New England Mod & Meetup Thread: May 17 at Jared’s!!

Yeah, I can travel that no big deal. An away game means certain extra scheduling flexibility, oddly enough.

 

I have always stated and believe wholeheartedly that the number one modification that people should do to both their second or third generation Tacoma's are hammer hangers. I will absolutely die on that sword. And I will state from experience that one of the last times that we went wheeling in Rhode Island, I landed "extremely" hard on a big rock and I thought that I hit my rear bumper but Jack was behind me and he told me that I had landed on the hammer hanger. I think it barely put a scratch on the hanger itself and if I didn't have them I literally would've screwed up my entire rear suspension. And that is just off-road. On road, it is the most planted I have ever felt a truck feel without having a truly boxed frame.

 

I completely agree. Furthermore, it definitely takes out some cyclical motions in the rear too when speeding. I put those on after I had 15k on my foxes or so, and even after that I was saving considerable time traveling in Maine back country just because the rear end was planted to much firmly.

I still want to link the rear end top, but that'll be after the kids get a bit older

 

For being 8 rivets and a handful of bolts it’s such a pain in the ass to swap them out

Worth it but still a pain and moreso doing the work by yourself. I dropped the press on my head at least once… maybe twice

 

the first time you do them, yes, they can be very difficult to try to figure out. I remember the first time that we tried to install them was on my truck and it took us, like four of us, a good seven hours to figure that out. Now that we've done about eight sets now, John and I can usually get a set of hammer hangers done in about four hours, and half an hour of that is literally waiting for paint and primer to dry. We have makeshift tools no that makes it extremely easy to pop those rivets out.

 

That’s awesome. I think it took me more than 8 hours over 2 days. Had to give up. I’ve got the BAMF set on mine, no crosstube.

 

I can't say that I have had any experience with the set from BAMF, Jerry over there at Bay Area runs a great company and makes awesome stuff, so I am sure that they are just as strong as the ones from archive, I can only speak to the ones from archive garage since I have installed so many of them. Either way you still need to take out the rivets. The cross tube most certainly is one of the greatest added strengths of the hangers because it adds more rigidity to the entire frame the rear.

 

I think bamf has some of the best all around fabrication I've seen in the Toyota community. Shame they're so far away for us.

 

very much agreed, I have a number of things on my truck that are from BAMF. I still drool over the design and strength of his 2nd gen hybrid from bumper, as well as the design of his expedition trailer that he built. It would be awesome to be able to have someone like that on the East Coast. We used to have a number of fabricators on the East Coast but they are now sadly dust in the wind........SOS, mobtown, expedition outfitters...... the list goes on

 

Yeah, but I don't think I've heard too many issues with bamf that they didn't fix right away. I can see two on that list that had their fair share of problems.

Ex, nobody in this world should be selling aluminum skids that are bend on a break, and not be back welding the inside seams.

Bamfs fabrication and welding is just straight up impressive. Which says a lot because we all know how loose tolerances and such can be on our trucks.

 

Jerry is a good guy too

 

I have a set of forks/chisels/etc for air hammers, I can bring them and maybe forget them when I leave if you guys are doing a lot of these.

 

I mean, if you just "purposely left them behind" I can give them a good home. Right now we are working on managing the 2 full lifts with the amount of people that we have coming on the 24th but if @AllTacosFloat is willing to drive out my way on a separate day we can bang it out fairly quickly.

 

I’m in.

@deanosaurus grab any new hardware we might need for the leaf springs. We’ve had to cut those bolts for one reason or another. And at least one good 1/2” drill bit. Cobalt…I’m sure you know better than me.

 

I have the full kit, bits and bolts and all, fabbed shackles, etc. Deluxe. The front leaf bolts are GTG, I will confirm I can loosen them before I come down.

Bought an okay set of forks/punches etc just for this job and I'm more than willing to replace them when I need them again to contribute to the show you guys put on.

 

@deanosaurus
6x - 90178-A0050 Nut Flange
6x - 94622-51400 rear upper control arm washers
6x - 90105-A0381 bolt Flange
you will thank us later, or if you want I can pick up six of each of these to have them on hand and if we need to replace the you can just reimburse me for what I paid for them through my contact at Toyota.... Let me know I can order them up. I can usually get all of the parts for around $60 shipped

 

I’m still trying to get all my nuts and washers in the proper order AND NOW I HAVE TO LEARN ALL ABOUT HAMMER HANGERS!

 

Better than dropping a bumper on your face!

 

Was this taken? Don’t you need a tcase from an auto fj?
If it’s not and it’ll work I’ll take it 1000%

 

No worries, that can always be added afterwards. After the lift, we have to get some trail time on that thing first lol