Problems with Tuff Country Lift

Hello,

This is my first post on this form.

looking for some help or recommendations

I have a 2004 Tundra Limited DC 4x4 and around a year ago lifted it with the Tuff Country 4.5-5” lift kit. First of all, the process was not smooth and I would not recommend this kit. Since I am past the point of return I think I’m stuck with it.

When I installed the kit the truck already had bilstein leveling coils in the front set to around a 1.63 inch lift, since I was cheap I left it alone when installing the lift and just went with it.

The ride quality was never great with them and the suspension angles were pretty bad, so with the recent advanced auto closing sales on the west coast, I bought some stock level coils to replace on the front.

I thought that would make the truck level because I would expect the tuff country kit to level out the truck, but instead the truck was super low in front after installation.

I don’t want to spend too much money on this lift and now I don’t know if I want to just reinstall the bilstein leveling shocks (that I wouldn’t think would be needed with the lift kit) or if I should find some other solution.

If anyone else has experience with this type of stuff help would be greatly appreciated, sorry for all the text but I wanted to add some context of the journey.

Thanks.

 

So the truck currently has bilstein shocks with factory equivalent springs?

What is on the truck right now?

The Tuff country stuff?

 

Yea sorry for the confusion, at this point it confuses me as well sometimes


It has all the tuff country lift stuff,

and then bilstein 5100s on the 3rd circlip, giving it 1.63 inches extra of lift on top of the front tuff country lift spacer. I used the stock Toyota coilover springs for those shocks.

rear is just stock leaf packs with the block that came with the lift.

 

Start here ->
https://www.tundras.com/threads/so-you-wanna-buy-just-bought-a-1st-gen-tundra-eh.115928/

Now, I'm gonna hurt your feelings.

Tuff country makes hot garbage, steaming piles of fresh shit. There have been multiple people come on here that have absolutely trashed their trucks with Tuff country stuff because of the lift spacers ruining angles making things hit that arent supposed to hit (sway bar links to lower control arm, etc) or the steering knuckles bending.

To make the most of your predicament you've put yourself in, you need lift springs such as Old man Emu, or Dobinsons to get any sort of improvement on your suspension angles. The stock springs simply can't raise your truck up enough to match what spacers are doing.

That's the cheapest solution.

The best solution for longevity is to replace any of their items on your truck with something that's going to last, and be safe.

If you want proper lift in the rear, you need lift leaf springs from a reputable company such as alcan or deaver.

If you want proper lift in the front, there's a multitude of options to choose from. Spacers are not your friend.

 

How did you get “stock coils” from advanced auto? What coils were on it before? The 5100s use the stock coils to begin with, what coils were on it? Why not just lower the circlip to the bottom location to minimize the lift from the 5100s to start with? Need pictures to figure out what all this mess means.

 

yea it’s definitely a mess,
let me try to make it less confusing,

Before I even put the tuff country lift on, I had bilstein 5100 leveling shocks in the front already installed. The type where you just move the circlip and put a spring on them. I left those on after installing the lift and the truck looked great, perfectly level, I found this weird because I thought it would be level with stock suspension like advertised.

Ride was pretty bad and one of the shocks was leaking, so I was looking to go back to stock height coil overs in the front.

advanced auto sells monroe stock 04 tundra coils so I went with those.

I assumed the truck would be level because the tuff country kit advertises using stock springs/ shocks in the front, but it’s not.

 

At this point my feelings can’t get hurt,

There’s a company called freedom off-road that sells 0-4 inch lift adjustable coilovers for the front. I don’t think I could run those with the spacer but maybe these would put me at a decent height without any spacer in the front.

 

Monroe and stock do not go together. Those Quickstruts are aftermarket strut of mediocre quality and coil of even less quality and far from OEM spec. They are also hot garbage, compounding your Tuff country hot garbage mess even further.

 

So you have a tuff country drop bracket lift in front, with I'm assuming some spacers on top of what ever coils and shocks you've got and stock upper control arms, right?

So the rear I'm assuming is just the stock leaf packs with some insanely large lift blocks, yeah?

 

We need to see what kit you have and what it includes and what you have installed currently. But I'm feeling lucky and betting what I described above is pretty accurate to your situation.

Did you have to cut part of your subframe off to mount the drop bracket lift?

If so, you are indeed past the point of no.retuen unless you're a good welder/fabricator

Being as it's a 4+ inch lift, it's 99% a drop bracket.
50/50 at best as to whether it required cutting the sub frame, but likely did.
I think those kits also come with upper ball joints spacers maybe

 

I think you're confusing Rough Country with Tuff Country.

The Tuff Country kit, it's a bracket lift. You must permanently modify the truck, to the point you can't return it to stock height again. Cutting into front/center crossmember. And with the 4.5" kit specifically, it uses those super-sketchy spindle spacers. The 5" uses a contiguous knuckle IIRC, and is the better buy. But with any of the bracket lift, you're going higher while keeping the CV angles more neutral, which is actually great from a longevity perspective. I just wouldn't want to do irreversible shit to my truck because ... well, I guess you could weld in a donor center crossmember, but it's my daily driver and I like having a fallback/reversible option.

@Ct03 we really need pictures here, if you genuinely need/want help. It's going to show/tell us more than your words are.

 

Another option for lift springs. We have company in Tucson, Az spring company. They can make or modify leaf springs and spring packs. You can get exact lift and load specs built in to the packs. There’s likely a business similar to them near your location. There’s shipping on spring packs is what gets expensive, but alcan and the others are top gear. Hope you sort your issues and get to enjoy your rig

 

I mean ... Both make sub par products in general

But which ever one's makes the drop bracket lift could be redeemed with the right shocks and springs, UCAs, ECT..

 

I want to see what this abomination looks like. No offense to OP.

 

+1 on what @KNABORES said about the springs. I had that 4.5 on my truck with factory coil-overs and it sat pretty damn level. Still ride but level. Get some pictures up of the front end suspension cuz thats likely where your problem is. Maybe a side shot of whole truck with some measurements from center hub to fender front and back.

 

Thank you everyone for your replies.

it is the 5 inch kit that requires the sub frame cut out and comes with new bigger spindles. It has a spacer above the coilover in the front and a block in the back on the leaf. I’ll get some pictures of the suspension later today.

I do have some pictures of how it sat with the Bilstein leveling shocks and the 5 inch.

Also a photo from before the lift with just the Bilstein leveling shock
and the tuff country sub frame while the install was happening


I’ll get some more photos, I don’t have a picture of when I put those Monroe’s on but it was pretty damn low in the front, you guys are probably right about them being terrible.

 

Ah, so this 5" lift doesn't require cuttin the crossmember? Maybe it's only the RCD kit that does... I swore they both did. But that looks like a bolt-on bracket.

I want to see the knuckles.

 

Do you need to get your eyes checked or your tape measure calibrated? The front is higher than the rear, by a fair margin.

 

That’s why he started the thread

 

I would say that’s how a leveled truck should look. The side view picture looked a little higher in the front because the ground was uneven there.

Even if it is up a tiny bit I would say it helps get rid of the natural rake of the truck.

I think I’m going to stick with the Bilstein leveling shocks and look for some extended control arms.

 

But it would appear he’s confused and complaining about the front being too low ? Am I right ?

Well, ground level or not you can clearly and visually see the front is up about 2” higher than the rear.
One thing about these trucks and most Toyota’s is that the rocker panel and the bedside are at different angles. If you want the rocker / running board level the bed will actually be tilted upward in the rear. The bedside isn’t normally level with the rocker panel so a truck that is “level” meaning the frame / rockers / running boards being level with the ground typically means the bedside is going to be tilted up in the rear
AND
The height of the front tire to the fender will be different than the rear tire to the fender.

If you’re wanting to go visually off the fender to tire clearance and have the same size gap between the front and rear tire and the fender then you’re gonna have the ass end squatting and the bedside will be angled downward in the rear.

To get this truck “level” and I mean the frame rail and rocker level with the ground you’re gonna have about 3/4” higher on fender clearance in the rear to the tire than you will in the front and the rear bedside will be about 1/2” high in the rear versus the front.

Measure your ground to fender clearances right now and I’d bet you’re every bit of 2” higher in the front than the rear. This is a nose high pitch by a fair margin and not what I would call level and certainly not consider that low in the front.

 

Nah, it needs cut. Something's amiss..those spindles look small on top for the 5" compared to the ones I got. Maybe it's just the photo?

 

Yea that photo of the suspension didn’t have the new spindle in it. I’ll post some photos of the current setup. And yes the crossmember did need to be cut, I said it in that post but called it the subframe on accident


This lift right here(not sure if it was this vendor)
https://www.customwheeloffset.com/s...country-5-lift-kit-2004-toyota-tundra-2wd-4wd

 

I feel like the truck in the ad in the OP's link has about the same stance as the pics the OP posted which would make me think it's sitting as should be expected.

 

That's about what I was imagining.

If the front is higher than you want or lower than you want, why not adjust the 5100's? Oh yeah you said one was leaking. NVM.

Or better option:
Buy some adjustable coilovers meant for 4-6in drop bracket lifts and ditch the top hat spacers.
I believe Bilstein and the big racing companies (King, Icon, Fox, etc) all offer extended length front shocks for this situation.

 

This is what I did but I had the 4.5 inch. I can measure if it helps ya out..

 

I had this same kit installed on my 03. After a month or so I decided to salvage as much of my bad decision as possible, even looking into trying to get a replacement stock crossmember re-installed. Ultimately, I now run King extended length shocks and coils (front), Camburg UCA, Archive Garage shackle flip w/ 6" shackles, and a custom Deaver leaf pack.

I've been on the tuff country rear shocks this entire time but they're useless anymore, the rear now sags a couple inches, so I'll be swapping them out for Kings once I install my relocation kit.

 

I’ve actually had a drop bracket reversed. It was not cheap and you need a very talented fabricator to do it. I basically interviewed guys before I signed up because I was pretty nervous, but it can be done and done well. In the end it was solid even after the truck got totaled. I think the crossmember work cost me around 1100? Worth every penny though.

 

That’s cool to know that such a lift mod is reversible.