4" Rough Country Lift w/ Build

Heads up this will be a long post, but Hello everyone. My name is Tyler, new Tundra owner. I am a fellow member from over at tacomaworld.com I have owned my 2002 Tacoma since I was 15. I finally stepped into a 2016 Toyota Tundra Limited Midnight Black. Sorry for no pictures as of now, I know I'm failing you all with no pictures but I promise they are coming.

On to the important part of this post. Thanks to everyone that is involved on here. I have learned so much from you guys in the short time I have been on here but most of my experience over the years comes from over at TW but I am part of you all now too. I want to share my experience with the matter of a lift kit now though. I lifted my Tacoma back in 2013 with a toytec/eibach/bilstein/aal setup. I have blowed probably a dozen CV axle boots due to the angles. So I decided its probably worth the extra hassle at the beginning to install a differential drop bracket lift. I know everyone has their own opinions of this debate of lift kits and which are better for purpose and the money and blah blah blah. This truck lift will not see any hard wheeling, I have a Jeep and my Tacoma for that, I mostly am after the appearance and stance for this truck. After all the reading and research I found very little info on a 4" drop bracket kit so I have been comparing everything I could to the 6" kit. I know anyone who has installed anything rough country knows the instructions lack a little on detail for those not as mechanically inclined. But I will do my best to guide you all through my experience over the last 2 weeks with installing mine as this is the second one I have done, the first was on a chevy Silverado 1500.

Price wise rough country seems to be one of the cheapest of the bunch of options out there. and I purchased mine from my local rough country dealer out the door at $1050. the install fee would have been around $500 for anyone wondering that as well.

Expect it to take anywhere from 10-12hrs maybe longer. my install has been stretched out over about 2 weeks due to various problems I have ran into along with life getting in the way. But as of Monday, the front has finally been installed. But I cant even begin to list the tools needed to do this job as the list is long and could be unique according to what each person might have in their tool box.

The obvious is to take everything off the truck that is going to be replaced and make sure you have either a great memory or good pictures of all the pieces that are removed and where they go back to or where they install into the new parts of the lift kit, there will be a few left over bolts and brackets from the differential when you are finished. The first problem I ran into was the CV axle nut. I know this has been asked plenty of times but Ill answer it again. The needed socket is a 39mm 12 point socket. I searched every store I could think of, I even called some of my local mechanics that I am friends with and had no luck finding one close to my house. Autozone and many other parts stores do rent out an axle nut socket set. The price was around $84 to rent the tool set and a full refund once returned un-damaged. I did purchase my own off Amazon after I found what I needed. It was about $16 for it. The next problem I ran into was the axle splines were not moving out of the hub. DO NOT REMOVE THE AXLE FROM THE DIFFERENTIAL HOUSING!!! I first just removed the axle from differential housing and lost about a cup of diff oil. I then had to borrow a 6" puller to push the hub/axle apart to remove them from the spindles. The instructions say to just tap it free with a deadblow/rubber mallet but I could not physically hit them any harder to free them.

Enough of the problems for now. I know the next part of install is the dreaded thought, the oh my gosh, I have to cut the cross member out of the truck. Ill report back soon on how mine is holding up after cutting the rear cross member out. The reason this has to be done is to have clearance for the front drive shaft where the differential now sets lower. This took a little time but was not a hard job just grab the saw-zall and get to cutting, after measuring of course. I did run into an issue after I started to install the new drop brackets due to a bag of missing bolts and brackets. Apparently one of the boxes busted while at UPS and not everything got packaged back up. This did slow me down about 2 days having to wait on new parts to arrive from RC but there was no issues when I called my buddy at the shop I bought it off of to tell him I didnt have everything.

2 days later I recieved all the parts that I was missing. After installing everything under the truck I started installing the new extended spindles or steering knuckles what ever you prefer to call them. I did run into a few issues of my own stupidity and lack of paying attention to removing the dust seal or wheel seal that installs into the back side of the spindle and protects the inside of the bearing where the CV axle also rides. There is 2 part numbers that go here one of these seals goes on the CV axle with the rubber seal facing towards the hub and the other one goes with the rubber facing inside the hub and the metal lip goes against the one that is seated on the CV axle. The outer seal (By outer I mean it goes away from the truck, and seats inside the spindle you'll see this when you tap the old one out) if it was to get damaged the part number is 710626 it took some digging to find this number for the right seal. The inner seal (goes on the CV axle closer to the truck) the part number for this one is a 710569, this seal should stay seated on the CV axle and not have to be removed. I will do my best to get some pictures posted soon to better show details. Hope this helps and please ask for any questions I can try to help with.

 

Any pics?

 

Dang...short post! Welcome from Colorado. Blaaaack....

 

Sorry no pics tonight I will try to get them tomorrow I am planning to start on the rear lift tomorrow. I am still waiting to get the wheels and tires mounted too. I sold the stock tires that it had on it. so right now its setting on jack stands all the way around until this weekend.

 

The juice will be worth the squeeze! Update us when it's all dialed in! Photos, or it's just a long first post! ;-)

 

Welcome from Nevada, Tyler.
Can’t wait for those oics.

 

Welcome from AZ.

 

Welcome from SoCal!

 

Welcome from Ventura California..almost fell asleep..

 

Ain’t going to lie, I didn’t read all that shit. I went straight to the comments

Welcome from SoCal sir

 

I know. Its a terrible first post. I promise I will get pictures up!!! But I appreciate the welcomes. I knew I had to take one for the team with my own struggles to make everyone else's life easier after not being able to find the info I was looking for.

 

There I got yall a picture up of the beautiful beast the morning after I got it.

 

..more pics of install?

 

Ill have them this afternoon after work!

 

Welcome from Ohio.

 

It’s ok Tyler, get it out! Picture heavy posts get our attention the best LOL! Because we’re just big kids.

It’s definitely a good thing you want to contribute. We always need that. I can guarantee you someone will have questions about that particular lift in the future, and you will have firsthand knowledge to help them out.

 

Welcome from Middle Tn, looks like you’re off to a good start.

 

Pics!!!

 

The time has arrived y’all. Here is the finished product. I will get the rest of the small detail stuff and pictures soon. Very happy with how the truck has turned out so far though.

 

I am still a kid. I’m only 24!

 

Looks killer! The rims it had before are definitely not my favorite.

 

Just an update for yall on the lift and everything, I had it aligned last Monday the guys did a great job and didn't tell me if they ran into any problems with alignment so take that as good. I drove it from Kentucky to Alabama and home over the weekend hauling a small enclosed. Should have a little over 1000 miles on everything now. The tires need to settle in a little more as it has a little bit of a shimmy at certain speeds but other than that there is minor rubbing occurring now after the bumper trim and I also had to trim the plastic fender liners down some also.

 

Good job looks nice

 

Hey yall, wanted to update about the wheel setup too, just seen a post that was about a wheel question. I know its common to have questions of what wheels will fit with what lift and what tire size and all that jazz. so these wheels are Fuel Coupler D575's they are 20x10 wheels with -24mm offset, and 4.5" BS, so they set outside the fender line by about an 1" to 1 1/2" the tires are nitto ridge grappler 35x12.50x20's the rubbing was on the bottom of the front bumper where the foglight brackets mount and on the back where the pinch weld for the body is and the body mount. a body mount chop will be needed later on but for now I can just handle the slight rub it has. hope this helps someone. I know its a serious issue with wheel and tire rubbing issues.

 

I guess this thread will become my build page over time too. I added another asset to the truck lastnight. I got these Rough Country 2-step bars from my local dealer as well. I gave just a little over his cost. Typically $399.98 on RC website, so I save a few $$'s. I also added my windshield sticker, and did the green letters on the grille.

 

Looking good brother. I have had my 6" RC lift on my truck for about 30k miles no issues. Your truck is looking great keep the pics coming! Welcome from Indiana!

 

Four inch lift on a black Tundra will be a little dangerous.

Careful of the speed

 

i see you're relatively new here so maybe you haven't picked up on it yet. mgm is the fastestest. forever and always. someday, hopefully soon, all of you will figure that out.

 

My buddy called it the tank the other night as I took a 90 degree turn at about 30mph on a wet one lane side road. He was amazed at how well the truck, lifted with 35" nitto ridge grapplers hugs the road. Never even tried to spin.