NST Spec Body Lift Kit

[MTKID]

Reading through your earlier posts I want 37s now lol... maybe not if it's my only daily still but it would be fun.

Moreso wondering for the the order of modifications. I read you said to do it early. Currently on 33s with stock height, but i'm installing 2in Bilstien/ome setup soon. I am probably not moving to new bigger tires soon, and keeping the stock bumper for a while.

Honestly, I really like the stock bumpers, especially when trimmed up at the front corners and entire rear edge and rear corners (so that the rear crossmember is the support if you drop off of a ledge rather than the plastic getting torn). 37's certainly keep them up fairly high. You can still find something to tear the plastic off though, even with 37's, and steel protection will let you get more rowdy.

Doing the body lift early works really well so you can take advantage of taller tires sooner, but it does really depend on how and where you plan on wheeling. I really appreciate the taller tires which allow more effective conforming to the terrain (traction, essentially) with low pressure.
And if you have a highly motivated fabricator, they could create custom F&R bumpers that take advantage of the body lift a little bit more. Especially the front and the rear corners.

Here is the approximate approach angle I have with 40's, body lift and as much of a custom high clearance front bumper that I could come up with, which includes cutting the lower front-most crossmember below the radiator...

About 46 degrees in normal mode. Can’t imagine doing any better without a larger tire.

 

[TeCKis300]

Reading through your earlier posts I want 37s now lol... maybe not if it's my only daily still but it would be fun.

Moreso wondering for the the order of modifications. I read you said to do it early. Currently on 33s with stock height, but i'm installing 2in Bilstien/ome setup soon. I am probably not moving to new bigger tires soon, and keeping the stock bumper for a while.

The fact that the BL made a functional difference by lifting the stock bumpers made my opinion change for them. Definitely an underrepresented mod, and IMO worth doing whether going big tires or not. Great to do early to build the rest of the rig around.

 

[Valgrind]

The fact that the BL made a functional difference by lifting the stock bumpers made my opinion change for them. Definitely an underrepresented mod, and IMO worth doing whether going big tires or not. Great to do early to build the rest of the rig around.

Since im planning on doing a hidden winch mount soon, might make sense to do that at the same time to save cutting a hole twice...

 

[thegreenthief]

@MTKID Getting ready to install the 1" kit on my 2019 Land Cruiser. The instructions you've posted in this thread seem to be pretty straightforward so thank you for putting them together. I did have one question on the radiator relocation brackets... it's not 100% clear to me where they are supposed to connect and the ultimate orientation of everything once it's together. Do you happen to have some photos you can share of the radiator brackets installed? Thanks much!

 

[MTKID]

I’m sorry! After looking through my photos, I realize I don’t have an abundance of pictures of the radiator drop brackets so I’ll try to explain using these two…

This photo is looking down from the front/top over the radiator support at the passenger side radiator drop bracket. The top brackets both have a small tab that sticks out and forward, sitting into a small pocket that should prevent the radiator from ever racking left to right over even rough terrain. Can’t speak of what could happen in a massive accident, but in normal driving this should hold the radiator in the middle properly. The short bolts that are epoxied into the top of this bracket (and the top holes of the bottom brackets) are intended to face forward through the radiator support, and the long ones can be placed into the bracket facing rearward during installation (not easy because of how tight everything is).

This is the driver’s side looking over the top of the radiator support from the front again.

The bottom two radiator brackets do not have the tab protruding from them and they are oriented in the same way, but unfortunately they are even a little more difficult to reach because of the plastic radiator flange and how tight of a space you are reaching into.

 

[thegreenthief]

Alright, finally getting around to writing my review of this kit.

tl;dr I am very pleased.

My Vehicle
2019 LC200 - stock with 275/65R18 KO2's

Initial Impressions
Placed my order for the NST 1" Body Lift Kit on 12/12/24, it was shipped the next day, and I received my order on 12/19/24. The kit was well-packed and included all parts necessary to perform the work.

Installation
As my vehicle was stock going into the installation and I plan to retain the factory tupperware for a while, the first step was to remove both the front and rear bumpers. As this was my first install, I wanted to go slowly and ensure reuse of all clips and retainers. These hopes were quickly squashed when I attempted to remove the front fender liners as I destroyed the clips trying to remove them. Definitely recommend considering these clips as disposable and keeping some on hand as extras (P/N 90467-12069). After removing the fender liners I loosened the bolt on the steering intermediate shaft. After this I proceeded with the rest of the bumper removal, which went smoothy. I do recommend caution when removing the front camera connector. I managed to break off one of the camera housing retaining clips and will have to fix and/or order another at some point. Everything else came off relatively easily and I set the bumper covers to the side. The next step was to unbolt the radiator and let it sit in the engine bay; unlike the rest of the radiator work this was very easy -- more to come later.

Once the bumpers were removed and the radiator was unbolted I could move on to accessing the body mount bolts. The instructions in the thread were spot on and allowed me to easily remove the interior trim panels to access the body mount bolts. I don't recall having any difficulties here, but as noted make sure to take your time to avoid damaging anything. I broke all of the bolts loose on the passenger side as I planned to lift the drivers side first. I then removed the bolts from the drivers side in preparation for the lift.

I positioned my floor jack just aft of the b-pillar and jacked up the drivers side using the pinch weld right next to the factory sliders which seemed to work well and lifted the body pretty evenly. I inserted each spacer, followed by the bolt which I then hand-tightened until each was in place. I tightened them all down after this and then broke them loose so that I could do the same on the passenger side. Everything on the passenger side went easily and I proceed to install the radiator relocation brackets.

The radiator relocation brackets were a pain. There isn't a ton of space and you have to get creative. What I found worked for me was to install the bracket to the radiator first and hand tighten. Once the brackets are affixed to the radiator, it's actually easier to swing the bracket into place as you shift the radiator around to get each bolt into the frame mounting holes. After much cursing and finagling, I was finally able to get everything in place and secured.

The rest of the instructions in this thread for modification of the front and rear bumper were spot on. Just take your time, measure twice, and cut once where needed. I verified that I had enough play in the steering intermediate shaft and finally torqued everything down to spec.

Support
I had multiple questions that came up during installation, mostly due to the fact that I have never done a body lift before and aside from watching some YouTube videos, I was pretty green. Additionally, I was doing the install on a newer LC rather than a LX so some of the steps were very slightly different. Throughout the process, @MTKID provided outstanding support which was far beyond what I would consider normal for a typical vendor. It's clear that he is passionate about this community and ensuring that everyone's install goes smoothly. If anyone is on the fence about doing this mod due to experience or lack of support, don't be, you'll definitely be taken care of.

Overall Impressions
I would 100% recommend this kit to anyone that is interested in fitting larger tires at some point in the future. I plan to pair this body lift with a small suspension lift, and some larger tires in an effort to retain factory driveability. We'll see if those plans hold for the future, because I fully expect scope-creep in my plans for this vehicle, but for now I am very happy with everything.

Thanks again @MTKID!

Here are a couple of photos -- bigger tires are going on next!

 

[lx4dp]

Nice write up. What size tire will move to?

 

[thegreenthief]

Nice write up. What size tire will move to?

Going to try for LT295/70R18s. Would go bigger but I'm not quite ready for armor and want to be able to keep my spare in the stock location. Based on what I've read this is about the biggest tire that will fit in the stock location

Once I have a swing out, I'll definitely go bigger but probably not much bigger than 35s. Although, I am planning on doing the KDSS Max relo with the new Anderson kit and will probably do a body mount chop at some point, so bigger might be possible.

Think I've caught the bug.

 

[MTKID]

Just wanted to share one additional thing I was able to do to space the fender out a little bit more if/when you are trying to squeeze or tuck the width of the outer edge of a tire up inside the fender. You can use two small spacers as seen here (two white plastic spacers) with longer hardware and help push things out just a little bit. This doesn’t exactly correlate to the same 1:1 further distance out at the edge but I was just trying to make some room. This does create a small gap at the lower edge of my headlight but it’s not very noticeable. This will also stretch your front bumper cover to reach this new wider location.

Also to note, on the first installation we did, we had a plastic heater T break. I figured this was an anomaly and not related to the body lift (1.5”) but I have now heard of one more that was installed and the same thing occurred, after installation. So this plastic T is getting a stress put on it when lifting, which is fine if the T is still in good condition, but if it is brittle and close to failing, this stress could cause it to break.

I consider plastic heater T’s to be a maintenance item now but depending on your mileage, this is something you may want to consider purchasing to install along with the 1.5”. Less likely an issue with 1”, but could be worth swapping as well.

And since @thegreenthief shared this newer photo with his new tires installed (295/70r18 until he has a rear swing out tire carrier to support a larger spare), I’m sure he’d be ok with it being showed.

On another topic, I’m working on a motor/drivetrain raise for my own rig using new motor mounts. This is for one reason primarily. In order to accomplish a smooth belly under the transfer case. I will be doing a custom crossmember for that location with a design that is hopefully universal for others to install it as well, but we’ll see if this is a product that has some interest. It’s another item/kit that would require quite a bit of labor and skill to install, but I feel like it’s a perfect small improvement, that when combined with so many other quality options, it allows this platform to perform better than expected. Small additional benefit would also be better clearance under the oil pan for a SAS, if that could ever occur on my rig in the future.
OEM cast piece…

3d printed prototype…

Steel piece before welding…

Just so everyone knows I’m still trying my best to push this platform forward in the best way I see possible (just super slowly).

Thank you to everyone again for the support of NST Spec!

 

[CanadianRockyCruiser]

Just wanted to share one additional thing I was able to do to space the fender out a little bit more if/when you are trying to squeeze or tuck the width of the outer edge of a tire up inside the fender. You can use two small spacers as seen here (two white plastic spacers) with longer hardware and help push things out just a little bit. This doesn’t exactly correlate to the same 1:1 further distance out at the edge but I was just trying to make some room. This does create a small gap at the lower edge of my headlight but it’s not very noticeable. This will also stretch your front bumper cover to reach this new wider location.
View attachment 3832602

Also to note, on the first installation we did, we had a plastic heater T break. I figured this was an anomaly and not related to the body lift (1.5”) but I have now heard of one more that was installed and the same thing occurred, after installation. So this plastic T is getting a stress put on it when lifting, which is fine if the T is still in good condition, but if it is brittle and close to failing, this stress could cause it to break.
View attachment 3832607
I consider plastic heater T’s to be a maintenance item now but depending on your mileage, this is something you may want to consider purchasing to install along with the 1.5”. Less likely an issue with 1”, but could be worth swapping as well.
And since @thegreenthief shared this newer photo with his new tires installed (295/70r18 until he has a rear swing out tire carrier to support a larger spare), I’m sure he’d be ok with it being showed.
View attachment 3832624
On another topic, I’m working on a motor/drivetrain raise for my own rig using new motor mounts. This is for one reason primarily. In order to accomplish a smooth belly under the transfer case. I will be doing a custom crossmember for that location with a design that is hopefully universal for others to install it as well, but we’ll see if this is a product that has some interest. It’s another item/kit that would require quite a bit of labor and skill to install, but I feel like it’s a perfect small improvement, that when combined with so many other quality options, it allows this platform to perform better than expected. Small additional benefit would also be better clearance under the oil pan for a SAS, if that could ever occur on my rig in the future.
OEM cast piece…
View attachment 3832626
3d printed prototype…
View attachment 3832627
Steel piece before welding…
View attachment 3832628
Just so everyone knows I’m still trying my best to push this platform forward in the best way I see possible (just super slowly).

Thank you to everyone again for the support of NST Spec!

Not sure i need this yet, but I won't be able to resist buying it if you bring it to market.

 

[cps502]

Anyone know anyone they’d trust to install this kit somewhere around the San Francisco Bay Area? So eager to get this done (the 1.5”) but very nervous about trusting the old girl with just anyone.

One shop quoted me 5 hours and sounded pretty confident. I like their work a lot! But getting the rear bumper back on correctly sounds like something that could be botched. Any thoughts? Thanks all!

Pic for fun. The 35s would fit so much better with the 1.5” kit!

 

[kong24680]

Anyone know anyone they’d trust to install this kit somewhere around the San Francisco Bay Area? So eager to get this done (the 1.5”) but very nervous about trusting the old girl with just anyone.

One shop quoted me 5 hours and sounded pretty confident. I like their work. But getting the rear bumper back on correctly sounds like something a lazy installer would botch. Any thoughts? Thanks all!

Pic for fun. The 35s would fit so much better with the 1.5” kit!

View attachment 3877506

Let me know if you end up finding someone. I’m also in the SF Bay Area and would like a competent shop to install the kit for me as well.

Which shop quoted you 5 hours?

 

[YellowJacket]

I can't help in CA, but If either of you have anything to do in UT, my guy is a former Toyota Tech and now has experience doing the 1.5" body lift. I am sure he'd love to do anything less rusty than mine. He charges considerably less than dealer rates also. He's about 20 min from SLC airport.

Anyone know anyone they’d trust to install this kit somewhere around the San Francisco Bay Area? So eager to get this done (the 1.5”) but very nervous about trusting the old girl with just anyone.

One shop quoted me 5 hours and sounded pretty confident. I like their work. But getting the rear bumper back on correctly sounds like something a lazy installer would botch. Any thoughts? Thanks all!

Pic for fun. The 35s would fit so much better with the 1.5” kit!

View attachment 3877506

Let me know if you end up finding someone. I’m also in the SF Bay Area and would like a competent shop to install the kit for me as well.

Which shop quoted you 5 hours?

 

[CanadianRockyCruiser]

Anyone know anyone they’d trust to install this kit somewhere around the San Francisco Bay Area? So eager to get this done (the 1.5”) but very nervous about trusting the old girl with just anyone.

One shop quoted me 5 hours and sounded pretty confident. I like their work. But getting the rear bumper back on correctly sounds like something a lazy installer would botch. Any thoughts? Thanks all!

Pic for fun. The 35s would fit so much better with the 1.5” kit!

View attachment 3877506

5 hours is probably pretty reasonable. I put a 1/2" lift in mine in about 4 hours. I didn't have to drop the radiator, so I expect that would take another hour.

It's a pretty basic job with hand tools. I'll bet two guys in San Francisco could knock out a pair of lift kits in a Saturday, with 12 beers. The second one would be quicker than the first, because you would have figured out how to pry off all of the plastic bits.

 

[lx4dp]

Gents from the Bay Area, get me in on this. I've got the 1.5" kit I'd like installed too. Looks like with my truck we've got up to 3 interested parties...? Please circle back to this thread and keep us all posted.

If we don't get any referrals, I may go to my regular mechanic who's done just about any and every 'ting to my Toyotas mang (installed custom BBK's, pulled the motor on my ISF, he's throwing the supercharger on my LX in the next month or two).

 

[LEXCRUISER]

is there anyone in Southern California who knows how to install 1” lift?

 

[teejnut]

Since we're several installs in now, is the recommendation still to unbolt the the single bolt holding the steering actuator and intermediate shaft together?

Any other points or tips from anyone?

Has anyone found a good trim to use with the 1.5" BL? I already cut my bumper covers previously for my Dissent bumpers.

is there anyone in Southern California who knows how to install 1” lift?

I plan on doing the 1.5" next weekend. I can offer help after I get mine done.

 

[MTKID]

Since we're several installs in now, is the recommendation still to unbolt the the single bolt holding the steering actuator and intermediate shaft together?

Any other points or tips from anyone?

Has anyone found a good trim to use with the 1.5" BL? I already cut my bumper covers previously for my Dissent bumpers.


I plan on doing the 1.5" next weekend. I can offer help after I get mine done.

No, I believe quite a few have left the steering alone during the process.

Thank you for being willing to help others install their kits

 

[speedy1210]

Here’s my 1 in BL been meaning to post pics for awhile first pic is in normal height second is in high. It’s been a almost a year since ive installed it but the hardest part was getting those damn radiator relocation brackets in I’m sure the 1.5 is easier on that part since you have more room I’m running 35s btw

 

[LEXCRUISER]

Since we're several installs in now, is the recommendation still to unbolt the the single bolt holding the steering actuator and intermediate shaft together?

Any other points or tips from anyone?

Has anyone found a good trim to use with the 1.5" BL? I already cut my bumper covers previously for my Dissent bumpers.


I plan on doing the 1.5" next weekend. I can offer help after I get mine done.

Thank you so much! I will pm you