2012 Taco known as "Wiggles"
- Thread starter lostinbsd
- Start date
Well I finally have started to get going on this again after about a year. I needed a bit of a break, I have been daily driving projects for the last 7 or 8 years and it was nice to have a bit of a break. But I have a pretty big road trip ahead of me the end of sept so nothing quite like the last min to get everything done. This weekend was the prep weekend for the spring under conversion. I got a shop to install the extended brake lines as I really did not want to deal with the ABS pump if it went side way. Last truck I had to dry bleed the brakes and I would really rather not do that again. So the shop only had +4" front and rear crown brake lines so I am set up for long arm one day... when I win the lottery or something.
The front is not bad considering how much slack there is
Rears have a fair bit of room, this is actually at about max I am comfortable with how its set up. Could easily get some more but this is about 5" past the stock socks:
So now onto the fun part the shackle flip kit. Getting the old hangers off is pretty easy. Getting the rivets out was, well special is the nice way to put it. I found it was not bad if you ground them flush with the frame and drill them a bit so they can shrink enough to be hammered out (bonus is its a hole to hole the punch when you get mad at it)
so this was step 1, make a lot of noise with a grinder and cutting wheel:
after a crow bar and an big hammer to beat the crap out of the mount (I did feel better after). Also thought I had won already. Well joke was on me. But you have this to look at least:
And are now left with this to deal with:
The it was time to ground the rivets flat so a drill bit would not wander all over the place. Also less to drill out (have VERY good drill bit for this makes life a lot nicer):
and after all the drill everything out to 1/2" and paint. Well if your a bit OCD that is >.>
And now time to bolt that stuff up into its new home. Really like the hardware as much as stover nuts are a pain because you can be lazy and spin them on till they are snug:
Long travel elocker wiring mod. The zip tie lets it rotate so it does not pull on the plugs, got about 3" more room out of it doing this:
Annnd as always I forget to measure height before I start doing things but I was level almost a bit of cali lean before to this. I think I got about 2" on factory packed out leafs. Sorry about the hoist post being in the way:
And just for a comparison this is the stock shackle against the new one just for comparison, its not much longer but can definitely tell:
So after driving home I have a few thoughts. I think its worth it. it does make the back end move a lot better. Sadly I will not be able to tell you what its like on the trail as is because its going to get more work done with new springs next week. I would very much recommend having some 2 or 3 deg shims on had if you are doing this. There is a bit more drive line vib, but welcome to lifted tacomas, If I were to point the pinion down a touch this would go away. If you have an automatic you probably would not even notice this but driving a manual you can feel it.
Now for the real fun, spring under, 12" shocks and a bed cage. And hopefully my mastecraft seat mounted, but that may be a bit ambitious for 2 days
The front is not bad considering how much slack there is
Rears have a fair bit of room, this is actually at about max I am comfortable with how its set up. Could easily get some more but this is about 5" past the stock socks:
So now onto the fun part the shackle flip kit. Getting the old hangers off is pretty easy. Getting the rivets out was, well special is the nice way to put it. I found it was not bad if you ground them flush with the frame and drill them a bit so they can shrink enough to be hammered out (bonus is its a hole to hole the punch when you get mad at it)
so this was step 1, make a lot of noise with a grinder and cutting wheel:
after a crow bar and an big hammer to beat the crap out of the mount (I did feel better after). Also thought I had won already. Well joke was on me. But you have this to look at least:
And are now left with this to deal with:
The it was time to ground the rivets flat so a drill bit would not wander all over the place. Also less to drill out (have VERY good drill bit for this makes life a lot nicer):
and after all the drill everything out to 1/2" and paint. Well if your a bit OCD that is >.>
And now time to bolt that stuff up into its new home. Really like the hardware as much as stover nuts are a pain because you can be lazy and spin them on till they are snug:
Long travel elocker wiring mod. The zip tie lets it rotate so it does not pull on the plugs, got about 3" more room out of it doing this:
Annnd as always I forget to measure height before I start doing things but I was level almost a bit of cali lean before to this. I think I got about 2" on factory packed out leafs. Sorry about the hoist post being in the way:
And just for a comparison this is the stock shackle against the new one just for comparison, its not much longer but can definitely tell:
So after driving home I have a few thoughts. I think its worth it. it does make the back end move a lot better. Sadly I will not be able to tell you what its like on the trail as is because its going to get more work done with new springs next week. I would very much recommend having some 2 or 3 deg shims on had if you are doing this. There is a bit more drive line vib, but welcome to lifted tacomas, If I were to point the pinion down a touch this would go away. If you have an automatic you probably would not even notice this but driving a manual you can feel it.
Now for the real fun, spring under, 12" shocks and a bed cage. And hopefully my mastecraft seat mounted, but that may be a bit ambitious for 2 days
The Timbren bump stop kit showed up today:
I got the kit as I needed ubolts and a new leaf spring plates so it saved me sourcing them. Plan is to make a bracket to replace the strike plate on the frame and mount them there and make strike plates for the top of the axle. Bonus is they are Canadian, I did not know this. Always good to support local, even if you did not know you are.
I got the kit as I needed ubolts and a new leaf spring plates so it saved me sourcing them. Plan is to make a bracket to replace the strike plate on the frame and mount them there and make strike plates for the top of the axle. Bonus is they are Canadian, I did not know this. Always good to support local, even if you did not know you are.