Install Day
It was finally time to get everything on the truck.
Knowing how much trimming was ahead, first we started by pulling the whole front end apart and removing the flares. This really sped things up and gave us more room to work.
We then pulled all of the old suspension out of the truck and removed the stock upper control arms. Once that was done we setup the new SPC uppers and got them installed. Now that we had the new arms in we could put the tires on and cycle them to find where they would rub. We even had a little supervision from
@
Ripcord
himself.
The problems:
It quickly became clear that I had ordered wheels with the wrong backspacing and in hindsight I wouldn't have ordered 4.75 backspaced wheels. When we went to adjust the lower control arm for the higher amount of caster, we noticed that the lower cam bolts were actually seized up as well. I decided that was a battle I would have to fight another day.
Up first was the body mount chop. We opted to go with a more aggressive cut but it should clean up nicely once I can get around to plating it. We then cut a little bit of the bottom corner of the flares. I am sure I will have to trim these quiet a bit more now with the added spacers.
Once we had it all cut, we installed the new Dobinsons coilovers. Man oh man was it a pain in the but to mount the resi's in a place that the tires could not get to. We havent totally tested it yet but we were able to fit them in the small cavity at the front of the fender. On the passenger side this location houses the washer fluid bottle.
Once I have figured out if this works I will do a more intensive write up on fitting these wheels and tires.
The next day I picked up a set of 1.25" hubcentric spacers to solve the control arm clearance issue. We also got the rear suspension installed pretty quickly after we picked up a coil spring compressor. It was great getting to see the truck finally come together and flex a little on the jack stand. We couldn't get too crazy without bump stop extensions and extended brake lines.
I then rushed the truck off to get an alignment from one of our buddies. Got a bit of bad news instead. On top of the cam bolt being seized, the tie rod inner and outers were also seized. Our buddy made a few calls and some how managed to get a parts order in just in time to get the parts delivered by early the next morning. We threw them in really quick and got the alignment squared away.
I can't thank all of my buddies enough for helping me get all of this stuff on the truck so quickly! I couldn't be happier with how it all turned out.
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Silver 2007 4Runner Limited V8 –
BUILD THREAD
Owner at Sherpa Equipment Co. (Formerly Rocky Mountain Racks)