I spent a few hours today addressing the previous owners stupid body lift. A couple of years ago I was being an idiot and drove way to fast over some rocks that were way to big and it ended up cracking the body where one of the previous owners home brew aluminium body lift pucks made contact with the body. I welded the cracks and reinforced the body where it cracked and I figured the others would be good as long as I didn't abuse the rig by driving 30mph over a bunch of 1 foot+ boulders...
View attachment 2332958
Well about a month ago after a rotate and balance I took off down a dirt road I had driven many times. The road was in poor disrepair and had not been grated for awhile. At first I assumed the extra rough ride was due to all the pot holes and washboard but after a few miles the road and ride got even worse and the rig developed a new noise from the rear of the truck. At this point I could tell something was wrong because the ride was so terrible. I decided to air down my tires and when I put my air gauge on the tire I realized that the tire shop must have aired my tires up to 80 psi....
I guess driving 50+ on the beat up road with 80 psi in my tires stressed the body enough to cause new cracks at another body mount location. This time the body cracked at the rear most mount location on the drivers side.
This time I decided to replace all the stupid aluminium blocks with something wider because the aluminium blocks were only 1.9"' inches in diameter and I am hoping that wider blocks will prevent this issue from reoccurring until I can just remove the entire stupid body lift in another year or two and redo the entire suspension. I found this guy online that will make custom body lift blocks so I went ahead and ordered a set.
Mikellis body lifts The blocks seem great and are just what I wanted. I was able to weld the cracks and reinforce the area with extra metal again and get the two rear most blocks swapped. If anyone does want to pursue a body lift I would seriously consider ordering pucks from this website and sourcing your own hardware.
View attachment 2332972View attachment 2332970
I also wanted to do the second set of blocks from the rear tonight, after looking at a schematic I could see that this set appears to be the only body mount that is not through bolted, rather I assume that these mounts bolt into a captured nut because I could not find a way to access the top side of the bolt. Well of course not only was the previous owner stupid enough to use aluminium blocks with a 1.9 inch diameter in direct contact with the steel body, but he also decided to use SAE hardware for the body lift. I guess he was also stupid enough to put SAE bolts into the 2nd set of body mounts from the rear.
View attachment 2332980
I tried to remove these bolts but to my dismay they are just spinning both directions without coming loose or tightening. I am assuming that the previous owner cross threaded the SAE bolts into the original Toyota captured nuts and when I tried to break them loose I only managed to spin the captured nuts. I have pulled the carpet up along with the interior trim and I cannot see a way to access the other side of the bolt. I am thinking at this point I will have to use a hole saw on the rear floor to get access to them.... What a nightmare, I can't believe the previous owner was stupid enough to use an SAE bolt in the OEM captured nut.
If anyone is considering a body lift I would recommend keeping it at an inch or lower and using blocks that are as wide as possible and not aluminium. I have put a lot of offroad miles on the previous owners set up and both the times I have had problems my driving was as much to blame as the body lift. I still beleieve 90% of 80 series owners would be fine running a body lift, especially if the lift is done right.
Untitled
Untitled
Untitled
