Smexy.

 

Nice looking truck. I've got the same one and have been thinking about 33/10.50 15 tires but wondered about 16's. What are your reasons for choosing this tire? why the shock mount change? Also was wondering how much front lift is required for your tires to fit. Thanks Ryan

 

Looks great, any chance you have a pic of your shackle angle as it sits right now?

 

No pics of the shackle sitting right now, will get some when the front goes back on the ground.

Shock mounts are because of the flip kit (datinfab, shackles also datinfab). I'll probably keep the stock upper shock mounts, and then weld the lower datinfab shock mounts like this pic (sonoran truck)


Reasons for this tire are because of good reviews all over the net and price. Reasons for this size is the same, many people really liking the skinny taller tire. I could have gone 33x10.5, but I'm taking a gamble at being "able" to find more variety of 16" tires easier than 15"'s nowadays, since the newer trucks are 16"+. I guess location might have a lot to do with that though.

Front lift is going to only be about 1" because I'm using SDORI ball joint spacers, and am probably going to relax the bars a tiny bit. We'll see how it sits, I may have to redrill the shackles to lower the rear.

Here is todays work, pulling the front diff, CV's, brakes, etc. Hopefully tomorrow the new ball joints will go in (upper and lower), the SDORI spacers, and a used front 4.88 diff with lockright from Dirttoyboy.

 

Here's some of the new front end parts going in. It doesn't matter what "box" you get at the parts store, you have to look inside to see what part you are getting. After hearing from YotaTech user Bear80 that the "555" front end parts were of higher quality than Moog, I had to check them out. For sure, they are nicer parts with wired on sealed boots vs. the press ons, some machined surfaces instead of cast: a nicer part than Moog. I have used Moog on a lot of other cars, but now that I have seen the 555 I'll be sticking with these. That said, the 2 upper ball joints that came from Rock Auto in Moog boxes, one was a Moog part, the other was a 555 part. I found 555 in the TRW boxes at Advance Auto Parts (which said they are moving to Moog now), and I also found the 555 parts in Sankei Boxes from another store. So you have to look inside.

 

Another shot of the lower ball joint, stamped "555" in the casting and from the TRW Federal Mogul box. It came with a grease fitting to screw in place of the bolt plug you see on the right side.




Here is the upper ball joint. You can see the difference in the casting. The studs in the 555 part were removed for installation of the SDORI spacers.

 

This would have probably held up for a while... but it was suspect. A few chunks of metal on the magnetic drain plug led me to it.




So I took it apart and found the pin broken inside. Swapped out carriers and all good now.

 

Upper A-arms trimmed for the 1.5" ball joint spacers




Front end back together with OME shocks. A 1/2" wheel spacer is needed for the upper A-arm clearance, this is because of the Tacoma backspacing being 1/4" more than original wheels. I would have had to run a 1/4" wheel spacer with the original wheels.

 

Nice work.

I think 255's are gonna be my next tire but I'm either gonna go with TRXUS M/T's or BFG's.

And loose the shock boots if your truck sees the beach, mud, or any other place that trucks rust. They will be the end of your shocks.