Zombie Truck 2.0 MPAV Build!
- Thread starter BlackWorksInc
- Start date
BlackWorksInc
New member
Yeah, I'm thinking of maybe dipping into my savings some more and buying a second spindle for the driver's side and just trying to get them gusseted by next Saturday, I have a can of Chassis Paint so that won't be an issue.
Just going through my options right now...still struggling on what UCA option I want to go with... part of me wants to just do it right and get those newer Camburg ones, but the other part of me is like, "Well the SPCs have done just fine with how abusive you've been and the Total Chaos Heims are similar and cheaper..." Need to figure this out soon...
BlackWorksInc
New member
Small update:
Here's a picture of the 4Runner in the shop last week while I was waiting on the adjuster, the steering wheel is straight ahead by the way.
I installed the new Toyota steering rack with tie-rods in last Saturday, so it's coming along slowly...
I have a set of Total Chaos Spindle Gussets w/ Sway Bar coming in hopefully Wednesday as well as a set of Camburg Kinetik UCAs. So I just need those parts to come in and hopefully she'll be ready to roll by Saturday night!
Here's a picture of the 4Runner in the shop last week while I was waiting on the adjuster, the steering wheel is straight ahead by the way.
I installed the new Toyota steering rack with tie-rods in last Saturday, so it's coming along slowly...
I have a set of Total Chaos Spindle Gussets w/ Sway Bar coming in hopefully Wednesday as well as a set of Camburg Kinetik UCAs. So I just need those parts to come in and hopefully she'll be ready to roll by Saturday night!
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BackOff
New member
Should have seen BlackWorksInc driving it like this.
The tow truck driver was like..."could you turn the wheel straight" as the little winch was dragging the runner up the ramp/bed.
At about 25mph it looked like it was trying to literally jerk him off the road.
Hope that wheel spacer survived...if not no big deal I probably need cheap steel wheels and bigger tires if we try any more Edison or the like. :loco:
That Camburg UCA should be painted gold, its like 4x4 nerd jewelry.
Get a pic of the new and old spindle together, be interesting to see what happened to it.
The tow truck driver was like..."could you turn the wheel straight" as the little winch was dragging the runner up the ramp/bed.
At about 25mph it looked like it was trying to literally jerk him off the road.
Hope that wheel spacer survived...if not no big deal I probably need cheap steel wheels and bigger tires if we try any more Edison or the like. :loco:
That Camburg UCA should be painted gold, its like 4x4 nerd jewelry.
Get a pic of the new and old spindle together, be interesting to see what happened to it.
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BlackWorksInc
New member
The wheel spacer is still good, I'll get it back to you this Sunday.
Yeah, Billet anything is just "$$$" tacked on to the price; but they're not as shiny as the ICONs and they have beefier Heims than most of the competition so that's at least worth something, also the easy of setting it into 5+ Caster range helps.
I'm a bit bummed out the 35's didn't protect the wheels from the rocks at some of those spots in Edision. It was so damn tight in some spots I didn't even realize I rubbed the wheels on the rocks. I mean I knew they were gonna get scuffed up, but I was hoping they'd make it at least a year before then! lol
Inv4drZm
Senior Member
You should see my wheels. The only nice one is the spare- the rest have scuffs on the beadlock rings.
BlackWorksInc
New member
So finally got all my part together and had enough time to install them on the 4Runner! So happy to have her back.
Here's the gusseted spindles after I welded them up on Thursday night, there was a lot more welding involved than I thought there would be. I don't see how they're gonna bend again now!
Here's the new set-up, reinforced spindles and Camburg Kinetik UCAs!
I was making a fuss about how these arms have to be removed from the strut tower to have the heims adjusted for camber; well I can say I am very happy and surprised I did not have to do that. The Camburg's offset bushing sleeve idea worked amazingly well. I was able to get my target numbers with very little effort (the cams are barely past neutral to achieve the shown alignment.)
The only things that were bent were the spindle on the passenger side and possibly the old UCA, everything else was surprisingly intact; so besides new spindles, UCAs, and a brand new Toyota steering rack, nothing else had to be replaced.
Oh, [MENTION=89794]BackOff[/MENTION] I got your spacer to give back to you.
Here's the gusseted spindles after I welded them up on Thursday night, there was a lot more welding involved than I thought there would be. I don't see how they're gonna bend again now!
Here's the new set-up, reinforced spindles and Camburg Kinetik UCAs!
I was making a fuss about how these arms have to be removed from the strut tower to have the heims adjusted for camber; well I can say I am very happy and surprised I did not have to do that. The Camburg's offset bushing sleeve idea worked amazingly well. I was able to get my target numbers with very little effort (the cams are barely past neutral to achieve the shown alignment.)
The only things that were bent were the spindle on the passenger side and possibly the old UCA, everything else was surprisingly intact; so besides new spindles, UCAs, and a brand new Toyota steering rack, nothing else had to be replaced.
Oh, [MENTION=89794]BackOff[/MENTION] I got your spacer to give back to you.
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BlackWorksInc
New member
A little tighter than before to be honest, though that was expected when upgrading to the heim jointed UCAs and the brand new steering rack (my old one was a bit loose on the tie rods even before the impact)
If you look up a few posts, someone posted a picture of a factory spindle, they can tend to bend along the thin portion when you're running a ton of extra weight (i.e. a lot of unsprung weight like 35's and sprung weight) and you do a lot of heavy off-roading such as lots of crawling and/or jumping.
In my case taking a 1000~1500lbs log to one tire straight on is good enough to bend it a little bit which is enough to cause problems. If you look at the two picture I posted above, you can see the factory spindle and where I welded the new gussets to them. That's not bending anytime soon, or ever.
Well if you need an excuse I can always lose it?
A10MileHusker
New member
Glad to hear its back together man!
iversong
New member
If that bends, you're doing something your truck should not be doing!
BlackWorksInc
New member
JustinCG
New member
How are these headlights holding up. When I bought my 05, it has aftermarket headlights (halo versions which I don't like as much as your version) I had to wet sand them and clear coat them because the the clear was peeling off. They holding up good for you?
BlackWorksInc
New member
Clear coat is starting to flake off at the top edge of the lights at the moment, not super noticible it is something I'll need to take care of in Spring/Summer. I had one start leaking after a few months, I think I finally got it under control (I sealed it with silicone caulking). Other than that they'be been good for $200 headlights.
BlackWorksInc
New member
Been meaning to do this for about 6 months or more now... all the rodent vehicles I see/deal with you'd think this would have been one of the first things I did when I moved up to Bend!
Installed a Rodent Screen on the 4Runner, where I live it's probably not likely they'd even bother with my 4Runner; but last thing I need is rodents in the 4Runner!
This is what it looks like when you pull the cowling off, it's a bit different than most cars as ours is a bit of a "chimney pipe" vs. just a hole in the firewall. Tacomas have the same set-up if I remember right, FJ Cruisers have welded sheetmetal over that half of the cowling which makes it a nightmare to install a screen unless you do it from the inside.
But the nice thing is that it has a nice lip on it so there's minimal drilling to get the mesh on there tightly. I just pilot drilled one hole on each side for a sheetmetal screw and then crimped the mesh around the lip with pliers. no rodent is pulling that thing off (at least not one that can fit under the cowling), the backside against the firewall isn't secured to anything, but the natural stiffness off the sheetmetal and how securely it's installed mean they can't try and squeeze through that spot. Same way I do it on customer's vehicles and I haven't had one come back yet!
On side note, I still haven't found a good solution for my steering stops. For the moment I just tacked on a 19mm nut I had in my tool box to the end of the steering stop on the LCA. It just barely prevents the tire from rubbing the UCA, I'll have to find a better solution at some point...
Installed a Rodent Screen on the 4Runner, where I live it's probably not likely they'd even bother with my 4Runner; but last thing I need is rodents in the 4Runner!
This is what it looks like when you pull the cowling off, it's a bit different than most cars as ours is a bit of a "chimney pipe" vs. just a hole in the firewall. Tacomas have the same set-up if I remember right, FJ Cruisers have welded sheetmetal over that half of the cowling which makes it a nightmare to install a screen unless you do it from the inside.
But the nice thing is that it has a nice lip on it so there's minimal drilling to get the mesh on there tightly. I just pilot drilled one hole on each side for a sheetmetal screw and then crimped the mesh around the lip with pliers. no rodent is pulling that thing off (at least not one that can fit under the cowling), the backside against the firewall isn't secured to anything, but the natural stiffness off the sheetmetal and how securely it's installed mean they can't try and squeeze through that spot. Same way I do it on customer's vehicles and I haven't had one come back yet!
On side note, I still haven't found a good solution for my steering stops. For the moment I just tacked on a 19mm nut I had in my tool box to the end of the steering stop on the LCA. It just barely prevents the tire from rubbing the UCA, I'll have to find a better solution at some point...
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Inv4drZm
Senior Member
[MENTION=66389]BlackWorksInc[/MENTION], I'm just curious about your alignment and 35's. I just installed my 35" tires and had an alignment (stock degree numbers) but my 35's rub a bit harder into the firewall than expected. The guys at the alignment shop told me if I had any more caster, my tires would wear more because it would throw the other numbers out of spec.
My brother has 34's on his FJ with 4 or 5 degrees caster and that gained him quite a bit of firewall clearance, but he notices more wear on the outside of his front tires. Is this something you have experienced and is it an issue if you rotate your tires often?
The reason I ask is that my alignment got messed up again my last wheeling trip so I now have another chance to change it.
My brother has 34's on his FJ with 4 or 5 degrees caster and that gained him quite a bit of firewall clearance, but he notices more wear on the outside of his front tires. Is this something you have experienced and is it an issue if you rotate your tires often?
The reason I ask is that my alignment got messed up again my last wheeling trip so I now have another chance to change it.
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BlackWorksInc
New member
Caster isn't a wear angle, so I don't see how it would really affect tire wear except for reducing your ability to balance Camber. This is usually evident when you lift our vehicles without using UCAs to compensate for the change in geometry (as slight as it might be), in some cases people have to lower their Caster to the 1~2 range to get Camber to be correct (which is a wear angle.)
There's also the consideration that 33" and larger tires are significantly wider than factory and depending on some variables will have more edge wear due to this. For example most of the camber specs are closer to positive than negative on the 4Runner, with a much wider tire that will probably induce more wear on the outer edge. Normally it shouldn't be that big an issue for a degree of Camber, but with the tire being much wider it could be getting an exaggerated effect?
This is just what I can remember off the top of my head here, so I might be off-base.
As for me in particular? Well I only have about 10k on the 35's so far and they seem to be wearing fairly normally. Some outer edge wear is expected, it seems all Toyotas start to wear out that edge fairly normally (to varying degrees). It can also be attributed to driving style, I know my 33's were getting some slightly more than usual wear when I lived in the Bay Area, but that could be entirely due to how aggressively I drove in the city and how hard I hit those on/off-ramps on the freeways.
I'm running about 6.1* Caster and -0.5* Camber and haven't had much of any issue, I needed at least about 5.5* Caster to not bump the firewall and the edge of my chopped body mount when the suspension was slightly compressed and the wheel turned. I also noticed since I went to the Camburg Kinetik UCAs that adjustment is much easier and my SAI (Steering Angle Inclination) is close to factory (it was out with the SPCs, but again you're changing suspension geometry so there's not much you can do there and SAI isn't entirely a wear angle if I recall). In fact I'm sure if I wanted I could get closer to 7* and maybe a full -1* Camber if I wanted to try. But so far with rotation every 5k they seem to be wearing in okay with some normal edge wear I've seen on most Toyotas (rather surprising actually compared to my 33's).
I would imagine it comes down to where your Camber angle is set, width of the tires, offset of the wheels, and driving style contributing to edge wear beyond normal. I'd say with wider tires you'd probably want to run a bit negative Camber wise since they'll want to ride the edge in a turn and if it's a bit positive and you're running wider tires the effect is probably exaggerated. Maybe a half or full degree negative would be good enough, I've been debating if I wanted to bump up the negative Camber to -1* for a bit, but I'm having good results with -0.5*
Post Thought:
I'd also chalk your tires and make sure that for your application the tire pressure you're running is good. I am running 35psi on my Toyo RT's as when I chalked them from brand new that was a very flat pattern without it looking under-inflated. If the tires are a bit over-inflated or under-inflated it may affect wear.
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BlackWorksInc
New member
Minor Update-
I do want to apologize to all you guys, I know I haven't been on consistently these last few years. I do try to hop on at least every few months... so if you quote me, message me, or need my help I do apologize in advance for the long delays in between responses. My life just sort of went up and down in the last 4-5yrs and I haven't been able to dedicate as much time and energy to the forum I used to do (hell, I barely do much on the 4Runner anymore besides just maintenance).
I do try to still stop by and visit and help when I can, but it's very few and far between. I just felt like I should at least mention this somewhere so if people are trying to get ahold of me they don't feel like I am ignoring them or whatever.
-BWI
I do want to apologize to all you guys, I know I haven't been on consistently these last few years. I do try to hop on at least every few months... so if you quote me, message me, or need my help I do apologize in advance for the long delays in between responses. My life just sort of went up and down in the last 4-5yrs and I haven't been able to dedicate as much time and energy to the forum I used to do (hell, I barely do much on the 4Runner anymore besides just maintenance).
I do try to still stop by and visit and help when I can, but it's very few and far between. I just felt like I should at least mention this somewhere so if people are trying to get ahold of me they don't feel like I am ignoring them or whatever.
-BWI
Humble Leader
Senior Member
I have come across many of your posts through researching various topics well before I actually joined this site and started posting. I always found them very helpful so it's nice to see some new posts. I thought you had left for good. thanks for your contributions and detailed write ups, they've helped me quite a bit and help keep forums like this going
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