80 Series Part 2: Electric Boogaloo

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Hit 234 today but then realized that means I've put less than 2k miles on the truck in slightly over a year of ownership :doh:

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Hoping to have a bit more time to get out this year!
 
Though I still have to be at work, I did get a few pandemic preventative mainetnenace items done that had been sitting on the shelf.

- Installed new Japanese wiper blades from Joey
- Installed new 555 TRE's (though still need to get some paint on them)
- Installed new cheapo steering stabilizer
- Installed new OEM air filter
- Installed white line rear sway bar
- Installed land tank rear sway bar links
- Installed land tank HD rear LCA's (these are amazing)

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Also got it aligned. Went to two different shops and still have a pretty significant pull to the right (was occurring even before the install of all the above parts.) Here are how the numbers look. Anyone more experience than I have any ideas what could be causing this?

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Bludozer said:
Also got it aligned. Went to two different shops and still have a pretty significant pull to the right (was occurring even before the install of all the above parts.) Here are how the numbers look. Anyone more experience than I have any ideas what could be causing this?

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Well, after posting this thread Alignment help, a bit of frustration, and lots of email assistance from Dave @Delta VS (unbelievably helpful guy) I think we've at least been able to narrow down the issue. Appreciate @Pin_Head pointing out the rear toe inconsistency in the numbers and @voodu3 for looping in Dave.

Seems as though somehow the rear is pointing to the right a bit which is likely the cause of the steering pull to passenger side I am experiencing. This could be caused from a handful of things - different length rear control arms (unlikely seems to me, but will measure the Land Tank ones I just put on) or either a bent axle housing, or twisted/messed up mounting points for the control arms. Attached is a somewhat hilarious yet super helpful drawing Dave spent the time to draw up. I am leaning towards the drawing on the right which would be either a bent axle housing or messed up axle mounting points. There was a very slight pull before the addition of the land tank rear arms that I just chalked up to the truck needing an alignment. Putting on the more rigid Land Tank rear arms seemed to exacerbate it and make the pull to the right hand side more drastic.

If the axle housing itself is bent, this will probably be hard to confirm but luckily they are still available from Toyota for a pretty penny.

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Bludozer said:
Well, after posting this thread Alignment help, a bit of frustration, and lots of email assistance from Dave @Delta VS (unbelievably helpful guy) I think we've at least been able to narrow down the issue. Appreciate @Pin_Head pointing out the rear toe inconsistency in the numbers and @voodu3 for looping in Dave.

Seems as though somehow the rear is pointing to the right a bit which is likely the cause of the steering pull to passenger side I am experiencing. This could be caused from a handful of things - different length rear control arms (unlikely seems to me, but will measure the Land Tank ones I just put on) or either a bent axle housing, or twisted/messed up mounting points for the control arms. Attached is a somewhat hilarious yet super helpful drawing Dave spent the time to draw up. I am leaning towards the drawing on the right which would be either a bent axle housing or messed up axle mounting points. There was a very slight pull before the addition of the land tank rear arms that I just chalked up to the truck needing an alignment. Putting on the more rigid Land Tank rear arms seemed to exacerbate it and make the pull to the right hand side more drastic.

If the axle housing itself is bent, this will probably be hard to confirm but luckily they are still available from Toyota for a pretty penny.

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And to be clear, I would be incredibly surprised if the arms are different lengths, knowing where they came from.
 
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Well that was fast... Placed this order yesterday and here they are. Mill Creek Overland were super easy to work with and have incredibly fast shipping.

Goal is to address the rear sag I'm getting with my icon springs. Now with the rear bumper/tire carrier, sliders, etc. the suspension height is great when unloaded but as soon as its loaded, the rear sags. Currently I have icon springs and shocks on all 4 corners...my intent was to stay with the icon shocks and replace all 4 springs with Slinky. Unfortunately no one (including Mill Creek) had the HD 70mm Slinky front springs in stock so I just ordered the rears for now. Will swap out the rears and run this for a bit and see if its worth replacing the fronts too. Excited to see the difference, first impression is these coils look a lot thicker than the Icons that are on there now.
 
Your thread makes mine look disorganize...... 😁 Any comments on the rear slinky’s? Did you find any fir the front? Did you consider Dobinson tapered coils?
 
baldilocks said:
Your thread makes mine look disorganize...... 😁 Any comments on the rear slinky’s? Did you find any fir the front? Did you consider Dobinson tapered coils?
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No comments yet because they're still sitting in a box :doh:

Don't think fronts are available yet, but I am going to put just the rears on first and if it eliminates sag like I expect, I may just stick with that set up as is. We'll see. As for Dobinson, I honestly didn't consider them. When I got this truck it had 2.5 Tapered coils on it and I absolutely hated the way it rode. I'm sure they were fine off road but the truck just felt pretty sloppy on road with the set up it came with. Lots of people love them but I just wasn't a fan :meh:
 
Tapered coils will allow more body sway no matter who makes them. I drove a rig with the rear Slinky's you have and it swayed more than the single rate coils I ran in the past. If you want sweet springs that fight sag and sway, but don’t ride harshly, try out Slee rear progressive coils. They are very nice springs.

I ran a used set for nearly five years and recently went in with a set of dobinson 3” tapered rear springs to match my fronts. I loved the Slee 4” progressives especially when loaded but unloaded they lifted my rig about 6” which I was not crazy about and just had to try something different. Honestly, I’m not sure I’ll stick with these rear tapere springs but will know more after I’ve loaded the truck and run the Rubicon and similar trails. With a 30mm spacer on top of the 3” rear spring my rig sits 3/4” lower than it did with just the Slee spring.
 
baldilocks said:
Tapered coils will allow more body sway no matter who makes them. I drove a rig with the rear Slinky's you have and it swayed more than the single rate coils I ran in the past. If you want sweet springs that fight sag and sway, but don’t ride harshly, try out Slee rear progressive coils. They are very nice springs.

I ran a used set for nearly five years and recently went in with a set of dobinson 3” tapered rear springs to match my fronts. I loved the Slee 4” progressives especially when loaded but unloaded they lifted my rig about 6” which I was not crazy about and just had to try something different. Honestly, I’m not sure I’ll stick with these rear tapere springs but will know more after I’ve loaded the truck and run the Rubicon and similar trails. With a 30mm spacer on top of the 3” rear spring my rig sits 3/4” lower than it did with just the Slee spring.
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No question, there is always compromise no matter which spring you choose. A lot of it is perception as well...differences between specific trucks, weight, road surfaces, and the driver themself as well all impact the 'seat of the pants' feeling posts you see online. All of which need to be taken with a grain of salt. If the rear slinky springs I just purchased sway less than the dobinsons my truck came with and don't sag when weighted down like the icons they are replacing, I will be very happy.
 
Not necessarily 80 specific, but definitely camp related which is ultimately what we're all about. For organizational purposes, figured I'd cross post here too.

Long story short, I use my truck almost entirely for quick fly-fishing day trips and bombing around town. When sleep is required, the back of the truck has been fantastic. Super comfortable and costs $0 - I am a fan of both of those things. That said, for extended trips, you have much more gear, and often more people. It can be exhausting rolling into a new spot and having to pull every item you have out of the back of the truck just so you can sleep - then (in my case) you have to attach your truck condom to the back (DAC tent), set up bedding, etc. While I love this for one person it can get old fast on longer trips. Needless to say I began looking at other camp options.

Because of my deep desire to look cool on Instagram I immediately started looking at roof top tents. Softshell RTTs became an instant no go for many reasons (longish set up time, even worse take down time, having to deal with that pain in the ass cover, etc.) so I ruled them out and started considering only hardshells. While the set up times for hardshells are unbeatable, the cons weighed on me too much - cost...$3-4k minimum for the tent, another $1-$1.5k for the roof rack + sh*tty center of gravity, heigher overall weight, fact that you can't set up a base camp/have to pack up entirely to go anywhere else, etc. So I ruled out RTTs for now.

This left me with two options:
1) camp trailer
2) ground tent

While a camp trailer is definitely in my future (we have our first on the way now :cheers: ) it simply didn't make sense to be towing that everywhere in the immediate term when it's just my wife and I. So with that eliminated, I ended up with one option - the ground tent.

If you enjoy voluntarily subjecting yourself to brain aneurysms, you can read more about my ground tent decision making here: High quality ground tents - the set up speed of the RV-5 but smaller packed dimensions?
but to simplify, I chose a Spring Bar tent for three main reasons - its packed size (can fit in the back cargo area of an 80 with no issues), overall quality, and relative ease of set up.

Had some spare time today to give it a shakedown set up in my backyard. Now that I've wrapped my brain around it, set up is really quite simple and the quality is out of this world. Very happy with my decision and plan to use it for years to come.

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Build looks great!

Some of your MTRs are on backwards though...
 
Installed a Koso slim gauge. Used one of these from Joey too 80 series 1FZ Upper Coolant Outlet- Modified . Happy to have a simple number now that just works. Compared it with my ultragauge and was slower to 'catch up'. It was maybe 10-15 degrees behind until it hit operating temp then the readings between the two were pretty consistent.

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After reading through this thread i'm definitely inclined to get the Kodiak with windows. I like their build and price point. They sold me (:
 
Well, onto the next thing. Trying to get a bunch of things sorted before an upcoming trip.

Had on my list to swap out the rear Icon springs for Slinkys to fix rear sag when loaded. Done. Haven't loaded up the rear yet but I do not expect any sag now. Didn't take any measurements, but here are some before and after photos both unloaded. Rear is definitely higher now than with the Icons. Also, huge difference in ride quality honestly wasn't expecting that. Feels a lot more planted and less body roll through corners. Feels great. May upgrade the front springs to slinkys too down the line, but going to stick with this set up for now.

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After:
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On this weeks episode of #builtnotbought its the Speski Barrier. Luckily for smooth brains like myself, @NLXTACY has produced an install video.



Quality of materials and attention to detail in the design are incredible as always with products from Wits End.


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Leaving Saturday for SW Colorado, trying to get some loose ends tied before then.
 
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