stl4runner

Looking forideas to make a lifted (lift is OME tbars and leafs in rear, also have 2” balljoint spacers but have bars relaxed way down with a soft ride, the tbars andspacers have left the tie rods at pretty steep andle, pushing 33x12.5 tires)IFS steering hold up a lil better. Ihave replaced idler arm, pitman arm, inner and outer TRE’s, and ball joints alljust 10 months ago. My 4runner is not aDD, but do drive on roads pretty regularly with it so it’s not just a toyeither. So I probably have about 10kmiles since replacing all the steering linkage (with all factory Toyota parts),and over the past month or two I am starting to feel a ton of slop in steeringagain. After looking, I can jack up driverside wheel leaving passenger on ground, and wiggle the driver side back andforth well over an inch maybe two without moving the passenger tire atall. The tie rods just push the centerlink up, rotating it quite a bit before pushing towards the passengerside. It is a very scary feeling onhighway when the front wheels are steering independently!!



I know thereis a ton of threads out there explaining the problem, and offering somesolutions, but I have been brainstorming and wanted to get some opinions on anidea. If the steering arm that is boltedto the knuckle was raised a couple of inches it would raise the TRE, making thegeometry back close to factory. Thenknuckle adapter that comes with a bracket lift raises the steering arm about 4”. This would make my outer TRE just about levelwith the inner TRE. The adaptor also addsabout 4” to the top of the knuckle, I am thinking if I take out the BJ spacers Ihave in now, this would spread the control arms another 2”. If I leave the tbars soft, I can leave theLCA at the same angle it is now, keeping the ride height the same, and justraising the UCA another 2”. I havelooked up bigger bump stops for the top (energy suspensions has them up to 3”)to be able to stop the arm from down travel too much and damaging CV. I have checked with Superlift and they willsell me the knuckle adapters for $100 each.



Seems tooobvious to think that this hasn’t been done on other IFS with moderate lifts soI am wondering what I am missing. I amexpecting someone to say well this is a terrible idea and won’t work because…….. Would love to hear any opinions eitherencouraging me to try or telling me why I would be wasting my money. Thanks!!


Sorry for some of the words running together. I copied and pasted from word and apparently that messed with formating.

stl4runner

thought I would add this pic to show what I am talking about. This has the bracket drop installed plus a Blazeland LT kit. I am just talking about the knuckle adapter that would raise the TRE mounting point.

MudHippy

It's not the worst idea I've heard of. But it's more than the price of a new idler arm with bronze bushings and a brace/truss for it. Which would probably pretty much(if not entirely) solve the problem as it is. And might even still be necessary after you've installed the knuckle adapters.

BlazeN8

Its a terrible idea and wont work. Moving the pivots for one thing and not moving the pivots of other related things creates bad geometry.

stl4runner

Thanks for reply, from both of you. I have been going nuts trying to come up witha solution that works for me. Afterreplacing idler and pitman arm in Jan of this year, using OEM for both ($400),it was a kick in the n*ts watching my brand new mud tires wear a terrible sawtooth pattern and have my steering get as sloppy as it did. I always replace OEM and guess I had not readenough of the posts on here seeing that a lot of people are having luck withthe Duralast with brass bushings and a brace. So right around the time of my original post I bought the idler arm withthe brass bushings. Was going to braceit before I took it off road but was hoping the arm and bushings would give abetter feel on road for a bit. Itliterally was no better than the worn one I just replaced. I don’t think I even put 15 miles on itbecause the steering felt so sloppy and I was worried about trashing mytires. I bought the arm from total chaosand it was an immediate fix. Had italigned and it steering feels great now. I hated to throw that much money at it but after a OEM idler in Jan andthe Duralast with the bushings in Oct, lots of $$ and getting no relief, I justwanted to get my truck back on the road!!! Anyway, was just trying to think outside the box to get some relief…..but I know there are always unintended consequences when making changes tofactory engineering and appreciate input on what to expect.



I would ask more about your reply blazen8. I understand that spreading the mountingpoints of the control arms on the spindle side while not making changes at theframe side changes the geometry of how the suspension cycles. This is the same whether you use BJ spacersor the extended spindles, except the amount of change. I have 2” spacers on now, without a drop kitfor LCA. The extended spindles would be4”, so 2 more than I have now. Are youof the saying that any change of geometry, even the 1.5-2” spacers that arefairly common, are detrimental to the way it will handle? Or, that there is a line and that the 4”would just push it too far.? Thanksagain!!

highonpottery

iTrader: (1)

I think what he's saying is that 4" is a bit too much change in geometry unless the rest matches. BJ spacers do change things, but is generally not very intrusive in this respect. Are your BJ spacers actually 2" tall, or are they 1.5" like the original ones were designed for as part of a "2-inch" lift?

Sounds like the TC idler arm solved your issue for now, but my guess is that you may wear out the next weakest spot down the chain again, like the rod ends, if you wore through a built-up idler already on this same setup in such short time. I would still keep an eye on things and maybe think about beefing up the rest in the future - like Land Cruiser rod ends on custom tie rods and possibly custom center link.

I'm just trying to figure out what's going on with your front end -- we pretty much have the same setup except I don't have aftermarket t-bars nor any problems really with the setup like you're describing. My setup: 1.5" BJ spacers, stock everything else like BJs tie rods etc, 33x12.5s, center of hub to bottom of fender is around 22.5"

BlazeN8

What I was saying is basic geometry. Look at a trapezoid and look at a parallelogram. As one vertical side moves it needs to stay parallel with its opposite side. If you have a trapezoid they will only be parallel at one spot but the further it moves up or down the less it will be parallel. This will cause bump steer and camber change.

You can have unequal length control arms, rod ends out of the parallel plane, but it needs to be calculated for the desired effect. The same goes for manipulating the horizontal and vertical pivot points at the spindle or at the connections to the frame for the UCA / LCA.