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Rust Bucket 1st Gen Taco build thread

I posted some of this in my other panhard/drag link angle thread, but for posterity:

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I modified the other barnes panhard tower I have and got it to like half a degree difference, so that's just where it's gonna live. I lost a little bit of uptravel from the panhard being raised back up but I think the tires will likely get into the fenders before the panhard gets into the oil pan, so I'm not gonna worry about it. I do need to figure out where to land bumpstops though. Would it be super retarded to have bumpstops hit the johnny joints on the lower links? I'm not sure where else to land them, especially on the driver's side.

Another pair of u-joints on the way because I broke caps on the two I had trying to get them in the axles. I'm halfway expecting to have to buy new inner axles too because these yokes are egg shaped, but we'll see.

The other thing is that I'm strongly debating not messing with the upper link now. With the caster and pinion angle better by making the lowers longer, the 4 link calculator shows almost no change from moving the axle side link bolt back a few inches and making the link shorter, so it really doesn't seem like the juice is worth the squeeze. That gets me in the woods sooner (yes I should probably change the rod ends while I have it on jack stands, no I probably won't right now because I am lazy and want to drive this sometime this century).


Also:
thezentree said:
my also DINK lifestyle
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Kid number 1 will be here end of February.

No pressure. This is fine.
 
Honestly… I don’t see any outrageous issues with the panhard…. I personally think the issues with the Allpro kit are with the upper link. I have zero proof of that, though, as I had AddictedOffroad cut it off and put a 4wu kit on. In hindsight… I wish I had had them do minimal fix to make the geometry work. Only because using 14” CO’s make it really hard to package the brakes.

Net/net… I think you can make that work well
 
I'm pretty close to just sending it once I get the panhard mount buttoned up and the axle guts back together. Treefrog says without moving the frame side lower mounts I'm not really going to see much improvement, and I'm coming up on 9 months of this thing taking up the garage.
 
thezentree said:
I'm pretty close to just sending it once I get the panhard mount buttoned up and the axle guts back together. Treefrog says without moving the frame side lower mounts I'm not really going to see much improvement, and I'm coming up on 9 months of this thing taking up the garage.
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Only 9 months?

Shoot my xcab hasn’t been on the trail in 36+ :flipoff2:
 
rockota said:
Only 9 months?

Shoot my xcab hasn’t been on the trail in 36+ :flipoff2:
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I’m a millennial, I expect instant gratification :flipoff2:

I have no real updates other than it took way too much of a fight to get u joints in the axles and I want to bitch about it.


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The good news is that my wheelin buddies from NC are coming up this coming weekend and we’re gonna do a short notice wheeling trip in the RRG (obv I’ll be in the 4Runner again) but I’m so hyped for it.
 
Kentucky is awful, don’t come here


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I ordered coilovers for the Tacoma on Friday, Fox 2.0 remote reservoirs. Accutune talked me into 14” shocks based on my travel numbers - with the 12” shocks I have like 2.5” of unused uptravel, but only 4” of droop. The 14” shocks have a little less than an inch of travel before the panhard hits the oil pan (thisisfine.jpg) but something like 9” of droop. I know that’s a lot so I’ll probably add limit straps when I figure out how much is enough.
 
Talk me out of moving my battery to the bed and just sticking it in a plastic boat box.

The factory tray has had a lot of its structure cut out to clear the steering box, so the PO's solution to the battery trying to introduce itself to the fan was to ratchet strap it to the inner fender and wedge a plastic Hardee's cup between the terminal and the inner fender. I need to fix it before I can drive it much, but I'd need to build a tray and figure out how to brace it. Putting the battery in the front right corner of the bed gets it out of the engine compartment and shifts some weight to the right and rear. Are there better ideas for solving this problem?
 
thezentree said:
Talk me out of moving my battery to the bed and just sticking it in a plastic boat box.

The factory tray has had a lot of its structure cut out to clear the steering box, so the PO's solution to the battery trying to introduce itself to the fan was to ratchet strap it to the inner fender and wedge a plastic Hardee's cup between the terminal and the inner fender. I need to fix it before I can drive it much, but I'd need to build a tray and figure out how to brace it. Putting the battery in the front right corner of the bed gets it out of the engine compartment and shifts some weight to the right and rear. Are there better ideas for solving this problem?
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Move it before your fender starts collapsing on itself.
rockota said:
xcab has battery in bed in a TG battery cage.
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Same^, however that TG battery tray sucks dong, Barnes or even some random Amazon one works better
 
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Slander said:
Move it before your fender starts collapsing on itself.

Same^, however that TG battery tray sucks dong, Barnes or even some random Amazon ones look better
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Maybe mine's Barnes. No clue... it's covered. 🤷‍♂️
 
I put some lipstick on this pig over the last couple days.

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New spindles, stub axles, u-joints, wheel bearings and seals, calipers, rotors turned, new heims in the panhard and drag link, and cleaned and lubed the heims in the upper link and tie rod. Oh and the obligatory coat of steel-it.

I still need to center the axle under the truck, check the lower link lengths and snug the jam nuts, put gear oil in it, and bleed the brakes, and jam in the new coilovers that should be here Tuesday (should have been here yesterday but FedEx suuuuuuucks).

Insurance goes active tomorrow and I’m going to try to find time to get plates sometime this week.
 
All of the above, plus a new power steering pump done today. Just need my fucking coilovers to show up...
 
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Gawdang this thing is getting close! Spanner will be here tomorrow so I can set preload, but the shocks bolted in without any modifications to the mounts and everything seems to fit. The passenger side coil clears the frame by like 1/8” at full droop. I’m not sure about the reservoir hose but that’s how the previous shocks were set up. I guess if it’s an issue I’ll send them out to have some 90s added.

I’m gonna try to get plates in the morning, 3D print some reservoir mounts tomorrow afternoon, and hopefully get it back on it’s own weight by Friday afternoon.
 
Welp, these springs are a little too light (100/225). The upper spring is almost blocked with weight on it, and it still sits too low on the drivers side. Accutune is going to swap the springs, so slight delay on driving it, but I did get a tag for it today so it’s legal whenever I get the springs dialed.

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The reservoir mounts are printing now. They’re ASA but the passenger side is like three inches from the header so I fully expect to be figuring something else out in short order. :homer:

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Prototype from earlier today:
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If you decide to print more reservoir mounts… let me know!

Also… let us know what springs you end up with. I need to change the springs on my xtracab for the same reason. Upper is just a tender spring at this time
 
These mounts are meant to pick up an existing hole on the shock tower but they’re pretty simple, so I could change them to suit other shocks and mounts fairly easily. I’ll let yall know how these hold up once I can drive it some. I’m a little too skeptical to be sending them out yet lol

Accutune is suggesting a 14” 125 upper, keeping the 16” 225 lower, and adding a little more preload. We’ll see if 25lbs/in is enough change but they’re the experts.
 
New springs in, they seem to work ok. I need to take a little preload out of the passenger side and add a tiny bit to the drivers side but I'm happy with them. I got the power steering bled and tried to take it for a drive but it is suddenly running like straight up dogshit. It's never run great but last time I drove it it wasn't terrible. It barely runs in gear now. Luckily I'll be out of town all weekend so I can just lose sleep over what's wrong with it while I can't do anything about it. I'll throw tune up parts at it when I get back and see if that helps, because lord knows it needs it.

I'm struggling with wanting this to be an awesome truck for how much work and money I've put into it, but knowing deep down that it will never be better than mediocre collection of compromise and bad choices.
 
Plugs, wires, coils, fuel filter, and a clean MAF made no difference, which really shouldn’t surprise me. This feels Ike a fuel issue. It idles smoothly but falls on its face if I stab the gas. I can slowly rev it up with no load but it barely runs in gear. The fuel is about 10 months old, so not great but it shouldn’t be this bad, right?

I ordered a fuel pressure gauge and banjo bolt adapter, so I’ll put that after the fuel filter when it shows up. I can’t hear the fuel pump whining from the drivers seat, but it’ll sit there and idle all day, I guess it’s working?

I just wanna drive this fuckin thing, but the longer it sits in the garage, the more I want to just cut my losses and part it out.

Also, the more I look at this coilover, the less I like how much preload I’ve got on this coil, and it’s still an inch higher on the other side. I’m going to pull some preload out of the other side, but is it normal to have the lighter coil this compressed at (basically) ride height?

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Accutune says the coil being that compressed is normal, so I balanced the preload side to side and got it within a half inch or so. Good enough considering the frame isn’t perfectly straight and I think the drivers rear leaf is sagging a little. Whatever.

I got it running better earlier today. I thought the fuel pickup tube had a bend in it where the hose is clamped:

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It does not. Now that all the fuel the pump is sending is actually going to the motor, it runs a hell of a lot better. Still gonna replace this whole assembly while I’ve got it out of the tank. The pump wouldn’t turn at first when I jumped it from the battery, so I don’t trust it. Or the zip tie holding it to the bracket. Or the crimps in the wiring.

Need to rebleed the brakes since they’re still real squishy, but once those two things are done and the bed’s back on it I might actually get to drive it.
 
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I drove it to lunch today.

The new rockauto fuel pump assy did not work because every part of the fuel sender interferes with the baffle in the tank, and rockauto won’t take it back because it’s touched fuel. Awesome. I put the old pump assy back in and it works so I’ll deal with a bad pump when the time comes. It runs good now that it’s getting enough fuel. No check engine lights, doesn’t feel like it’s missing at all.

This thing is SCARY on the road. It’s hard to keep it in my lane at 35 mph. I’m going to take it to a really good alignment shop here in town and see what they can do.
 
Curious what the alignment impact is.

Mine had bad death wobble on expansion joints.
 
Those coils look very compressed to me. I had some issues with accutune as well. I don't think they're idiots or anything, but I don't trust them 100%.

There is a few guys on here with vastly more suspension knowledge than me that will hopefully chime.
 
rockota said:
Curious what the alignment impact is.

Mine had bad death wobble on expansion joints.
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It has a ton of body roll, and it feels like that’s adding steering input. I toed it in a little bit and that helped some, but not anywhere close to cured. 45 mph is scary. It doesn’t have any death wobble or noticeable bump steer, surprisingly. It just feels like you’re riding on one of those playground rides that’s mounted on a coil spring, and it darts left or right without much input.

YotaAtieToo said:
Those coils look very compressed to me. I had some issues with accutune as well. I don't think they're idiots or anything, but I don't trust them 100%.

There is a few guys on here with vastly more suspension knowledge than me that will hopefully chime.
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Tag them if you remember usernames. I want this thing to be decent and right now I hate it.
 
thezentree said:
It has a ton of body roll, and it feels like that’s adding steering input. I toed it in a little bit and that helped some, but not anywhere close to cured. 45 mph is scary. It doesn’t have any death wobble or noticeable bump steer, surprisingly. It just feels like you’re riding on one of those playground rides that’s mounted on a coil spring, and it darts left or right without much input.


Tag them if you remember usernames. I want this thing to be decent and right now I hate it.
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mobil1syn Beat95yj bdkw1
 
thezentree said:
Plugs, wires, coils, fuel filter, and a clean MAF made no difference, which really shouldn’t surprise me. This feels Ike a fuel issue. It idles smoothly but falls on its face if I stab the gas. I can slowly rev it up with no load but it barely runs in gear. The fuel is about 10 months old, so not great but it shouldn’t be this bad, right?

I ordered a fuel pressure gauge and banjo bolt adapter, so I’ll put that after the fuel filter when it shows up. I can’t hear the fuel pump whining from the drivers seat, but it’ll sit there and idle all day, I guess it’s working?

I just wanna drive this fuckin thing, but the longer it sits in the garage, the more I want to just cut my losses and part it out.

Also, the more I look at this coilover, the less I like how much preload I’ve got on this coil, and it’s still an inch higher on the other side. I’m going to pull some preload out of the other side, but is it normal to have the lighter coil this compressed at (basically) ride height?

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it is possible that whoever did your spring calculations made a mistake. Or possibly you weighed the vehicle while it was partially assembled.

Those springs are too light and have too much preload. at least by conventional wisdom. If you were doing something odd, then there might be a reason for it.

Either way it’s time to measure the bottom spring and see what your actual corner weights are, then you can recalculate your spring rates

Post up your spring rates, spring lengths, installed heights, shock travel desired at ride height (bump and droop)

Also, if you think you have roll steer can be a geometry issue. It’s common with parallel lowers.

Also, for what it’s worth my upper is almost at block like what you show, but I have a very light rate and really only use the upper as a tender. My jeep has about 1 inch of bump the dual rate stop it’s not for everybody but it does some things that I like. Like being able to load it fully when I’m driving to a trail, unload it and have similar ride height.
 
Beat95yj said:
it is possible that whoever did your spring calculations made a mistake. Or possibly you weighed the vehicle while it was partially assembled.

Those springs are too light and have too much preload. at least by conventional wisdom. If you were doing something odd, then there might be a reason for it.

Either way it’s time to measure the bottom spring and see what your actual corner weights are, then you can recalculate your spring rates

Post up your spring rates, spring lengths, installed heights, shock travel desired at ride height (bump and droop)

Also, if you think you have roll steer can be a geometry issue. It’s common with parallel lowers.

Also, for what it’s worth my upper is almost at block like what you show, but I have a very light rate and really only use the upper as a tender. My jeep has about 1 inch of bump the dual rate stop it’s not for everybody but it does some things that I like. Like being able to load it fully when I’m driving to a trail, unload it and have similar ride height.
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bdkw1 said:
Holy shit no. Just no.

What valving? Preload? Uptravel/shock length?
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These are Fox 2.0x14s. I don't have corner scales so I gave Accutune the details on the truck and they estimated based on the parts. I started at 14" 100lbs uppers and 16" 225lbs lowers. The coil was almost at block, so I took more measurements and sent them back to Accutune and they recommended 125lbs uppers, which is what you see here. It looked wrong to me so I sent them a pic and they told me it was normal. For what it's worth their weight estimate based on my measurements for the first set of springs was 950lbs LF and 875lbs RF sprung weight. No idea what the valving numbers are, but it's their "performance" offroad valve stack.

It's got about 5" of shock shaft showing at ride height with ~2" of preload on the drivers side and maybe 0.5" preload on the passenger side. The rear frame isn't perfectly flat and I think the drivers rear leaf is sagging, so that contributes to the lean. The panhard gets into the oil pan before the shocks bottom out (don't judge me, the truck came like that.

I'll get more measurements tomorrow when it's not raining.

I appreciate any input y'all have. Right now I want to set it on fire.
 
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