feel like that's way too little for normal truck driving.

Okay I will check both sides and report back, you know is there any chance that I got the wrong shock top? Or perhaps it's tightened too much?

 

Alignment results

 

That looks ok.... you may need to look into limit straps for the front. Or extended travel shocks. Also would be advisable to get new bump stops in the front.

 

If OP lifted 3” with 885, should his shocks NEED to be extended travel? I run 5100’s but am unaware of there is a extended vs. normal model.

That could explain the lack of droop.

 

Bilstein makes a extended travel rear shock meant for a 3 to 5 inch lift. It's the rcd model/ series. Not sure about the fronts.
There are 2 other sizes also, regular at 0 to 1.5 inch and another that are 1.5 to 3 inch.

 

I was thinking about limit straps just for the peace of mind even if I lower.

Well I figured the 885's must just be too much with my prerunner

Well then I start worrying about the lca and such by adding mega droop... Haha

My goal for now is to lower her down to 2" with 884's , I feel like this will give the adjustment more room. The more I look at it all the more I believe this may work. But I'm also looking into putting stock uca's back on

 

Ballsy for lifting a truck by yourself and not having any experience with suspension lol.

I think you’re way too caught up on “lowering it back down”

Remove the sway bar relocation kit, buy some 1.25” hubcentric wheel spacers and things should be fine.

I’m thinking your clunking and scraping is the wheels being far to inset and hitting your sway bar.

Good luck.

 

Well I didn't do the labor but I slowly aquired all the parts and such.

My only issue is that wheel spacers offset the balance on the bearing and cause more wear, which after just replacing those I'm not really Keen on haha. And I do have some experience as suspension was one of the things I have a certificate on back from the college days along with a/c, and I mean yeah is nothing super-special but the main thing is that we never did trucks we only had cars. So I've learned about the tacoma's suspension as I went

Plus besides getting more down travel it actually is a bit hard to drive in small parking lots as I cannot see as well.. and if I hook up a trailer I get bro lean..

 

You could look into the TRD beadlock style wheels, they’ll push the tire out some to give more clearance without the crazy offset of spacers. Obviously a bit more expensive though.

 

Those are actually the wheels that I really want, the problem with them is just finding them at a price I can afford haha

 

Shopping tip. Find the part number of the color wheel you want and google search by part number. You can also try using the shopping option in google searching by part number which is very effective to then sort by price which will include a shipping estimate and tax if applicable plus find some coupon codes making it much easier to compare. It isn’t perfect but very useful. However those are only sponsored results, so still need to do some legwork for the best deal.

 

It does look off, is the pad between the coil spring and mount upside down? If memory serves me well, when I installed mine, the smaller diameter portion of the cushion seated down inside the coil spring and the larger diameter portion was up against the top mount.

 

The pic in this link, the side facing us in the pic is the side that faces up. You can tell by the 3 notches for the 3 bolt heads.
https://www.summitracing.com/parts/kyb-sm5640

Even if his was upside down, it would not be the cause of all his issues. I've seen that rubber part look wonky like that if it's turned enough and the bolt head indentations are aligned with the with the head even when it's installed in the right directions. If you looked at the opposite side of that pic where the tail of the spring isn't, it would look much more normal I bet.
This is a pic of mine. Yes it is installed in the right direction but when I was assembling it I brain farted and didn't align the the bolt holes with the indentations before I screwed down the top hat and took the pressure off the spring. I didn't realize it til I was all finished with my install. I'll fix it one day but you can see it looks like OP's and yes I can say it's is installed in the right direction just clocked an inch off. Only down side I can see it premature wear of it b/c the top hat's 3 bolt heads are not in the indented slots and may tear the rubber during movement. I'll fix it one day when I have some time. But after 4k miles so far it looks the same as the day I put it on.

 

Been reading the post and everyones replies and honestly i think its an issue with the UCAs. I was running 885's with the 5100's on the 2nd notch with 285's but I have the JBA UCA's. Went off road quite a bit but never had any alignment issues or tire rub when turning. no bottoming out or loud noises from the front. I am however running the TRD beadlock wheels and a .75 wheel spacer to prevent tire rub on the UCA.