3-1 leveling kit question

Hi all. Long time listener 1st time caller. I finally had to sell my jeep and upgraded to a tundra because we bought a bigger camper and I needed a better vehicle to tow. I've always had Tacomas too but this is my first tundra. Having had jeeps for years I am no stranger to doing mods, and sometimes those mods opening up a can of worms that require yet even more mods. I was hoping that with this Tundra I was going to keep it pretty simple because I need to log more highway miles towing a camper where as my jeep was more for offload. Anyway I couldn't keep it stock so I added a 3-1 leveling kit and bought new wheels and tires. Since installing I have had a really annoying shimmy in my steering wheel when driving on smooth roads. In addition to this I also get a horrible noise when my wheel is turned all the way possible and moving forward at slow speeds, weird thing is doesn't happen in reverse. I have had an alignment and my tires rebalanced to try to correct all of this but nothing seems to fix it. Its pretty frustrating because I only have about 7k miles and I plan on keeping this baby for a while so I really want to figure out what's going on. Im wondering is this like my jeep and maybe it changed the geometry too much and maybe I should have got a shorter leveling kit or could something else be off? Any help would be much appreciated! I know budget lifts and leveling kits gets cover a lot so I apologize in advance for yet another leveling kit question. I could not find any answers specific to my issues though.

 

You are probably rubbing either the front or the rear flaps.

 

No I dealt with that already and I removed the front ones because of that. This is more of a metal clinking type sound

 

Agree with the rubbing creating the sound you're hearing when moving forward. There are lots of really knowledgeable people on this forum, if you can provide the details of the wheel size, tire size, use of spacers, who installed the leveling kit (you? shop?) etc.. You'll get more useful feedback.

The shimmy you are experiencing could be a couple different things. Was everything torqued properly during the install? Rechecking that would be a good place to start. Could be a bad tire.

You said you had alignment and tire balancing done. I just went through this same thing, with different symptoms that you have. I noticed wear on front left tire immediately after the Toyota dealership I purchased truck from installed a 3/2 level kit, new wheels and tires. The shop claimed to have aligned and balanced. I drove the truck (still less than 2k miles total on truck) for a week or so to try and figure out as much as possible before taking any action. I decided to take it to a trusted local shop that does lift, wheels, mods and so on that I've used for years with all my trucks. What they found was that the front left wheel was severely out of alignment, the same wheel was also 2oz. off on the balance.

After alignment and re-balancing ALL of the wheel things are fine. If you 100% trust whoever did the alignment and balancing, not sure what your next step is. If you DO NOT really know/trust them, take it elsewhere and have it done again.

 

Thanks for this thorough reply. I had a rough country 3/1 leveling kit, XD 18” wheels and nitro ridge grappler lt285-65r18’s installed by a local shop. I know the guy and they do lots of work on our landscape trucks and they are always building mud trucks for themselves so they are a somewhat reputable garage. I am no mechanic more of a gardener so I don’t work on my vehicles. I am assuming things were torqued right but I have no way to actually know that. That same garage aligned and balanced everything. Then I went to just a local Macco garage to triple check alignment and tire balancing. All those numbers came back fine sort of confirming that the balance and alignment was right from the get go. I am about to take it back to the guy who installed everything but I want to try to learn more before I just went back to them without having done my homework. I will say I am losing confidence in them as I drive around so if anyone in central jersey or Philadelphia area is highly recommended I would go to them at this point. I just hate feeling like I messed this truck up when it still smells like a new car but drives like ass

 

Definitely take it back to the installer and since they do work for you on other vehicles I'm sure they'll want to figure things out and make it right. Do you still have the OEM wheels/tires?? If so, remove the new ones and run the originals, see if that shimmy is still there. If so, then something is up with the 3/1 install. If not, then it's likely a bad tire (it happens). Good luck.

 

Great advice. I do still have the other tires and wheels so I’ll take them and give that a try. Thanks so much for your input! Much appreciated!

 

AH I went back to the garage today and they informed me they are shutting down their business. It was a bit weird as we just had another truck in there getting service a few days before. So unfortunately it does not appear that they are going to be much of a help. So if anyone has any recommendations of shops in Central NJ or in eastern PA that would be much appreciated.