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New guy at work let Big O tires replace his worn front end. 2000 taco v6 4wd
LCA bushings, cv shafts, swaybar links, new upper control arm, struts, ball joints etc.
After the install, his truck is lower in the front and now rubs the rear of tires (265/75/16) on the wheel well. They ordered aftermarket UCA'S....PLEASE take a look at the photos ......the UCA's seem wrong and are sitting at a strange angle. Any thoughts?? The aftermarket ball joint looks to be 3 inches high"and they even put in a 1 inch spacer lift.
Yes.....i know big o ??
Yes....i know Rancho struts??
Aside from that, something is very wrong and even a return of the vehicle to the shop yielded no results.
Thx! Kenny s
The wrong ones for this application boxed wrong ect !!
Installed wrong upside down or switched left to right .If the ball joints are installed pretty hard to get them on upside down
Just really bad quality control If the fixture is off or parts installed wrong before welding .
Poor welding things warp and deform
Then if the struts and springs are wrong it will make the UCA`s look strange.
Something is wrong and the installers are clueless . ( these are the parts we put them on)DUH!! I can only guess Big O is not known for the quality of there work
At best some thoughts
Being hands on really helps with fun things like this
It is most likely the height of the aftermarket shocks lower spring seat assuming the coils are original ( one should compare them when replacing though). He also has a levelling kit, and it looks like the upper spacer is worn and cracked and the extended studs are sticking out further than they should so perhaps over torqued aswell (this is a poor set up to begin with). You can't run aggressive 265/75's without some sort of lift or they will rub the plastic inner fender when turning. I would replace the spacers and studs for factory upper spring seat and replace the front shock with an adjustable lower spring seat 5100 series and hope you hit the right notch 1st go around. Those Specialty Products Company UCA # 25480 should work for his application, but the Camburgs #310079 are suppose to be the best next to factory, here are some opinions on the SPC's
Funny my buddy had his suspension done on his 2003 Crew cab taco, the shop called him in because the front was 3" higher than before so he had to lift the rear to level it off again, so you never know how tall the aftermarket struts and springs are until its all together. HIs 265/75's rubbered like a bastard taking out plastic inner fender, now with the new suspension everything is good.
Crazy because the tires never rubbed before and you can clearly see the odd angle of the uca to the shock tower.
Just looking at the truck and its laying low up front.
What do those upper ball joint mounts on the bottom look like? It looks like if you flipped them over and switched sides the angle would be correct. Maybe the UCA's came with the ball joints unattached and the shop configured them wrong
Something is way bad wrong with that. I'm serious! From the angle you took those first two pics at, you should be seeing the first coil of the spring over the UCA and not the very tips of those far over torqued coilover studs. I suspect so overtorqued that they busted the coil spacer in the process. On this point, I am also very concerned because every spacer lift I have ever installed, that had studs like that, came with extremely weak hardware. I have broken several like that while using a torque wrench. I bet they used a stout impact on those. That ball joint doesn't look right at all. It's like it's being pulled on hard. I'd sure tell him to stop driving it until he has jacked up the front end and inspected all of the workings of it.
I believe strongly in safety but we're all grown ups on here and I don't preach on the subject unless something looks really unsafe. This one needs to get figured out. I may be wrong but just got a bad feeling about it.
Guys, chime in if you see something we're missing.
It's like the UCAs are hung up there somehow. Two pieces of lift should be forcing the whole suspension downward and bringing the UCA down with it by way of the ball joint. If the UCA was prevented from downward movement, that would try and stretch the ball joint and hold the whole suspension up until the ball joint gives up and a wild ride straight to the crash site. Need to check to see if there is anything preventing the UCA from downward travel.
Yeah but that gap between the bump stop and lower control arm is more then stock which makes me think the knuckle is to tall or the ball joint is to long.
I don't think it's the knuckle. I think that shock is too short. I just looked at my 4runner's spring and you can stick a finger in between each of the top three coils. His first three are stacked on top of each other. That thing is way overloaded even with the spacer in there. I bet she rides smooth. Something's got to be done about that. He needs to find the part number on that shock and see if it's the right one. If not, the installer absolutely must make that right.
Cant thank you guys enough for the replies. I'm pretty savy with 3rd gen runners and a first look at my coworkers taco had me scratching my head. Someone mentioned the compressed spring and possible short travel of the WRONG strut. So, it would leave the truck in a hunched down, locked state....no? Much like what i see!
Can anyone out there with a 2000 taco give me a few dims from their stock struts & springs so i can compare to the Rancho's ? I cant see a model number on the shock.
***** he can barely drive up a driveway lip without his tires rubbing and paid some heavy, heavy bucks to Big O.
I want him to have sufficient info before contacting Big O
Corporate offices. The shop looked the truck over for a week and had nothing new to tell him.
Thanks.....maybe the overall height of the strut n spring with the truck at rest.
A photo of the spring might be cool. The top 3 coils are completely dead compressed against each other . After using coil compressors on my runner, cant inagine how they scrunched that spring so tight.
I wonder if they didn't break his springs when they did all of that. Yall keep that in the back of your minds if you decide you want to pull off one of the coilovers to look it over. If the spring is broken and under that massive load, It could come apart and hurt somebody. It'll stay together while it's bolted in there but removing it may let it come apart. Does it look the same on both sides? Have they jacked it up and checked that the upper arms are traveling correctly?
Mine is set up almost the same other than the second spacer and my coils have relatively equal spacing between them all the way down. I'll try and get you some measurements when it stops raining. I did take one last night. From the front of my drivers side tire I climbed under and measured from the bottom of the upper strut mount on the frame to the center of the bottom shock bolt. I had 18.5". I'll remeasure anything he needs if yall are going to do it now but I'm not going to get wet so he can measure his next week. Glad to do it if yall are game.
I keep going back to the wrong strut.......a shorter strut with less travel height would limit ride height by limiting the coil from expanding...no? I wonder if some 4wheeling would rip the post out of the strut? I'll post a dim of his coil length on Monday so we can compare.
My final guess on this situation is that the spring is broken or completely worn out beyond re usability. I'm betting on broken though. The ball joint was throwing me off but I think it only looks odd because the geometry of the front end is so off that it appears to be in a bind.
You said that the owner runs 265/75s. Those tires shouldn't rub even at stock height. None of mine ever did. With that one inch spacer they put under the spring cap and the spacer above it, he should be sitting upward of 2.5 - 3" above stock. I bet he had signs of worn out springs when he went in there and that's why they added the spacer. A spacer like that is not a recommended upgrade and a shop would normally advise against such a thing. His springs appear to be original. That would have been the perfect time to replace them as a set like Wyoming did. I know that whenever my shocks go bad I will be replacing them with assembled coilovers. Either Monroes like mentioned above or some Toytec 3" lift sets if I have the money in my Yota jar.
04-18-2017, 02:06 PM
