Have you considered limiting the stuff to just before it rubs so that you don't have to add more body lift? I know you are opposed to body lifting more if you don't have to. You might sacrifice a little stuff but then you wouldn't have to hack the hell out of the body. Just a thought.

 

Whatever you want to call it.

The rig is looking sweet, I am jealous I haven't been on a trail this year. My rig has only been used as a lumber hauler this year for the addition on the house.

 

Yeah, I've been thinking about that. I have some taller bumpstops that should bolt right on, or I could lower the ones that came with the kit. I even thought about cutting down the lower shock mounts, and setting up the suspension so it hits full bump right as the tire starts to rub. That would give me a little more down travel to make up for the loss of uptravel. But I don't know how far I can go without possibly having a coil spring pop out. If I did that I would need to come up with some coil spring retainers and have limit straps (which I plan on running anyway). That's just an idea right now.

 

Sounds like you have a couple of good ideas that would solve the clearance problems. I will stay tuned to see what you end up going with...

 

For you, that should be easier than hacking away at the body of such a pristine 3rd gen...

 

Time for a little update...

I've been going back and forth on whether I should step up to a larger body lift, it really put the whole project on hold for a while. There was a lot of pro's and con's for each, but I decided to stick with the 1" body lift and to make it work.

I figure the front should drop 1/2"-3/4" with the bumper, winch and skid plates. I didn't know what to think about rear, so I loaded it with sand bags and took some measurements.

Before



And after 300 pounds of sand bags



It dropped a full inch at the wheelwell and 1 1/2" at the tailgate. The weight is on the high side, but it's close. I figure the bumper will be close to a 100 pounds, CO2 tank is about 50 pounds, figure 30-40 pounds for the 1st gen roll bar and CO2 tank holder. I also have my recovery gear, cooler and possibly a small rear winch.

 

idk... looks like the rubbage MIGHT end up ripping off the fender trim at full stuff...

 

I'm going to trim what really gets in the way, and play with my bumpstops to limit my up travel. The bumpstops were hitting in the pictures, but they also had some compression left. I have a set of bumpstops that are 1 1/2" taller, I going to give them a try and see how they work.

 

Normally when I build a rig I still take it out wheeling when I can. When I'm waiting on parts or when I'm burnt out, it's the perfect time to familiarize myself with the vehicle and get to know it. Well, not this one …

I’m a newbie when it comes to IFS. The first time I took it off road I noticed some noises that didn’t seem right. I figured it was a new truck and the suspension, along with everything else was settling in. The second time it was even worse, so I took a good look at the truck and found that the front spindles were contacting the springs at full droop.

Here is close to full droop



And full droop



Look at the paint missing from the coils, the spindles hit the coils hard! It’s also overstressing the upper ball joints.







I called Steve at Sororan Steel and after multiple conversations he thinks my truck sits too high without the front bumper and skidplate. He assembled the struts before he sent them to me and set them at the 2 ˝” setting, which is for an aftermarket front bumper and skidplate. I could take it all apart and reset it at the 2” setting but that’s a lot of work, and I would have to reset it back to 2 ˝” once I get my stuff installed. So all wheeling is on hold until I get some more weight on the truck.

I hope that once I get my Budbuilt skid plates on, and some rock sliders built, there will be enough weight to solve the problem. I still have a few things I need to take care of before I can install the skid plates.

-Install IPT transmission valve body and new ATF filter
-Install Poly steering rack bushings
-Install Poly sway bar bushings (front and rear)
-Install new muffler (I might be able to do this with the belly skid in place)

I do have two questions for people running the front Budbuilt skid plate. First, can you get an alignment with the skid in place or does it need to be removed to access the alignment cams? Next, can you replace CV’s with the skid plate in place? I have holes on both sides right where the CV’s would be, I’m pretty sure they are pry bar access holes but will the CV come all the way out without hitting the raised section?

 

I haven't aligned mine since I got Buds, but I'll be finding out when I mount my 35s in a few weeks. I can see the heads of the cam bolts with the Bud on, but I don't think you'd be able to turn a wrench in there much. If they can't align it with the skid on that sucks because once you put the Bud back on, the weight of it might change the alignment again. Hopefully not enough to matter though.

Replacing the CVs with the Bud on isn't too bad if you're in your garage. But out on the trail, it can be a pita. Scuba managed to cram himself under my truck and pop one of my CVs out on the trail with my Bud on, but I know J-money$$$ has had to take his Bud off multiple times to chance a CV. It has a lot to do with how uneven the ground is. J-money trimmed the sides off his Bud so he could get a big screwdriver/crow bar in there easier.

The CV will clear the raised section once it's out, but that section makes it hard to get good leverage with a crow bar to pop the CV out.

 

why would more weight up front change how much droop? i see this all the time with lift trucks that come in the shop. when we lift them up on the lifts you can see the upper arm will hit the coils. the only thing i can think of to fix this would be upper bj spacers which i dont think you can do or longer or modified upper arms
im still new to this but i have heard of guys only upgraded the upper arms when lifting. i never knew why. maybe the issue your having is why. not sure if its true but i heard something along the lines of the upper arms are weak, dont know what parts or why.
heres the link for upgrading your upper arms and maybe solving your issue.
http://www.chaosfab.com/96500.php

you also need to check your tire clearance with the upper arm at full droop

 

Just SAS! I'm just saying. I have this feeling its coming soon. Of course out of simplicity compared to the ifs.

 

Thanks for the info! Let me know what the alignment shop says about the skidplates. That was my same thought; the weight of the skids will effect the ride height but I don't know if it's enough to take the alignment out of spec. I guess you could always leave the belly pan in place and only remove the front skidplate (if that's possible, you would have to loosen the belly pan for sure). That way you would only be adding around 50 pounds or so after the alignment.

Does your Budbuilt skidplate have holes below the CV's? I thought I read someplace that those were added later on. Mine has a hole on each side that looks to be for getting a prybar in there, but I'm not 100% sure until I get them mounted.

 

That was my exact thought, I figured full droop is full droop no matter how heavy the vehicle is. Steve at Sonoran Steel feels that the bushings in the upper A arm, and the lower bushing in the strut only have "X" amount / degrees of movement, and will only allow a certain amount of up and down travel. That's fine in therory, and I'm not bad mouthing his product, but it would seem that everyone running his kit on higher mileage 4Runner's would be having problems, since the bushings would soften up over time and not hold that same "X" amount of movement.

According to his therory, adding aftermarket upper arms would only make the issue worse because there is less bushing resistance to hold the suspension in place. I don't want to run uni-balls where I live; we have a ton of gravel, salt and mag-cloride on the roads here and I would have to change them out at least once a year. Also, the spindle is hitting the coil (not the arm) so I don't think it would a thing to help my situation.

The problem is that the Tundra coils he uses are wider than stock coils and other aftermarket coils, but I don't understand why there is not more people having this issue. I searched and found one or two people having the same problem, but they pieced together their front struts. It was not the SS kit. I could run a limit strap, but it starts to hit at 3/4" of droop; I can't wheel a truck that has less than an inch of downtravel! I have issues with it hitting just driving around town!

 

ahh, i see now. didnt know the kit was using tundra coils. this is an odd one, not sure how it can be solved. only thing i can think of is change the coils out for ones that are slimmer.
maybe others are having the issue but dont say anything about it
was looking at the pictures again. if the bushings are what limit movement (dont remember seeing bump stops) maybe your larger heavier tire setup pulling down alot more on the bushing compared to others im guess dont run as larger of a tire size? again it sucks if bushings solve the issue or limiting straps, your limiting down travel when you can get so much more if the coils was thinner

 

It's tempting, but if I SAS it's going to be linked on coilovers with a Diamond. I can only have my truck in the shop on the weekends or after work, it's going to take a lot of time to figure out my suspension and make all the parts. Not a weekend project!

At this point I have too much invested in the IFS to start over without wheeling it for a couple years and saving up. I bought what I thought was one of the best suspension kits out there for the 3rd Gen, and I really feel it should work the way it’s advertised. I’m going to wait until I get some weight on the 4Runner and go from there, I really hope the problem works itself out.

Do you still have that tire? I totally forgot about it, Sorry.

 

Thanks for the ideas, it really helps to have several people looking at the pictures and throwing ideas out there! I'm going to get some more weight on the 4Runner before I make any major changes, but it's really going to suck if I have to change my front suspension. There’s a ton of people running this kit without problems.

- Coils: I knew they used TRD progressive rate Tundra coils, but I didn't know they were larger than stock. I don't know how much wider they are.

- Tires/wheels: That was one of my first thoughts, I thought the tires and wheels were over extending the suspension because of the extra weight. I pulled the tire off and the suspension didn't move, it was still bound up on the coil.

I guess we’ll have to wait and see …

 

You could always strap a bunch of sandbags on the front and take it wheeling Just kidding. Good luck. Do you know what you want for a front bumper? Your others have been awesome.

 

im sure others are having the same issue at full droop but dont say or care bout the noise. heres a picture of a FJ cruiser that came in with some cheap pro comp lift im guess. truck only has 7000 miles and this is what happens when i lifted it on the lift. you can see it hits has well and this is with the correct coils (thickness wise). so even if you slim your coil down, i still think its gonna hit just a little bit later. only thing i can think of would be long travel

 

That's great! The thought has gone through my head a couple times.

The front bumper is going to look a lot like the Turbo 4Runner. I hope to get started on it soon, but I need to get my winch first.