MolonLabeTaco Build Thread!

What's hard to understand is when you go to a 1" longer spring (14") AND leave the adjuster collar @ the same place, you've just pre-loaded that 14" waaaay more than that 13" spring was.
I believe most of the springs give a ~2:1 thread height to actual lift height. If you compact the spring .5", that'll give you ~1" lift. This is a very rough estimate. You took a 1" longer spring & removed 1" of pre-load. It seems you're in the same condition, as far as pre-load goes, you just have 1" less threads exposed. Does that make sense?

My droop was 3.5" factory. It is now 3" PS & 3.25" DS.
@ things you need to check are:
how much droop do you get?
what are your drive axle angles like?

 

You're right, everyone confuses threads showing with preload. The only way to measure preload is to subtract the compressed length of the coil from the free length. He has less preload but only because of the new spring rate, and less threads because of the longer spring.

 

Will post up pics of cvs tomorrow, they are close, but have room. Droop is about 2 inches, will back down when my leaves break in. End of the day, my 13 inch springs were were preloaded to crap, now same ridehight with less!! More to come!!

 

Removed some more stuff:
V6 on tailgate
Toyota on tailgate
TRD Off Road on both sides. Used a hair dryer and it made it a 3 minute job. I tried Goo Gone to remove the remaining residue but it did nothing so I tried Goo Gone Extreme and it worked like magic! Truck is filthy from all the rain but you get the picture.

Put a hose clamp on tailgate to help slow down a thief from stealing it.
Also trimmed the front fenders and inner liners to stop what little rubbing I've experienced. I'll know what more needs to be done when it finally quotes raining and I can go out and play a little. We've gotten over 8" of rain in the last 5-6 days so everywhere I can go is flooded out.

 

Stiiiiiiiiill raining here.

 

Sucks about the rain, we would gladly take some here in New Mexico!!! So yeah, 24 inch in the front is pushing it, downtravel was only about an inch. Had them jacked up to compensate for the new springs out back, which are way high!!!! Took it down a bit to 23 inches, cvs we're fine at 24, but why take the risk. End point I have over 2 inches less preload.. the ride is substantially better!! Down travel is about 2 inches now, the new 14 inch spring sets in at about 12.5 compressed in the shock. Overall I'm happy at this point. Trying to get 3 inch lift with the foxes is problematic.

 

It probably looked awesome but like you said it was killing the ride and downtravel.

 

Got a new to me Softopper today. @TexasTacoma713 hooked me up with the shipment from Houston. Great dude. Thanks again!!!
Pic sucks so I'll post some more tomorrow in the light. Need to do some fine tuning of the adjustment but install was a breeze.

 

I bought this truck on Jan. 30th & even though it came w/a good history report of maint., I didn't see anything in it that pointed towards the spark plugs being changed. I'm rather anal on maint. so I wanted to change these just in case. Come to find out they were factory (Denso on PS, NGK on DS) w/79K miles. Here they are. The numbers aren't necessarily the proper firing order, as IDK what that is yet. #1 is back PS & they go counter-clockwise from there end in back DS. Took about an hour causally drinking cold beer as I did it. They were all over .045".

I also tried to plastidip my emblems. It must've been too cold because it looks like total shit. The plastidip came out like sludge. It was 51°.

Just went and checked the plastidip job out. Looks like ass. I'm just going to remove the Tacoma emblems and be done with it!

 

Got my front 2 windows tinted to matched the other windows and a strip on the windshield. Feels much better inside now!

 

Installed Gy6.35 HIR reverse lights because w/the factory reverse lights I couldn't hardly see anything using the back-up camera. I followed the write-up on TW on which to buy & how to adjust the legs.

 

Hey on the plastidip try letting your cans warm up in hot water for 15 mins before spraying. That's how mine looked before I did my bumper, after warming spray was much finer and looked right. That stuff is great, but sensitive to temp!!

 

Where did you buy your Gy6.35 HIR lights?

 

I've sprayed a bunch of stuff w/it but have never done it when it was this cool. I probably don't have the patience to peel it all off & try again! Thanks for the tip.

 

Amazon.<I didn't hyper-link the word to the left. This site does that I guess, IDK.

 

Painting my wheels black. I'm hoping this works out well!

 

Sooo much meat. I just had some ST Maxx's delivered today, I went skinny at 255/80/17 but still almost a 33'. Cant wait to see the wheels back on the truck.

 

Whoa!!! Something was left behind after cleaning!!!

 

That's what I'd think but I did them all the EXACT same. Weird deal. Luckily they're small!

 

My next project will be chopping up my hideous bumper and making it something I can deal with. It'll be a fair amount of work but since it came on the truck, I have zero reservations of going to town on it! More to come.