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This project has been a long time coming, finally got it underway. When i built my rear bumper i was going for a simple approach and i didn't plan ahead for a tire carrier. Truth be told i never intended to go above 33's at that time so i wasn't ever really planning on moving the tire from its stock location.
I decided to go with 4xinnovations hinge. First, I really like that its double-shear, even though that's probably overkill. second, it is made for surface mount, not top mount so it will adapt easier to my setup. here's the link: http://www.4xinnovations.com/Swing-O...bly_p_109.html
I went with drivers-side because my carrier is going to be off-set, not centered and that will give me the maximum visibility out of the rearview mirror. Took a little creativity, but i was able to build some brackets to get it to fit all the angles of the bumper
I did a simple 2x3 beam, and then 2x2 to build the carrier portion. I played around with straight vs angled, and ended up settling with a slight tilt. I've got it all burned in, now i just need to figure out the latching mechanism and i'm also going to mount my hi-lift to it. more to come
Last edited by liveoffroad; 02-21-2017 at 05:45 AM.
Very nicely done, I like that 4x hinge. Like you I did not plan ahead for a tire carrier, but that hinge might work since its not a spindle that goes down into main beam. Love to see what you do for the latch.
Thanks Corey. Here's a few more pics with the hi-lift mounted. Ordered a latch on Amazon so I'll have to wait for the weekend to continue. Also need to relocate the license plate
In other news, finally sold my clean 2wd 22re Daily for a more family friendly truck. It was sad to see her go, but the big up-side is that i now have a tow rig as well
MORE UPDATES: I've been busy cuz i've got a moab trip planned end of the month. One of my top projects this winter was to replace all the bushings in my front suspension, they were all extremely loose. As i got into it, I found some lightly used trailgear 3" lift springs on c-list so i picked those up and decided to just re-do the whole front suspension. My shackles were home-made and not in great shape, and because I have been running RUF springs with the stock spring hangers my shackle angle was way too flat.
I decided to go with the Low-range offroad Low-Pro front hanger, it places the springs about 1" higher than most others. After recieving it i was very pleased, it is BEEFY! Got it installed about 1-1/8" forward of the stock mounts. I also picked up some new shackles from 4crawler. I really don't like the design of most aftermarket shackles because they dont incorporate a sleeve inside the bushing like most factory applications, and they also don't secure the bolt from rotating. This results in over-tightening and premature failure of the bushings. 4crawler built me some sleeved shackles that also have locking tabs for the bolt head. He can build them whatever length you want, but i went with 5."
After puting it all together i quickly realized that the trail-gear 3" springs were shorter than advertised. my shackle angle at ride hight was pretty much vertical. I measured the springs to be 46.5" long (along the arc). My buddy has some 4" trailger springs so i had him measure his at 47.5" long. I called trail gear and asked why their website says all their springs are 47" long and yet none of them seem to measure out to that, but they just dismissed it as "those numbers are approximations".
To fix the shackle angle, i decided to keep the hanger where it was and use the top 2 leaves out of my RUF pack. I put new bushings in and put the rest of the TG spring-packs underneath. I ended up with a nearly perfect shackle angle and hopefully it will perform similarly to the trail-gear springs.
So to conclude, BEWARE when setting up your spring hangers that trail-gear springs vary in length depending on what lift you get. Actually, i thought it was interesting that since i only moved the hanger a little over an inch the 3-inch TG springs would have been PERFECT with the factory spring hangers. The only problem there is that the axle wouldn't be as far forward, but if you were staying with a 35" tire or smaller i thing it would be just fine.
Ok on to pics:
This Pic shows the difference in shackle angle between the 3" TG springs and the hybrid RUF/TG springs. the RUF springs are 48" long, TG is 46.5"
Last edited by liveoffroad; 03-14-2017 at 06:06 AM.
Wow. I do these projects where I swap out a door panel, and I'm pretty pleased with myself. I come over here, and you've welded on a new spring hangar and it's like no big deal. Nice job on that shackle angle too. How far is Moab from where you are? One of these days I'd love to head out west. I went to Windrock in Tenn last May and it was incredible. Heading up to NC in June/July this year with the 4Runner, so I'm planning to hit either Windrock or some other decent trails up there.
Your spare tire carrier turned out awesome, nice work! I like the front spring hanger you used, I like how the front is all boxed in, looks super beefy, nice work on the front suspension, I love your runner!
Wow. I do these projects where I swap out a door panel, and I'm pretty pleased with myself. I come over here, and you've welded on a new spring hangar and it's like no big deal. Nice job on that shackle angle too. How far is Moab from where you are? One of these days I'd love to head out west. I went to Windrock in Tenn last May and it was incredible. Heading up to NC in June/July this year with the 4Runner, so I'm planning to hit either Windrock or some other decent trails up there.
haha thanks man, every project has its own challenges. Moab is 350 miles from denver, but in a truck with a tired motor and 37" tires it takes a good 6 hours. Yea you should definitely come out this way sometime, we do a moab trip every spring since its still too cold to camp in the mountains. maybe next year you should plan on coming along?
Originally Posted by Terrys87
You have your truck looking good. I like the stance of it.
thanks man! i'm really happy with the width too. i believe i'm about 62" WMS
Originally Posted by rustED
Your spare tire carrier turned out awesome, nice work! I like the front spring hanger you used, I like how the front is all boxed in, looks super beefy, nice work on the front suspension, I love your runner!
Thanks Ed, i'm still finishing up the latch on the tire carrier. hopefully i'll have some pics of that in the next day or so.
haha thanks man, every project has its own challenges. Moab is 350 miles from denver, but in a truck with a tired motor and 37" tires it takes a good 6 hours. Yea you should definitely come out this way sometime, we do a moab trip every spring since its still too cold to camp in the mountains. maybe next year you should plan on coming along?
I just mapped it, about 2281 miles from my house to Moab. That is one extreme road trip. If I do head out that way, I'll let you know!
Trip went well. i was a bit worried about my tired motor making the 700 mile (round trip) drive but it did awesome, just a bit slower on the passes than she used to be. Had a great time with my friends and we ran some fun trails. First day we did rusty nail into golden spike. by far the hardest thing i'd ever done and i got to try out my winch haha. THen later that day my buddy with the dakoda blew up his rear 60 so i got to use my winch a lot more! all in all it was a great trip
Last edited by liveoffroad; 04-18-2017 at 07:48 AM.
Once i got home there were a couple issues i needed to address. I hit the rear tire carrier a couple times on climbes and ended up bending the mounting plate. I raised it up about 2.5 inches and reinforced the plate. I hope this is strong enough!
I also wasn't too impressed with the front end performance. the springs rode nice but i was getting way too much side-to-side sway on the trail and the droop on my front end was embarrassing. so i splurged and bought these. 13" travel bilstein 5160's. should solve both problems. I know lots of people say resovoir's are unnecessary for rock crawling but i definitely notice my shocks doing a lot less dampening toward the end of a long trail day.
thanks Ed! we'll see how it holds up on the next trail run.
I've decided i want my front end a bit lower so i'd like to sell my shackles and buy shorter ones. They are 5" which is pretty standard length for SAS kits and such. As stated above, they have a sleeve on the frame side to prevent overtightening and also have locking tabs for the bolts. IMO these are the best shackles you can get. PM me if your interested
02-21-2017, 05:43 AM
