Thads Cement Grey Long Bed Build

12/03/2022:

Found some user long bed sliders for sale online for $600 so I sent it down to oakridge Oregon to pick em up on Tuesday night.



It was supposed to be dry and not snowing, well that was clearly a lie. I got dumped on on the way home.



Regardless, I cleaned em up sprayed some rustoleum bed liner over the powder on Thursday and Friday afternoon. Then on Saturday morning I had a few hours in the garage installing em.




Everything went in pretty easily. However getting my hand through the frame up by the cab mount was tough. I don’t have huge hands, but the brake lines on the drivers side made it impossible to get my hand in there. I had to tape a bolt to a crescent wrench to get it back in there



Any way, I got em both on in like 2 hours and they look ok.





I’m not in love with the look-but they do serve a great purpose. Great protection and it makes it a hell of a lot easier to get into the roam boxes and get skis off the roof.





It’s a complete optical illusion, it’s probably sitting 1/4” lower with sliders on. But I looks like it sits 4” lower to me. The slider hangs down probably 3” below the door sill. I’m heavily debating on going up to option 3 on my RXTs, but then I feel like I’ll have too much rake. My 6112’s are at 6/6 on both sides with a 10mm driver side shim so there’s no more going up with those. I feel like I just gotta deal with it until I decide to get bigger tires-either a 285/75/17 or a 295/70/17. Idk, I’m not really sure what’s or how to go about it.

I was shooting for stance about like this (this was stolen from @skidooman): I feel like relieving some of the stress from the rear end might get me there? Anyone got any ideas to gain 1/4-1/2” of lift back?

 

Going to be adding the RXT's to my truck soon. I have them on hand, the shocks are out for delivery today and I'm going to be going Option 3. I've got an RSI cap and a decked system back there full time. We haul bikes all summer long and she squats pretty badly now so I'm just going to jump straight to stage 3 and see what happens. I don't have any stock measurements but could get you where mine lands once it's installed.

 

I certainly appreciate the thought/help/input.

I have spent the majority of my morning on the phone with a variety of people/shops (dont tell my boss)... I am gonna add my extra leaf to the back this weekend. I also ordered 650lb coils to bring the front end back up. My hub to fender measurements are 22 7/8 and 23 1/4 in my garage. it has never sat this low since I lifted it... in the beginning I was up almost 2.5". it looks taller in my work parking lot, but that has to be an optical illusion.

My plan is to start with the additional leaf this weekend then swap springs depending how it looks

 

I've never even thought about debadging my truck... until now. That looks fantastic!!

 

Yeah dog, pull the stickers, pull the badges. Your shit will be cleannnn

 

12/10/22:

Its been a week! I couldn't handle the sag and its stance, with all the road tripping I've got coming up in the next three weeks the truck couldn't be down for the count. My OCD and anxiety through the roof over the whole thing so I ordered some new front springs from @memario1214 and used him and @71tattooguy as my therapist and advice on getting it done. Adding the new leaf was a complete pain in the ass. wrestling with the springs to get them all lined up on the truck was super tough. There was definitely a learning curve. Driver side took me 2.5 hours and the passenger side took 1...

Oh, and I also greased, well over-greased, my SPC Balljoints, I was over due haha

I have a hunch my thrust angle is a little different my steering wheel is at 11:30 now so its going to alignment (again lol) on Wednesday.

Here are some photos and a before and after:









Before:



After:

 

yeah dog, Opt 3 goes!

I didnt even need to toss the 650's in. the extra leaf actually picked up the front end 5/16" or so.

 

Hell yeah bro!!! Looking great!!! Let me know if you ever head down we will off-road and camp somewhere

 

12/14/22

Got the shit back on a rack today. Thankfully the tech didn’t mess with the ball joint position at all. Just did some minor toe and camber adjustments. Not sure how it got so outta wack after just messing with leaf springs. They also re torqued the rear end even though I’ve only driven 150 miles. Alignment numbers are the best they’ve ever been. Woooo

 

How are you liking the general ride quality of your suspension setup?

 

There are some trade-offs, but over all its pretty phenomenal for the money.

The top of the shock stroke is a bit stiff. So over cracks in the road and potholes going slow on my street its firm and bit jarring. But wheeling, going fast over speed bumps, on the highway and dirt roads its buttery smooth. I have all the preload and a driver side shim.

I have only towed on option 2 which was really stable and planted, granted I feel like I am pretty good at setting up a hitch and trailer and properly loading a trailer. I believe opt 3 would be pretty similar but with less squat.

I've fucked with the rear end a ton-more than I care to admit-AAL (useless), opt 2, then opt 3, then I added the flip kit and bumps. Going with new leafs is 100% the way. You've just gotta be realistic with yourself and how much weight you actually have on the truck.

Im pushing 15k miles on the general setup (with some minor changes and 5 alignments lol) and its been comfy, well performing, and most importantly, has not compromised reliability.

 

01/09/2023

Well, on Monday we thinned the herd. Sadies taco is gone. Traded it for a 4runner limited.

We actually had a navy 4runner ORP on order since June from a dealer in Boise. With how the car market has been recently, we were real worried about driving to Boise to trade in a car and potentially get screwed. There was a CPO 2021 limited on the lot at Kendall Toyota of Bend with 17k on the ODO. They matched the Boise dealers trade-in offer (38k) and took a whole bunch of money off their advertised price of the limited, (4.5k) they were actually really good to deal with. So we sent it on the Limited.

It came with TRD wheels and a shit set of BFGs we'll need to lift it slightly and stuff some falken ATs under it. It also needs to get into tint. Over all its cushhhyyy the brown leather is sick, the stereo slaps, and the back window rolls down all the way. its nice to have a loaded out truck with all the options, dope bose sound system with a sub, heated and cooled seats, nav, leather, sun roof etc. It’s polar opposite and a complete departure from my TRD OR Base.

 

Nice! But what about the pics?

 

Refresh the page? They should be there. Maybe they didn’t load?

 

ahhhhhh.....there they are. Looks comfy. Almost bought a 4runner when I was shopping for a replacement for my Xterra -- but the market was crazy and opted for a taco + mods for the same price.

 

we were in a similar situation 18 months ago. needed to get out of a VW and wanted to get a 4runner. they were still 6-8 months out. with how the car market was then we thought we needed to cut to the chase and get out of the VW asap... in hindsight we should have just dealt with the VW for another 6 months and got a runner and skipped over getting the white taco all together. it is what it is and it was actually really helpful to have 2 pickups with how tumultuous life has been in those 18 months. too much moving around

 

1/15/2023

Alright, so when I installed my sliders a month or 2 ago the whole truck sunk down 1/2”. To combat this I stepped up to opt 3 with my icon RXTs hoping they would hold to additional load better. They did, but not quite enough on the drivers side. It has been sitting 1/2” lower on the drivers side since. I didn’t want to put in the 650# springs yet. With only sliders I was worried I would be riding on top of the shock. I ordered a 1/2” shim plate to replace the 1/4” that was in there hoping to gain an additional 1/2” of ride height.

Well, this morning after we came back from skiing I pulled the front end apart as gingerly as possible, I didn’t want to disassemble too much. I dropped the shock down a few inches, just enough to pull the 1/4” plate out and put the 1/2” plate in. Then bolted everything back up.

So far in the garage it is sitting dead ass even on both sides. I’ll drive it to work tomorrow and cross my fingers I don’t need another alignment. I expect it to settle a little bit but so far I am thrilled. Hopefully it settles evenly

 

1/24/23

Its going into the body shop on February 6th to have the hood resprayed. I haven't had a chance to wash it since thanksgiving as its been fairly nasty and wintery outside until this week. I figure if I have the opportunity to give a clean truck to the body shop, I should. It was like 50 degrees on Tuesday-the perfect opportunity to give the truck a bath. Honestly kinda forgot what its like to have a clean truck. Its nice, really nice. My shit shines up good. I did notice a ton of tar on my doors and besdsides, right behind the wheels. Both sides. Nothing a clay bar and polisher wont get rid of but still its just one of those things to deal with. Once the hood gets painted, Ill give the truck the full treatment 60-90 days after so the new paint can gas out.

I also have a new driveway area to build this spring. My garage is off an alley and I cannot fit parallel to my garage door so its pretty hard to park and wash cars back there. I end up having to take over the entire alley way which is not the nicest thing to do to your neighbors. I've got fencing on both sides. My though is to take one side of the fencing down and move it over. That way ill have 4-5 feet more for parking, snow storage in the winter, a place to wash bikes and work on shit. I also have a planter box between the asphalt and the fence so I'll need to dig that up, bring in some crushed rock, and pour a few yards of concrete so I have once continuous slab. I'm pretty excited to knock this project out this spring. should make the area behind my house much more useful.

 

2/17/23

What a freakin disaster. I dropped the truck off at the dealership on 2/6 to get the hood bubbling fixed. The put me in a tundra for a few days which was fun. But I definitely prefer the Tacoma size for my life and what I do at this point. The tundra got shit gas milage. Like 11.





Anyway the tundra was fun for a few days. I got the call on Wednesday afternoon that it was “done” I was surprised that it took so little time. I was busy so I actually went and picked it up Thursday afternoon afterwork. The service manager said it looked “great”.





He could not have been more wrong. There was RAW metal, drips, runs, bubbles, water spots, tons of overspray, and tons of dirt/trash in the paint. I was shocked. It was like a 0/10 paint job. They got the color right, but that’s about it.

I took the truck home that Thursday night and immediately noticed all the flaws when I got it in the garage under the lights. Friday morning I called back and sent a few photos over to the body shop and they did agree that it was unacceptable. The dealer didn’t have another loaner for me on Friday so we had to restart the entire process all over again.

Friday (today) comes along and they say the trucks done again. It came out a whole lot better time. It’s a solid 6/10. There’s still some dirt in it and the orange peel is noticeable. But at least there’s no raw metal.







Clearly the paint needs clay, a compound, and polish, but we’ll get to that in a few months once the new paint gasses out and hardens. Some of the imperfections will come out with a compound. There’s tape residue and shit like that. I’ll take care of it this spring.

In other news, we got new tires on the 4runner today. Went with a 275/70 falken AT on TRD Pro wheels. Stock suspension and it rubs a touch in reverse but it looks fantastic. Big ups to @Discount Tire for hooking these up. I buy all my tires from them-2 sets on my previous tundra, the duratracs on the taco, and now the falkens on the runner. Best spot for tires and customer service is always top notch.



I’m thinking a 1/4” top plate shim on both sides to pick up the front end a 1/2” I’ll leave the rear end alone for now.

Ride quality is about the same, MPG is slightly worse, looks and function are much better. I’d call it a win.