What have you done to your 1st gen Tundra today?

Got the rear shocks replaced. One step closer to the rear suspension being done. I did each side during my son’s nap. So that was a big success.

 

Sweet upgrade!
How much those set ya back?
One of these.days I need to replace my Bilstein 5169's with some decent 2.5" diameter shocks. Maybe with some reservoirs. But then I'd feel obligated to add reservoirs to my King coilovers when it's time to rebuild em in the next few years.

 

ive been trying to replace my rear shocks for weeks now. I go out and mess with it every few days but I cannot get the top nut off the passenger side. I spray it with pb blaster and give it a shot but can’t get anything to really hold the shaft so I can break the but loose. Driving me nuts

 

Have you tried putting an Allen wrench into the top of the shaft, then wrenching the top nut?

Another option is

 

I like em

 

yo where did you get that red hazard button?

 

That’s the OG Tundra hazard button

 

Reporting back after 6112, UBJ, LBJ and Tie Rod end replacements and driving a bit:

Overall - huge improvement in ride quality.

1. Front end now feels "Factory" - was loosey/goosey before - - the UBJs were original, I believe. 140K miles on truck. Had PO new Moog's on the bottom - replaced. Nothing "appeared" loose on the BJs on physical inspection, but it drives amazing now.
2. IMHO, do yourself a favor and just remove the steering knuckle/hub if you are doing the UBJs - you can set you press in a vice, etc. (see pic). BTW - avoid your impact wrench on this.
3. 6112s are feeling great - happy with the swap. The 5/3 clip seems to have leveled and provides a really nice ~1-1.5" lift.
4. Got rid of the wheel spacers (previously 285's w/ 4Runner TRD wheels) and went with the TRD Pro wheels and 255/80R17 Falken Wildpeaks.





Next up: 1. Getting the dual batter system attached to outlets inside cab for fridge. 2. Making a platform for the back area that is level with storage for fridge / dog bed.

 

Thanks Shifty!

The angle iron is just a temp brace for the topside of the frame. My old man joked that it was going to peel apart like a banana when I pulled the spare tire crossmember. The hitch is controlling any movement on the bottom side.

Ultrawide camera and a slightly skewed perspective makes all the angles look wonky. Interestingly enough did anyone know the pinion is offset to the passenger side 1" and some change?

I'm not even mad, Im impressed.

 

Oh shit, here we go again….

 

Ask Beau, it was when we installed the HD leaf packs on his truck haha

 

Wait, why’d you need to paint it though? Was the original single stage paint blown thru, down to the primer? Or was it just chalked? White trucks are all from the factory with single stage and can be buffed back to clear with less than $100 in supplies. @FirstGenVol and I both had white trucks that looked like a piece of chalk, and with simple tools, got it shiny again. Here’s a shot midway thru on mine, with the cab still matte, and the bed shiny as hell: https://www.tundras.com/post/1814972

 

Dremel with a cutoff disc to cut thru the nut. It’ll spin or bang right off at the split.

Didn’t know that about the pinion favoring one side. Recognized the angle purpose, your pops is right, that and jack stands to support rails is one of those “if you don’t do this, you’re fucked” things I’ve had to do with trucks I’ve notched and bagged in the past. I failed to notice there was no spare tire xmember, holy crap! I doubt it’d have peeled like a banana, but I wouldn’t risk potential twist that’d be a pain to resolve later. Anyway, was just curious, didn’t know if you had intentions to build something up off the frame rails back there, or if it was purely to stabilize the rails.

I assumed he drew the arrows on his for a reason. I do the same on all my leaf packs, I always draw an arrow, and if they are t universal, I’ll put an L/R or D/P designation on each.

Definitely pull the knuckle, even for 4WD, makes it hella easier. Smart move!

And to that point, for reference, questions:

Are you 4WD?

Can you share a pic from the side vs. at an angle, while you’re on flat ground?

Did you take before/after measures so you knew how much higher you are now?

What is your current measure up front, on flat ground, from the concrete to the bottom edge of the fender flare?

 

Luckily these actually came off just fine. I used some big vice grips to hold the shock shaft and a ratcheting 14mm wrench to get the nut off. @455h0le_dachshund is right though. Bring out the sawzall or if the shocks are totally rusted I’ve bent them back and forth until the shaft snapped.

 

These came out less expensive since they don’t have the DSC. I decided to give Fox a try on this truck to try something new and they’re cheaper than ADS. I got some input from @daveeasa and they’re for a 2005 Tacoma but Accutune re-valved them for my tundra.
I still need to find a permanent spot for the reservoirs and pull the damn blocks out. Then of course find time to do the fronts.

 

What's DSC?

 

Dual speed compression. One knob for slow compression stiffness, one for high.

I should try adjusting mine more. I have all 3 trucks on full soft.

basically one adjustment for speed bumps on pavement and one for washboard gravel roads at 40 mph.

 

If the existing shocks are toast just cut them out and be done with it.

 

Let my FGT rest at home and took this beast out for the holiday weekend. A little different than driving the Tundra...

Manual transmission, definitely geared for towing. Diesel.

 

@shifty`

Questions:

Are you 4WD? Yes

Can you share a pic from the side vs. at an angle, while you’re on flat ground?

Will do, but have a thunderstorm here right now.

Did you take before/after measures so you knew how much higher you are now?

I bought the truck with 5100s on them, already lifted, but also didn't measure.

What is your current measure up front, on flat ground, from the concrete to the bottom edge of the fender flare?

37.5" on the fronts

The backend springs are the General Spring's "2000 - 2006 Toyota Tundra heavy duty rear leaf spring, 5(4/1) leaves."

 

Getting caught up

these work really good for coilover application. The 3 and 4 link prerunner guys use these just cause we’re talking 18”+ of travel accessible REALLY fast which makes it body roll like hell on the street. I had a brief conversation with my fabricator a couple weeks back about it while he had one mocked up on his personal build. Having personal seat time in a leaf spring truck and as much as my personal truck rolls (a lot tbh) I don’t think I’d personally run one on a leaf sprung truck.

That being said… if I were to run one that’s the setup I’d use haha. Probably have it mounted at the rear of the axle and arms pointed forwards towards the cab. Kill two birds with one stone having the sway bar and additional chassis bracing. Maybe a third one with having it slightly forward of the leaf hangers and brace that up too with a triangulated gusset rearward at the shackle bolt and squeeze the arms between the leaf and the frame.

Pic for the idea.

 

I agree about the factory white being single stage. Mine just had lots of dings and rock chips and small gouges and scratches etc from 20 years of nature. Now it has enough paint on it that it won't burn through when I buff it in a few years. After painting I installed new OEM headlights and turn signal lamps. I'm looking for a steel front bumper with hardware to replace the bulbous bumper cover.

 

I cut/fit these frame boxing plates to box the rear frame from the gas tank crossmember to the end of the frame.


A little bit of a tricky fit as the top and bottom flanges of the frame are not identical. This will give me a good starting point for the tubular crossmember/shock mount.
I wire wheeled/ospho'd/and rattle canned everything before tacking them into place. I'll treat the box section every so often to keep the rust at bay.

Thinking something like this for the crossmember. The shock mount will intersect this x somewhere around the white marks on the frame rails. Which reminds me I still need to check the shock length and get those ordered. I already picked up a stick of 1 1/4 x .125 wall seamless for the tube work, so I'll dive into that in the morning.


Think I'll lay on the couch the rest of the day.

@khooiii You just have a short turndown off your muffler right? Hows that sound? Not trynna' hear this thing drone, but the stock exhaust passes right through prime shock mounting territory.

 

As one person pointed out it’s a little gimmicky because you can’t adjust rebound. So that aspect doesn’t change at all. But I’m interested to see what the changes actually feel like.

 

Like a TANK. Impressive
Put Zerks every 12" and fill that boxed in frame full of grease. For eva eva rustproofed.

 

Looking real nice! Flatbed conversion may be something I look at doing in the future. Keep it up man.

 

This is what I was suggesting for a better visual.

also making something like this to mate to the rear shackle bolt to brace it. It’d be super tight packaging but it’s been considerations for my truck if I go to a linked setup myself.

So my truck is pretty loud, but not straight pipe loud. It’s got little bottle cats from the kid that had it prior and I added a 14” magnaflow dual in single out. I had it dumped after axle and then had to dump it before the axle with the shock relocation. For whatever reason it was quieter than the dump after the axle. My wife doesn’t complain so we’re in the green. I’m going to put the exhaust through the bed though.

 

so I did a little tuning with my buddy’s GX with his Fox dsc up front and radflo triple bypass out back. I feel like the Fox shocks are pretty soft cause we turned his up basically all the way. Now our trucks are notoriously stiffer in that department so I can see how you’re comfortable with softest settings. I’d leave the low speed all the way if it’s comfortable as is. Bump the high speed and go smash speed bumps and see if you can pickup stability and comfort. The low speed is nice for weight cause you can stiffen it to take out the body roll especially in the rear. It’ll give you that sway bar feeling even if you don’t have them.

Suspension feel is all subjective, but best advice is tune for stability and compliance at your own comfort level how having the truck get squirrelly or with you pushing it. Turn it up 2-3 clicks at a time to get that rapid adjustment then turn it back 1-2 until it’s dialed.

 

As mentioned, with video over here, during the holiday brake I'd intended to give a go with "JB Weld as filler/skim".

I hope this doesn't end up being a colossal failure, but I'm not going to try grating into it until it's had a couple extra days to set. First step was to sand everything down, see what I'm working with. Then rasp the holes. Then clean, and degrease it all. I felt like I needed to be a little more precise than I'd be able to get with the old JB-Weld-in-a-bag trick (where you weigh both parts into sandwich bag, mix in the bag, cut the corner and pipe it out), so I bag-mixed and piped into a 20ml baby meds syringe, foil taped the back of the holes, and spot-filled everything. It's a little loose, so you can't use a spatula with this very easily, it doesn't hold like filler. Smoothed after as shown in the video, enough to knock down the high spots, but had to be careful because if you brush over a hole, natural suction makes a divot.

I'll requote this later after I rasp it all down with a before/after. This will either be a total fail, or a total win. At worst though, the holes are completely filled without air pockets, so worst case I'll need to buy actual filler, spend a lot more time sanding, and skim coat it a few times.

​

 

Anyone have any ideas..... Remnants of my coworkers handiwork. Apparently he wasn't as tactful with repairs as I thought he was.


These were both of my ideas.