Malburg114's 3Link go fast SAS

Looking good! You are going to love the air bumps, I thought they were all bling hype until I got some. Now I want to put some in the rear!

 

I hope I don’t because that means I’ll need to add them to the front lol

 

Start saving your pennies then!!

 

First off, bad ass truck man!! Just found this build and went through the whole thing. I'm local here, just moved to Henderson area. I'd love to check this thing out. I'm super curious about the ride. I am in the planning stages of starting to get things together to build my 01 DC. I'm leaning toward leafs just for simplicity, cost, and lower build time. I"m not new to this, mostly been in the landcruiser world a while. But i'm moving over to build up my little truck now.

 

It’s still stuck in the garage and the heat isn’t helping me finish it but your free to come check it out and we can go for a ride when it’s done.

If I were to do another Tacoma all over again I would do links. Tacoma’s are a lot heavier than the old Toyota pickups and a lot of the old school budget tricks don’t work. Main thing that comes to mind is leaf springs. The old rears up front work but they net no lift and are a flat pack and ride on the bumps. To get around that you either need custom leafs or trail gear hd leafs which are spendy. By the time you buy all the stuff to do a leaf spring swap (if you can’t make it yourself) your at the same cost as linking it. The only thing that costs a little more when doing links is the coil overs which is a small amount of money for a lot better ride.

 

Yeah I keep coming to the same conclusion. I'm going straight to SD axles and 4Ds too. I've only had one leaf sprung truck and it was a first gen (85) years ago when I first got into wheeling. I didn't go far with building it and went to 4runners and landcruisers. Have had my DC a long time as a DD and now got a sequoia and really thinking about getting serious with it now that i'm in an area with so many great wheeling opportunities. I'm comfortable designing and fabbing mostly everything but find myself leaning toward buying what I can to minimize time as I am getting older. I can't tell you how long I spent figuring out angles 4 linking the front of my buddies samurai haha.

 

I think either way you’ll be fine but I think the days of budget swaps are gone with 40s and 1 tons.

It’s a tried and true combo for the Tacoma’s of a 3 link front with Chevy 63s in the rear. Tons of people do it with really good success. Just push that steering box through the core support and push the axle as far forward as you can and go from there. That’ll keep the track bar drag link out of the oil pan and get you the most uptravel before notching the frame and raising the motor

 

Oh yeah, i'm familiar. I like to drive mine to trails and around in general. That is the main reason I was considering just doing leafs. I've just had to deal with a great deal of maintenance with links in the past. I know its subjective, but most guys i've known to run leafs rarely do much. Just the occasional bushing replacement where it seems joints are being rebuilt/replaced near annually. Saw your setup and though it looked nice and simple and works well. I'm not wanting a full out crawler. The ifs stuff just is constantly needing maintenance, doesn't perform for what I want, and isn't that reliable. So if I am going to go through an axle swap i am just going straight to tons. And the "might as wells" kick in and say well if i go this route, might as well go with bigger tires haha. I just overbuild things. Truthfully I really don't "need" a setup for what I like to do. I came from an 80 series with 37s and lockers, mildly armored and it did everything i'd want to do. I'd really like my truck setup like this. Either way, nice truck man and definitely like to meet up with some local yota guys. My truck is pretty basic now (2.5 lift, 32s) but I'm always down to hang out and run some trails. I'm new to Nevada and only have done a few easy things I found like Carpenter Canyon.

 

Let me know if you need help or need anything. Once I finish mine shoot me a message and we can go do some of the harder trails in the area

 

$350 for TG springs, $150 for some 5100's, $110 for a spring hanger and $150 for some shackles+mount (all in $760) is quite a bit cheaper than coilovers ($1100+$280 springs) and links ($600)...all in $2k. Not saying they are apples to apples with the cost of the shocks but the idea is that you can get off the ground and on the trail with cheap shocks on a leaf setup (and change down the road to nice shocks if you want like I did) as opposed to having to spend big money on shocks up front for a link setup.

 

Links FTW.

 

I know there’s different ways and cheaper ways. I’m just comparing it to the trail gear sas kits as that’s what 90% of people will use. There 3 link A kit is the same price as the leaf spring A kit.

 

Yeah I won't lie it is pretty convenient with there kit. Comes with damn near everything. I was considering it when it was like 6000$ including the axle. But then the price shot up and I was like meh. It was just a convenience thing for me. I know I will just end up linking it with something I come up with myself. Now just gotta figure out a way to pickup this set of 1 tons I found.

 

No progress pictures of the truck. Been to hot but have been ordering stuff. Mainly tools. Picked up a plasma. Press. Some dimple dies. A bead roller and some things from ruffstuff. Hopefully cools off soon so I can go back in the garage and finish this up. Finally sold the rear axle as well so should be able to order the last of the things I need to get it rolling like cutting brakes and order shafts once I measure for them.

 

Shock tower tacked in place and started making the bump stop mounts. Should work fine once it’s all boxed in together.



And got the plasma to it’s final home. Used it most the day to cut the bump stop gussets and once I figured out the straight edge it was making super clean straight cuts. I added an inline filter to give it cleaner air and it works well.


And shock towers all welded together last night. One of my best welds next to some of my worst. Machine decided it didn’t want to weld after I finally got the setting right. Oh well

 

Moving right along. Been nice having the plasma. Got all the frame brackets cut after finalizing how i wanted to do everything and zipped them out with the plasma. Got the driver side welded besides the can and the last filler plate and back gusset. Passenger frame plate welded on. Hope to get the passenger side done this week and move onto finishing the axle side bump stop and then burn everything in.

 

Driver side done. Passenger side about 90%. Hoping to get most the axle welded as well tomorrow.

 

Slowly but surely. A few hours every night after work or in the morning on my days off is starting to pay off. All the frame side brackets are done besides the set bolt for the bump cans. And started welding on the axle in hopes of dropping it off to have the spindles welded this week.

 

Got a lot done since the last update. Frame brackets and pinch bolts done just needs paint. Got the axle cleaned and fixed after welding the shock mount for the passenger side on the wrong side of the spring perch. Had to remake the shock mounts and bump pads. But none the less got it all welded back up and dropped it off at Dans driveline in vegas to have the ends and brakes welded on. Hopefully get some metal tomorrow and start on the center console.

Diff armor i had my dad cut and bent and welded on


Pictures of the screw up...

But at least my welds are getting better... the best welds were on the side i had to cut off lol.



and pictures after fixing everything




and pictures of the finished frame

 

Picture of the finished diff armor


and you can see the grinding dust in the background from cutting all the 1/4 in brackets off from my screw up.. was nice having the plasma to blast most of it off but still sucked


And the new wheels. Found them for 190 a piece on eBay so couldn't pass it up. Even got a matching spare. Just need to find a 5th tire now.


Old wheels are for sale. 500 for the 5. Their 200 a piece new and 1 is brand new only had a tire mounted. the rest have rock rash. ill post a link to a forsale thread.