Taylor's Taco

Apparently 285/75/16s come stock on Rubicons so I might be able to pick up some for cheap.

 

Looks like my thermostat housing is cracked. I've had coolant dripping down my timing belt cover for a while. I had replaced my upper rad hose a year ago, and I just started it and cut it off before it got hot. It ran a lot more than it does when it's warm, so I'm assuming it's a cracked housing. I've got the 2 hour drive back to school in 15 minutes, so we'll see how things go.

 

Went wheeling today in WV. Went up to Flagpole but got stock on some ice halfway up. Half of the group had to pull a really daring move and reverse down the mountain a way on the ice, turn around, and go back the way we came. I ended up with 3 really cool dudes and we went up to Reddish Knob and went to Flagpole that way.

My truck blew me away. I knew the lift would help, but I really felt like nothing could stop me. Things that I would bottom out on or hit my bumpers on before were a cake walk. The ONLY thing I couldn't do out there was the ice that no one could get by without wenching. Great time, and a great view!







My friend almost slid off

 

I was washing my truck after work today and peaked under to spray the underside.

See if you can spot what's wrong here. It's really subtle, so only a trained eye can spot the problem.



Little did I know; shocks don't work very well if they aren't actually connected to anything.

I have no clue how, but the piston shaft unscrewed itself from the little eyelit/bushing thing that connects the bottom of the shock to the axle. I should have peaked under there sooner because the whole drive back to Harrisonburg felt like driving a pogo stick.

The sun set on me too quickly, so I just took the shock off (Thank goodness for leaf springs so taking the shock off can be done with no jack or anything.) Then I threaded the piston back onto the bottom and had my roommate hold the shock compressed for me while I put it back on.

During this, I discovered that I'm missing half of the bushing on the top of the shock. Whether or not this is why my shock came off, I do not know, but I'm sure it has contributed to the many many many suspension noises I've heard in the last year. I guess I'll order a new set of bushings, If I can find them, and put them in.

 

That is very strange for it to do that.

 

Not sure what's wrong a truck at my school is like that hahah odd that it did that for sure though. Hopefully its a simple fix to what caused it

 

Honestly IMO the dakars don't really pair too great with 5100's.. You were probably over extending them. You should consider getting 5125's, they are 10" travel shocks. I had 5100's with my dakars and it wasn't a pleasant ride. You can measure for yourself if you want.. basically take the shocks off your truck,(on flat surface) and get your jack under one of the back tires and jack it up so that the other tire is barely touching the ground. Measure from center to center on the shock mounts and it will be longer than 5100's on the fully extended side.

Not saying that's what caused that, but it's possible and this isn't the first time I've seen this.

 

My only worry is that the 5125's will be TOO long. As in they'll bottom out on full stuff.

 

If you measure you will know for sure, but most ppl who run dakars have some type of 10" shock

 

I guess I need to find extended bumpstops too. If I go to a longer shock, I'm afraid I might bottom them out.

After further inspection, I have TWO Driver side shocks installed. Which makes no sense.

I just ordered some 10" 5125s, so we'll see how things go when they get here.

 

I'm almost positive you will be happy, even w/o the bump stops (should get them eventually though).. Honestly i have some timbrens and even w/o the shock mounted i can't get my leafs to compress enough to touch the timbren.

I think daystar makes a pretty affordable extended bumpstop. not sure if its a universal one or tacoma specific though.

Thats weird i didn't realize there was a driver side/passenger side rear shock, thought they were both the same thing.

EDIT: also you'll have more down travel when you go offroading now

 

Hopefully they get here soon!

 

So, I finally got around to replacing my 5100s with 5125's. I started around 11:30 and finished just now at 4. Why you may ask? Because I'm dumb.

So, to start off, here is the comparison between the 5100s and the new 5125 shocks. The 5100 is an extended shock good up to ~2 inches of lift, which was too short for me.



The old shocks came off fine, but I had to get a friend to come help me compress the shocks to get them on. Here is where the fun started. For some reason, we couldn't get the new bushings to slid onto the studs on the axle and frame, so we tried sanding them with some metal working sand paper and that didn't help, so we kept banging and banging them to get them to slide on. We got the top of the passenger one on and then couldn't find leverage to get the bottom side compressed and on the stud, so we used a ratchet strap. We then spent 2 hours trying to bang this bushing on. We ended up shaving the bushing to get enough room to get the bolt to start threading and squeeze the bushing on. This almost worked, but the bushing didn't move and just started to get squished and malformed so we moved onto the other side. This is when we realized that the handle of one of my friend's ratchets scraped the rust off of the studs very well and sanded it down. The other side was much easier. So we went back to the passenger side to do sand those studs when we realized that I had a dremel in the house with a sanding tip....

So after 4 hours, all it took was 5 minutes with a dremel and the shocks slid back on super easy. It seems obvious but our brains were so busy trying to find ways to use straps and bottle jacks and all kinds of things, that we skipped the easiest solution.

Good news is that I have a good bit more rear travel and so far, it seems to ride WAY better.

 

nice bro, glad it all worked out.

 

It still rides terribly. To say I'm unhappy with the way my truck rides is an understatement. Hard shifts, vibrations at all speeds. Very jumpy. I drove my roommate's stock 04 Taco and it just made my disdain for mine worse.

 

Do you have axle shims yet?!? That's most likely what the vibes are from.

 

Sweet pics and great looking truck man!

 

No, but I do have my carrier dropped quite a bit. I really don't want to go through the trouble of shimming, but I may have to.

Thank, man!

 

Unfortunately the carrier drop is only for fine tuning IMO. The axle shim is the one that really fixes it. I went through the same thing as you bro, didn't know until I had the vibes. Get them ASAP IMO.

PS you probably only need like 5/8" or so of drop @ the carrier bearing.

 

Attempted to install my extended SS rear brake line and did not succeed. I couldn't get the bolt/nut thing on the hard line side to budge and it started to round.

I also found that the shop that did my last rotation/balance crossthreaded my security lug on BOTH sides on the rear.