Awesome progress man ! More travel is always exciting. What all are you looking at having to chop out to fit the bypasses ? Regardless, I say go for it ! What’s the worst the can happen ?
nothing that can’t be undone with a little metal and welding
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Thanks, I think it may work a little better than it did with that little bit of travel. At least maybe improve the pogo stick syndrome. Hate that crap.
Now I'm going to be looking into weight distribution again to get my ride height where it should be.
I've got one of those new offroad jacks coming in this week I can put back there. Thinking about building a box for the jack and recovery gear, then the spare will live on top. I don't think a tire carrier/bumper would be happy with the violent abuse it will see in the whoops and I don't want that much weight, so I will stick with keeping it in the cab.
As far as the bypass? I learned my lesson with the LC rack. I suffer from monkey see-monkey do, and jump headlong into these projects I'm really not qualified to do. Both of these 4Runner builds have been an experiment in how far I can stretch my limited abilities and tool complement.
In the past seven years, I've spent a good amount of money just on tools alone.
From what I can tell with the bypasses, I don't have the down or the up to fully utilize 14" of travel, even if I could find a way to stuff them in there. Now that I have the FJ tank clearing the upper link and spring, the limiting factor is the lower links bottom out on the axle before the full droop of the 14" bypass can be attained. Then on the up travel, the custom track bar mount that came with this axle, tops out on the cross member. I might be able to cut it down an inch, and not upset tracking too much, but it's a gamble. I guess the cross member could be moved like DocME did on his FJ.
Instead of cutting into the cab, some guys have built hoops in the fender well to mount them, but most of them have longer axles (Tundra, Dana), so the lower mounts can go further outboard on the axle. Then you keep a good A-frame set up with the right angles and geometry.
The idea of cutting into the cab doesn't appeal to me for obvious reasons, but I will consider it if I can seal it up properly from exhaust and some of the noise.
One advantage of cutting into the cab that I do like, would be to mount a brace between the two towers. Then one between the two front towers and that would reduce some of the twist this frame sees in rough conditions.
All of this will hinge on figuring out a link system that will allow for that much travel. The lower link will not work in it's current configuration. But, that's why you do the mock up/cycle thing until your blue if the face. The other thing is making the coil springs work with that much travel. You have to capture them like CaliFab has done on his 3-Link.
CaliFabs 3 link might be the ticket, or the Dirt Designs that DocME has on his FJ.
The only other option I see with my current set up would be to capture the springs, reposition the lower link mounts on the axle to allow more droop, move the cross member to allow the track bar mount to clear on up travel, then cut the upper shock mounts into the cab and make it work, but most of this stuff is out of my skill set. I will have to work on getting better at using the online 4-link calculator for sure.
