RCLT HD 2.75" - Travel Numbers and Notes

Nate from DirtLife style had some issues during ultimate adventure. one was a steering issue

https://youtu.be/KD62kY4wiIA?t=676

 

I saw that. Rack mounts started coming off the frame and fluid overheating. That’s a lot.

 

Pretty common even with stock setups.

 

Unpopular opinion given the nature of this forum. But second gen IFS will not hold up to relatively difficult crawling/wheeling long term on anything more than 35’s. Period.

Yeah I know, we all know a guy…but the reality is that the racks don’t last for shit, have zero turning power, and are wholly overmatched. That’s before you consider the other stuff that doesn’t hold up either: CV’s, ADD shaft, tie rods, wheel bearings and the 8” diff.

You can get away with it for a little bit, but anyone that doesn’t have issues long term with those things probably isn’t doing hard enough stuff to warrant bigger than 35’s in the first place. There’s nothing worse than dealing with a trail tampon because the owner considers changing any of those items routine on trail.

 

You can buy rcv axles that wont break.
Buy an FJ non ADD tube when you blow your stock one, when that blows get a 300m one built by rcv.
Plenty of options for aftermarket tie rods, or just go full hydro
Wheel bearings arent an issue. Ive yet to see one fail from hard wheeling.
And ive yet to see someone blow a 8inch clamshell without some other issue causing it to fail.
Or you can spend 20-30k on a SAS, have a truck that drives like its been swapped and still break shit.

But hey what do i know, im just a IFS trail tampon on 39 reds.

 

Totally with ya on all that, but I do have slight confidence in Ifs at times as I'm "that guy that hasnt broke yet". Im still factory cvs, regular tie rods, add tube, diff, etc. Havent been able to break anything with 35s/37s over the last 2 years. Just did the Tundra rack for half ass piece of mind as I drive mine to/from places in the country, but couldn't blow up/break my oem one although it was leaking a bit from higher mileage/constant wheeling.

Group of us did Coyote Canyon and Pritchett in Moab this weekend. On Coyote, my truck has never been so constantly and royaly fawked/bound up/wedged, etc. This is with the factory Cv's that have been clicking/popping for a year.

I was hanging from the wheel the whole time, as my stock pump is finally toast. Otherwise I'm impressed, but yeah others that I know wheel hard have worse luck at times. But, everything is upgradeable or easily fixed in minutes.

In the end I am throwing an axle under the front if I decide to keep this truck.

 

I guess what I mean to say is, that I haven’t heard of steering rack mounts coming off of the crossmember before. I destroyed my stock bushings on 37s(warranted) to the point where play was pretty horrendous and the rack was fucked but at no point did the mounts fail.

 

Are those pics coyote canyon? I haven’t done any good trails in Moab since helldorado was brand new. My ps pump kicked it near the start of that trail. I was toast afterwards.

 

Couple buddies of mine have cracked the mounts out, doubted one was running delrin bushings.

 

There’s always that guy.

 

Yeah that was Coyote, which I spent most of the day on winch and did some good damage to my junk. Definitely not a 4 door tacoma trail unless you either dont care about body, or have a 25+" frame height/tires fully outside the wheel well.

 

Yeah that second pic looks a tad tight.

 

I did exactly that. Ditched the ADD with an FJ AWD tube, FJ manual transfer case, plus a 4.70 crawl box, running RCVs, the RCLT tie rods and knuckles are plenty beefy. My stock pump blew and I replaced it with the Howe tc pump, cooler, and reservoir. With 39s my steering is excellent. I am not happy with the steering shaft clearancing and I think the weak link now is the steering rack itself.

 

Just curious, because I cant tell from the video. Did he gusset / double shear the coil buckets to help keep the UCA bolt in place? Did he gusset the lower frame brace where the steering rack is mounted?

 

No idea.
I know he did something to the steering rack mount to repair it while at Barnes 4wd. But couldn’t really understand what he actually did.

 

The fact that he is getting so much flex in his coil buckets that it is causing the UCA bolt to come out, tells me he didnt reinforce that area. If it is flexing there, it would flex the sub frame as well. I went so far as to brace the tops of the coil buckets over the engine, like a strut tower brace, to help eliminate frame flex in that area.

 

This is "common." I've seen a few trucks with the UCA bolt working itself out. I had it as well.

 

I guess it is common without reinforced coil buckets. My UCA bolts haven't backed out at all.

 

Not sure why it happens, loctite fixed it for me but you have a legit fix.

 

I feel personally attacked by this! but it was also your fault the first time you saw me break on the trail.... haha