Again. Not much is happening but some things are making small progress. Still haven’t driven it yet since I did the 4 link. Been crazy busy the past few weeks and spent a bunch of money on other life things that take priority over the 4runner. Fuel pump is definitely dead. I pulled all the fuel lines to see if I hooked something up backwards by accident. Still no fuel pressure. So I still need a new fuel pump before I can drive it.
Since it’s been down, and I’ve been trying not to spend any more money, I figured I might as well start making room for tires. Since I pushed my axle back a few inches and I will be getting a couple more inches of up travel, I will need to do some serious clearancing to clear the body. First thing I did was pull the coils and old bump stops last night and started cycling the suspension. I quickly found out that something was stopping my up travel. My shocks still had 2” of shock shaft left but the axle wasn’t going up anymore. I got under and saw that my truss was hitting the body under the floor of the cargo area. I kinda knew this was going to happen but didn’t think it was going to be that significant. I figured I’d just cut a little of that brace out and have plenty of room.
So at this point I had a couple options and none of them I was a big fan of.
1) I could just extend my bump stops and lose some of the potential shock travel.
2) I could raise my lower shock mounts along with bumps to limit my up travel but increase my down travel and still use all my potential shock travel.
3) I could cut out the body where things are hitting.
Obviously I considered all my options and listened to my gut instinct.
Naturally I pulled out the saw and got to cutting the body out of the way. I started by marking the general section that needed to be cut out. Then got a drill bit and drill some holes from the bottom up so I knew where to start cutting from the top. Then grabbed the battery powered sawsall and started the first cut. The battery was almost dead and couldn’t get through more than a couple inches before completely dying, so I went to grab a new battery off the charger. Charger was never plugged in and none of the other 3 batteries were charged. I was kind of annoyed but I probably had no one else to blame but myself. So I grabbed the angle grinder and got a little further before the already small cutting wheel was too small to cut with. I went to reach for a new one but I had no more left. Can’t blame anyone but myself for not buying more when I knew I was using the last one last time I used it. So I grabbed the corded sawsall and realized that I broke a blade off inside the chuck and couldn’t get the broken piece out last time I used it cutting off the crossmembers. Now I was just a little more annoyed but again, I had no one else to blame. So I pulled some things apart and got the broken piece out relatively quickly. Back to cutting I went. A few minutes later, I had a nice hole in the floor of my cargo area.
I immediately jacked the axle up to check for clearance. First thing to hit now was the tires on the fender. Not a big deal at all since I was planning on cutting that stuff out soon anyways. So I pulled the tires to see what hits next. Good news is it was the stock bump stop mount that was touching the LCA mount on the axle. That will be getting cut off soon too since I have those hydro bumps I will be swapping in it’s place. At this point I only have maybe 1/2” of shock shaft showing. Basically that is where I will set my bump. I was also touching the upper link on the body underneath the rear passenger seat where the stock jack sits. Quick work with a hammer and 2x4, I was able to make a small dent to let it clear easily.
The upper links/truss only stick up into the cab about 1/2”. Not bad..
While I was at it, I went ahead and measure my vertical wheel travel. Measuring from the axle tube to the stock bump stop mount edge, I measured 14” at full droop and 1/2” at what will be full bump. Still have about 1/2” of shock shaft showing at this point. So my potential wheel travel is about 13.5”
Another something cool that worked out very well is the lack of change in pinion angle. I set it to be 0° at full droop, and even at full bump there is no noticeable change.
Now for the concerns... With all that up travel I just thought about my coils over compressing and basically blowing out my upper coil buckets. At full bump I measured about 4.5” of room from the upper and lower coil buckets. I measured what the maximum height would be when the 8 wrap coil is fully compressed. That’s only 4.25”. So only 1/4” of wiggle room is really not much and sound like a gamble. I’ve already been looking into different coil options that are a lower ride height so if I possibly find some 7 wrap coils, I could get the lower ride height in looking for and having a shorter compressed height that I need. Or I could just lower the bump stops about 1/2” to give a little more wiggle room. We’ll see if I can find a better coil option by the time I get around to setting up bump stops.
So a couple things to ask from you guys. If anyone knows of some 7 wraps for sale or trade for 8 wraps, please let me know.
Also if you have 7 wraps or maybe superflexes, could you measure what the collapsed spring height would be. How I measured was the coil diameter x by the number of wraps. I counted the number of wraps at the bottom pigtail to the top flat edge, then minus a wrap because of how the coil bucket steps down on the axle side. I hope that makes sense..
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