The Getaway...Crom's build and adventures

I accidentally ordered 6 packages after having 2 packs already so even my shock resi's and bump stops have these on them...

 

Will send some your way!

A glorious half bean and cheese burrito, and 5 rolled tacos with guacamole lettuce tomato cheese. And some hot carrots! I've been a patron at my neighborhood taco shop for nearly 35 years. So good!

I can't thank you enough for this.

I do think they look great, much better than boring grey plastic, haha.

The printed description is hilarious, the four electrons comment had me in stitches! . The Amazon reviews are somewhat entertaining as well.

Only concern is that they say stainless, could gall with aluminum, so be careful if you have any of that.

Thanks!

 

With all this talk about valve caps, you guys are reminding me of my dad. I remember him telling me everything I just read above about the virtues of valve caps, about 40 years ago. He used to get the nice metal chrome ones, with a rubber gasket. Some doubled as a valve core removal tool. I haven't told my kids about valve covers yet, but I will. Because I am slowly turning into my dad, lol.

 

I taught my nephew about valve caps and had him help my put new studs on when he was 3... Then for the next 2 years he would walk past my dads truck and use those "nice caps w/ the stem removal tool" to loosen his valve stems hahahaha

 

Roberto's or Alberto's?
My dad was in the Navy. I was raised in San Diego, moved out before junior high, came back to San Diego after college. Worked there for a dozen years. Alberto's was my favorite place of all time. Little drive through place was open late nights, so we could always make a quick food run from the hospital where I worked. Carne asada burrito, 5 rolled tacos with guacamole (always five) and yes, always gotta have the hot pickled carrots!

 

Just curious was that after pulling the cores or just using the terex deflaters? I just use the deflaters and never had one leak, but I do carry a few replacement cores. Now that I said that I better get a few good caps too. Another reason I like the TRD BL style wheels is the ring protects the valve stems from rocks. Thanks

 

Cadillac Desert is a great book, another good title to check out is 'Water and Power' it chronicles the early Owens Valley water wars and outlines the chicanery that LA and Mullholland put together to steal the water in the Owens valley. I read alot of stuff about the water policies and politics when I first got to DV in 84'. I was amazed to, earn that they used steamboat to haul gold ore across Owens Lake back in the day. Even came up with a clever way to stop all the gold thefts- they cast the ore into 600# balls and shipped them that way.

Colorado water politics are another ball of string. I hear the front range is trying get more water from the west side to feed denver.

Another great read is the 'Big Thirst'

Enjoying the thread, apologies for the thread jack. Keep it coming, thanks for sharing the info, might make some of it apply to my 98.

 

Thank you very much. The shell clamps are OE from A.R.E. You might want to contact them and see if they sell them. Also I think I've seen them on eBay as well. The A.R.E. shell clamps have been working flawlessly for 4.5 years with tons of off-road, including hundreds of miles on the worst trails in the state, aka, Death Valley.

Ditto!

That's awesome!

I hear that. I think all of the 'Berto Taco shops are great, ate at a lot of those in my younger days. I go to a place called Los Pinos, "The Pines" which is close to my home.

after using the teraflex deflators

I just ordered 100 new nickel plated cores to have in inventory as well, previously only had (4) spares.

 

Gotta agree on the ___bertos! I don't think I've had a clunker yet at any of them.

 

I've accepted this a long time ago. As long as I get to keep my hair a bit longer, I'm good.

 

The dialog is welcome! Thanks Steve.

 

Academic thoughts on Coil Springs,
Bilstein 5100 / OME 885 Coil,
Bilstein 6112,
RCD B110 Shocks

On Sunday while my kids were watching cartoons, I digested a chapter on Automotive Chassis Engineering.

I was originally reading up on bushings, but the suspension chapter really grabbed me. One of the coolest takeaways from reading was that a person armed with the right tools, can calculate the spring rate of a linear coil spring. All I needed was the formula, my slide caliper, and a few minutes measuring in the wheel well of the truck. I did this exercise on the 6112 coils and plugged the values in the formula shown below.

Linear rate coil spring calculation
An example in practice 606 lbs. / per inch​

What I learned was that the thickness of the coil wire has a large affect on spring rate, since it's magnified exponentially to the 4th power. The same goes for the mean coil diameter which is risen to the 3rd power.

Also noteworthy was that since linear rate coil springs have a few constants, as long as materials are the same between manufacturers, (steel is steel), a 600 lb coil is a 600 lb coil.

All of this is really pointless as it relates to my build. What got me started on this was feeling the 6112's perform for the first time off-road.

The 6112's really impressed me. There is a very noticeable improvement in dampening, and vehicle control. I perceived an improvement in driver and passenger comfort.

I have had a number of conversations with Bilstein regarding their shock offerings. What I've learned is that, for all the products that they have tuned specifically for vehicles, they will not discuss shock valving numbers. And it's not published anywhere as far as I can tell. It's a trade secret. Bilstein is somewhat of an oddball in the shock tuning world as they have their own standard metric for measuring rebound and compression. That's all fine, as long as I have an understanding, I'm good.

Let's take a look back at the Bilstein 5100. That is a high-pressure monotube gas shock that was specifically designed by Bilstein to be used with the Toyota Coil. Now I'm not certain of what the spring rate is/was of the Toyota Off Road coil. Some in the forum suggest it was 540#. Anyways, I paired the 5100 with the OME 885 Coil. ARB states that the OME 885 coil has a spring rate of 590#.

I was generally happy with that combo. However when moving to the heavy tires, it added some 20lbs of unsprung weight to each corner of the truck. That's when the 5100 started to suffer. And by suffer, I mean a lack of dampening control.

The 6112's are said to have a 610 lb or 600 lb spring rate. When they were very new, some vendor put the coil in a spring rate checker machine and took pictures. I know this because I remember seeing the photos. I think that thread was deleted and pictures lost.

When I asked Bilstein what the difference was between the 5100 and the 6112's the answer was, I can't talk valving, but I can tell you that the 6112 is 40% more firm on rebound, and 20% softer on compression.

Whether or not the numbers are correct, is not all that important. What I can tell you is that the 6112's are a different animal in the dirt, much better performing suspension setup compared to my old setup. So much so, I would never recommend 5100/885 for a rig built like mine. The 6112's soak up the uneven terrain quite well while keeping the truck planted.

I'm very pleased and can't wait to get back out and probe deeper the suspensions characteristics. So far, on road has been excellent, forest service / BLM type trails with mild crawling has been excellent.

My interest in this was understanding exactly what it is that I have now on my truck, and if I wanted to change things in the future, what that might look like and what the outcomes would be.

I also spent some time looking critically at my rear shock setup.

RCD F4-BE5-B110-T5 Shock Absorber,
boot removed​

I made a discovery there, and that is the B110 shock is a quality high-pressure monotube gas shock made by Bilstein for RCD. RCD is Race Car Dynamics a company located in Arizona.

While I am very familiar with the travel numbers and profile of the shock, I was curious about the valving. It turns out the B110 valving is a trade secret as well. However, the shock is specifically designed / tuned for 1st gen Tundra, and lifted Tacoma applications.

I have been quite satisfied with the dampening of the shock. IMO, it controls the Dakars very well. I see no reason to change them. I had my doubts about the longevity of the boots that protect the piston rod, but they have held up quite well to the use.

During this time I got to understand Bilstein's valving numbers, and became quite familiar with their Off-Road product offerings. The universal product offerings are neat because valving is clearly defined and specified, so it's a simple affair to select a collapsed / extended profile and mounting options right out of the catalog. Of potential interest to me for the rear was the 5125 series and 7100 series shocks.

 

I'm running those same shocks in the rear. Very nice.

 

I also have B-110's in the rear, thanks to Crom. I can't tell much about them yet, as I've still got an overwhelmed set of all pro standards in back. Hopefully next week I will get my AP Expo's installed. Then, the week after that, 6112's with 650lb springs. With the AP standards, I get 2.25" more down travel with the B110's than I did with my old OME's, as measured on a lift. When I put the Expo's on, I'll measure again.

I had thought that the B-110's were just longer 5100's, but now I'm wondering if their valving has been tweaked. Anyone know if they are different?

 

Great post! Research much??

 

One of my two favorite places is Gualberto's in Kearny Mesa. If you're ever in that area, I highly recommend anything they make, to be honest. I'm a big fan of the carnitas tacos. HUGE tacos, so two is a big meal. And their carrots are usually really well cooked, not too crunch and not too soft. I only wish they made them a tad spicier!

But I gotta hand it to Jorge's in Encinitas for the Mexican chicken soup...soooo good

 

Also, If you need wiring for in the cab, I recommend skipping auto parts store, and going to your favorite home store, and buying some extension cords, cut the ends off and you got yourself some quality 2-conductor 16AWG copper.

This one pictured below is rated to 1,625 Watts!




Another option to run cable along the frame to the aft end of the truck or other exterior locations- pick up 14awg extension cords at the big box store - like Husky @HD. Decent heavy duty sheathing and an extra conductor for whatever.
Nice work on the gadgets.




sytfu510's Supercharged Long Travel Overland Tacoma

^pic links back to Alex's build.


THanks. The .50 Cal gets mounted on the roof rack.


Prior to having a roof rack, I used to mount the dual mini-gun in the bed. Did you know the Tacoma is also space worthy?

[/QUOTE]

 

Sounds good.

Yep the RCD is not a 5100. Only way to know for sure what's in the RCD is to disassemble one, and inventory the compression / rebound shims and compare to a disassembled 5100. I would do it for fun if I had one to work on.

Here is a funny short story about my research into the RCD B110.

I could not find the B110 part number in the Bilstein catalog, so I called them and gave them the part number. They were like, oh, that's an RCD shock, we make it for them. I asked them for the valving profile. Bilstein told me they don't have the valving profile and to ask RCD. I I talked to RCD, and they were like, yeah that's our shock and I asked about the valving. Nope. Not going to give that out.

Later I had a conversation with a major national shock distributor and I mentioned the RCD shock, and my experience in talking to both companies. The person laughed! And said of course Bilstein knows the valving profile of the shock cause they build it. Most likely RCD doesn't have a clue what's in it!

If I had to speculate, I'm going to guess that the RCD B110 is different from 5100.

Thanks Jon. I love to lean new stuff!

Very nice! I'll mark it on my maps. Thanks! There is a Hilbertos on Jamacha Road, in Rancho San Diego. They make a killer Breakfast Burrito, and their pollo asada buritios are outstanding. I sometimes drive out of my way to go there.

Thanks Steve! I sent you a PM about how to use the quote function. I hope it was helpful. Feel free to ask me any questions.

 

Scott at Camburg Engineering sent me these silicone ball joint covers for the upper ball joint. I'm very grateful for the customer service.

In the photo below below I'm showing it compared to the stock moog UBJ dust cover.

The silicone ones appear to be well made. And they are not cheap to produce. A lot of R&D goes into the design, and the molds to produce silicone boots from what I understand.

For those that don't know, the moog dust cover is not good, bad design, and inconsistent material. The ball joint is great though!





Unfortunately, I have no idea when I'm going to be able to install them, time constraints and for now both moog covers are intact.

@scocar
@bski22