Back to the 2020 FX4 Salvage Rebuild

[Big Blue]

Got both of the 5100's and upper control arms installed. Not all warm and fuzzy about them though. Height clip is in #5, or the top groove for 2.5" lift. With the jack stands under the frame rails, and a bottle jack next to the lower ball joint, so it's only an inch or so from the face of the rotor, the frame lifts off the jack stands with less than a quarter inch of lift at the jack.

This is NOT good. What it means is the shocks will be riding very close to the top end of shock travel under load. That means on the road any time the suspension is unloaded, even slightly, the shocks are going to hit the top of their travel.

You want at least a few inches of sag so the shocks will have enough travel in normal driving conditions as to not hit their end limits. I can see this setup hitting the top travel limit constantly.

The new 5100's are basically the same length as the OEM Fox shocks. So creating lift by moving the bottom spring mount higher just pushes the piston farther up the cartridge substantially reducing unload travel.

I just assumed that a company like Bilstein would have accounted for this. Apparently not. In order to lift the front end and keep enough travel both directions as to not hit the end limits, you need to move the center range of piston travel a length equal to the amount of lift in order to maintain full, equal piston travel. So if you don't have physically longer shocks, then a spacer is the only proper option to lift the front end and maintain proper shock travel.

I bought these from Stage-3 and will contact them to see what they say. But the only logical solution at this point to use them and still lift the front end is to move the lower spring seat clip down to the #1 groove, which is 0.0" lift, and install a spacer.

Removing the shocks, compressing the springs, changing configurations and reinstalling them is not a simple or easy job. I fought with the individual spring compressors because I figured this was a one time job. Just another smack in the face for the Salvage Ranger rebuild. I'm going to blow another $200 and get a professional spring compressor stand this time. After all, it's only money, blood, labor and time.

seriously I think you may be over thinking this. Or, maybe I am.

When you do a level on an IFS you are really not changing the amount or range of travel in the suspension. You are just changing where the "at rest" ride hight is. This changes the at rest geometry of the upper and lower control arms. This is why the need for different upper control arms. To get the alignment adjustments, mainly caster and camber, back into range. These measurements vary as the suspension travels through its range. So by doing a level you are actually giving up some droop (down travel) and adding some compression (up travel).

So, with the level that changes the lower spring perch on the shock, the at rest length of the shock will be changed . But, the shock mounting points remain the same. So the shock will see the same total travel through the full suspension travel.

A spacer level is a Little different in that it essentially lengthens the whole shock/spring stack with the spacer. This keeps the at rest position of the shock in relatively the same location, but runs the risk of bottoming the shock at full compression because you have essentially moved the upper mounting point of the shock down.

In either case the at rest length of the spring remains the same. As this is what it takes to support the front of the truck.

Sorry for the long post, but I wanted to explain what is going on with a level. A true lift is a little different, as it relocates all the suspension pivot points lower.

Now for your jack stand/bottle jack experiment. Without all front end components (weight), including bumper, on the vehicle and both sides being supported by the suspension it is impossible to get a reading where the at rest position will be in its range of travel. Many people have done levels like this and have not had issues.

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[XionUAV]

Big Blue - I have no doubt I'm overthinking it. But that's what engineers do. Plus you can't discount a zillion years of real-world experience. It isn't lost on me that the groove design on the 5100's and other similar shocks must work for a certain number of people, otherwise they wouldn't still be selling, although I find it curious Stage-3 has lowered the price of their set of 4 by around $130 since I bought mine last year. I just know that when you jack a wheel near the rotor from a fully extended position and it has almost no sag at all, something isn't right.

Let me explain exactly why I'm not keeping this setup.

Imagine a shock absorber of a certain length that has between 5.5" and 6" of travel, which is typical. We'll say 6" to keep it simple. Lets say the factory engineers were on their game that day and set the front suspension up so the shock piston sits in the middle of the travel range on the vehicle, or 3" from either end of full travel.

If you put a spacer on top of the shock, all you're doing is lifting the frame a certain distance above the shock. The spring compression is the same and the location of the piston remains centered in its range of travel, for the most part.

I saw a review for a 2.5" lift spacer where the guy was ticked off because the spacer only measured 1 5/8". Obviously he had no understanding of suspension geometry. Because the shock is located closer to the inner pivot points, small changes inboard create larger changes outboard.

If you move the bottom spring perch up the equivalent 1.5" or so distance as a spacer to compress the spring to get the same 2.5" of lift outboard, then you are also moving the position of the internal piston up another 1.5" inches as well at the new ride height. That means instead of having 3" of upward piston travel when the suspension unloads, you now have 1.5".

A guy on a Tacoma forum was expressing the exact same problem he's having as what I foresee with my current 5100 setup. He used the "lifted" 5100's and hears and feels the piston "slam" into the stop whenever his suspension unloads. Yes, the weight of the bumper will add a hair more sag to mine, but nothing even close to solving the core problem.

Bottom line is you don't get something for nothing. Jacking up the spring to increase lift is a simple way to increase ride height but it comes at the price of locating the shock's piston much closer to the end of its travel at the new ride height. The amount may not be enough to bother others, but it does me. This setup is coming off in favor of a design that should allow for the same 2.5" effective lift but also allow enough travel as to not hit the top end stops during average off roading conditions.

 

[Big Blue]

Big Blue - I have no doubt I'm overthinking it. But that's what engineers do. Plus you can't discount a zillion years of real-world experience. It isn't lost on me that the groove design on the 5100's and other similar shocks must work for a certain number of people, otherwise they wouldn't still be selling, although I find it curious Stage-3 has lowered the price of their set of 4 by around $130 since I bought mine last year. I just know that when you jack a wheel near the rotor from a fully extended position and it has almost no sag at all, something isn't right.

Let me explain exactly why I'm not keeping this setup.

Imagine a shock absorber of a certain length that has between 5.5" and 6" of travel, which is typical. We'll say 6" to keep it simple. Lets say the factory engineers were on their game that day and set the front suspension up so the shock piston sits in the middle of the travel range on the vehicle, or 3" from either end of full travel.

If you put a spacer on top of the shock, all you're doing is lifting the frame a certain distance above the shock. The spring compression is the same and the location of the piston remains centered in its range of travel, for the most part.

I saw a review for a 2.5" lift spacer where the guy was ticked off because the spacer only measured 1 5/8". Obviously he had no understanding of suspension geometry. Because the shock is located closer to the inner pivot points, small changes inboard create larger changes outboard.

If you move the bottom spring perch up the equivalent 1.5" or so distance as a spacer to compress the spring to get the same 2.5" of lift outboard, then you are also moving the position of the internal piston up another 1.5" inches as well at the new ride height. That means instead of having 3" of upward piston travel when the suspension unloads, you now have 1.5".

A guy on a Tacoma forum was expressing the exact same problem he's having as what I foresee with my current 5100 setup. He used the "lifted" 5100's and hears and feels the piston "slam" into the stop whenever his suspension unloads. Yes, the weight of the bumper will add a hair more sag to mine, but nothing even close to solving the core problem.

Bottom line is you don't get something for nothing. Jacking up the spring to increase lift is a simple way to increase ride height but it comes at the price of locating the shock's piston much closer to the end of its travel at the new ride height. The amount may not be enough to bother others, but it does me. This setup is coming off in favor of a design that should allow for the same 2.5" effective lift but also allow enough travel as to not hit the top end stops during average off roading conditions.

All I'm trying to say is with a level, please don't call it a lift, all you are doing is causing the suspension to do is normally ride in a different part of its travel. You ar not adding any additional travel to the suspension, just taking some droop at full unload and and adding it to full compression. Since you are not changing thr lower control arm or the spindle, wheel essentially travels through the same path it always did. As I said before the only reason to change the upper control arm is to get the alignment adjustments back into range with the new normal wheel position.

If you do not change the lower or upper shock mounting points, the only difference it sees is that the piston is in a different location at rest. The top and bottom extreme positions are the same.

Unfortunately with a spacer level you are moving the upper shock mounting point. You have lowered it. Yes you has essentially put the piston back in the middle of its travel at rest, but you now have more up travel than down from you at rest ride hight. You now run the risk of bottoming out the shock at full compression or solid highting the spring, which ever comes first.

You will notice that I am very specific with calling this a leveling of the front end. That is because a true lift of the front involves a redesign of the whole front suspension geometry. The simplest would be to change out the spindles for ones with the wheel position lowered down, and leave all lever arms and pivot points the same. The problem with that is it changes how the wheels angles change through the range of motion. Definitely will affect handling. The proper way is to redesign the locations of the pivot points and lever (control) arm's to keep the required wheel travel angles. This is what is done for real "lifts" of 3 inches or more, and long or mid travel front suspensions. That also involves relocating the front differential to keep shaft angle from being too extreme.

Just to let you know some of my jobs were designing linkages, during my 45 year career as a mechanial designer for high-speed converting equipment.

 

[XionUAV]

All I'm trying to say is with a level, please don't call it a lift, all you are doing is causing the suspension to do is normally ride in a different part of its travel. You ar not adding any additional travel to the suspension, just taking some droop at full unload and and adding it to full compression. Since you are not changing thr lower control arm or the spindle, wheel essentially travels through the same path it always did. As I said before the only reason to change the upper control arm is to get the alignment adjustments back into range with the new normal wheel position.

If you do not change the lower or upper shock mounting points, the only difference it sees is that the piston is in a different location at rest. The top and bottom extreme positions are the same.

Unfortunately with a spacer level you are moving the upper shock mounting point. You have lowered it. Yes you has essentially put the piston back in the middle of its travel at rest, but you now have more up travel than down from you at rest ride hight. You now run the risk of bottoming out the shock at full compression or solid highting the spring, which ever comes first.

You will notice that I am very specific with calling this a leveling of the front end. That is because a true lift of the front involves a redesign of the whole front suspension geometry. The simplest would be to change out the spindles for ones with the wheel position lowered down, and leave all lever arms and pivot points the same. The problem with that is it changes how the wheels angles change through the range of motion. Definitely will affect handling. The proper way is to redesign the locations of the pivot points and lever (control) arm's to keep the required wheel travel angles. This is what is done for real "lifts" of 3 inches or more, and long or mid travel front suspensions. That also involves relocating the front differential to keep shaft angle from being too extreme.

Just to let you know some of my jobs were designing linkages, during my 45 year career as a mechanial designer for high-speed converting equipment.

Ok. Moving on...

 

[XionUAV]

Sealed the fender insulators with black polyurethane foam first thing this morning before it got stupid hot. It was about 85° in my garage by 9am.

Installed the rear Bushwackers while waiting for the new OBDII/FORscan cable to arrive. The slightly textured black isn't as classy as the dark metallic grey, but they fit well and will do their job deflecting debris. I went back and forth between getting smooth ones and painting them either white or the same dark metallic gray as the OEM trim, but in the end settled for what was simplest. There's enough open space where flat mud guards can be attached and maybe only need to drill one hole into the fender near the inside.

The vLinker FS USB cable (thank you TJC for the recommendation) that arrived from Amazon this afternoon works flawlessly. Had to get an extended FORscan license to access the Steering Column Control Module and document the settings. Now I can get to swapping out the rack. when it cools off a little.

Eibach Pro Truck Coilovers and rear shocks have been ordered. BDS 1" shackles have been shipped as well. Stage-3 wouldn't give me any better deal than I could get from a certain veteran-owned business running a July 4th special so I supported the veterans.

 

[Chris M]

Sealed the fender insulators with black polyurethane foam first thing this morning before it got stupid hot. It was about 85° in my garage by 9am.

Installed the rear Bushwackers while waiting for the new OBDII/FORscan cable to arrive. The slightly textured black isn't as classy as the dark metallic grey, but they fit well and will do their job deflecting debris. I went back and forth between getting smooth ones and painting them either white or the same dark metallic gray as the OEM trim, but in the end settled for what was simplest. There's enough open space where flat mud guards can be attached and maybe only need to drill one hole into the fender near the inside.

The vLinker FS USB cable (thank you TJC for the recommendation) that arrived from Amazon this afternoon works flawlessly. Had to get an extended FORscan license to access the Steering Column Control Module and document the settings. Now I can get to swapping out the rack. when it cools off a little.

Eibach Pro Truck Coilovers and rear shocks have been ordered. BDS 1" shackles have been shipped as well. Stage-3 wouldn't give me any better deal than I could get from a certain veteran-owned business running a July 4th special so I supported the veterans.

Getting there!

 

[XionUAV]

Welcome to my nightmare. Well, another one.

Steering rack won't clear the front differential. If it was 2WD it would be no problem. Lowered the diff against the frame and it still won't clear as part of the rack hits the oil pan as well. Tomorrow I'll loosen the driver side motor mount, lift the engine slightly, and also remove a retaining bolt that holds the back of the diff and see if I can tilt it more and between the two get enough clearance to wedge it out.

The split is where the case broke in the wreck, obviously.

Never, ever, ever, ever again.

 

[Av8or1]

The stock swaybar end link length is 12", or about 305mm. From what I can see, the bushings in the swaybar mounts are fixed so they can't be rotated. That means the links need to be about 1.5" shorter for a 2.5" lift in order to rest at a neutral position. A 10.5" link is about 265mm. That length is a best guess at this point but I'll get some adjustable links in that range.

The stock link stud is 12mm. Many of the adjustable links have 10mm studs with a sleave adapter for 12mm. I'll try to find a good set with 12mm studs.

If you loosen the bushings on the sway bar they can be rotated to the appropriate angle. It's just a round bar clamped by those rubber bushings, so it can be moved. It's just unable to be moved while clamped to the truck since the mounting bolts preload the rubber.

Be very careful when changing the sway bar link lengths from stock. Even in the stock configuration at full flex there isn't much clearance between the sway bar and the LCA. If you extend this length there may be interference that won't be readily obvious unless the front end is flexed out.

 

[XionUAV]

If you loosen the bushings on the sway bar they can be rotated to the appropriate angle. It's just a round bar clamped by those rubber bushings, so it can be moved. It's just unable to be moved while clamped to the truck since the mounting bolts preload the rubber.

Be very careful when changing the sway bar link lengths from stock. Even in the stock configuration at full flex there isn't much clearance between the sway bar and the LCA. If you extend this length there may be interference that won't be readily obvious unless the front end is flexed out.

I've changed the ride height on a few vehicles and am familiar with needing to sometimes change the links to keep the sway bar position in check. I was thinking of loosening the clamps but decided I didn't like how close the sway bar was to the lower control arm, which is why I'm installing shorter links. Stock links are 12" and with the new ride height the neutral point of the sway bar as is should be around 10.5" to 10.75". The shorter links will move the bottom mount farther away from the lower control arm.

Ordered these from ZZPerformance for $100. 12mm studs with minimum length of 265mm (10.43") and max length of 325mm (12.8").

 

[airline tech]

Welcome to my nightmare. Well, another one.

Steering rack won't clear the front differential. If it was 2WD it would be no problem. Lowered the diff against the frame and it still won't clear as part of the rack hits the oil pan as well. Tomorrow I'll loosen the driver side motor mount, lift the engine slightly, and also remove a retaining bolt that holds the back of the diff and see if I can tilt it more and between the two get enough clearance to wedge it out.

The split is where the case broke in the wreck, obviously.

Never, ever, ever, ever again.

Per the manual - The Front Axle has to be removed to replace the Steering Gear, but there are always shortcuts around that (hopefully the plan) you have with the motor mount will provide enough clearance.

 

[XionUAV]

Finally hit a wall. There's no way to install the steering rack on the 4WD model without removing the front diff. I tried for about 2 hours doing everything I could think of, including raising the driver side of the motor as far as I felt comfortable to try and clear the oil pan, about 2", but it just wasn't going to happen.

I was able to get the other one out because the side with the motor and module was hanging free downward so I could rotate the other end to clear the diff. With the case intact, there's no way to finagle it around to clear both the pan/diff and frame/axle housing at the same time. It would be a piece of pie on a 2WD model. It also would have been possible if the crossmember had been bolted instead of welded and could be removed. Welded is better for strength though so...

Just got back from talking to a local family-owned repair shop with excellent reviews that's been around for quite awhile. Told the owner my story and what I needed done. He said it shouldn't be a problem for his techs to remove the diff, bolt on the new/used steering rack and reinstall everything.

Won't be cheap though, which I already knew. The job will involve removing the axles, disconnecting the front driveline and then lowering the diff and axle housing. Estimate is $1,400. Given that all the lower components are already removed and I'll be paying cash, the cost should hopefully be a little less. But at this point, who's counting.

Of course with no steering rack installed, there's no steering. I used some thin angle steel and secured the tie rod mounts to the frame so the wheels are mostly straight. Wheel dollies will have to be used to move the front end around when necessary.

Appointment is for July 9th. That gives me two weeks to sell a kidney. Sigh...

 

[XionUAV]

Per the manual - The Front Axle has to be removed to replace the Steering Gear, but there are always shortcuts around that (hopefully the plan) you have with the motor mount will provide enough clearance.

Yeah I'm afraid there are no cheats on this one. I definitely gave it a solid go.

Sometimes manuals are just silly, though. A Yamaha YXZ manual states that to access the secondary air filter you need to remove a bunch of stuff including the body panels and cage. All you really need is a long extension with a wobbly adapter to get to the bolts around the oil reservoir can, after you remove its cover. The YXZ uses a dry sump system.

 

[airline tech]

Just curious if it is possible that at the mount point , can the case be split (separated) from the left half.
If the right inner tie rod is disconnected it appears that you could possibly separate the halves and slide the case off of the worm gear (rod)

 

[airline tech]

It would be great if we had an overhaul manual for the steering gear to view how it comes apart.
I have a exploded diagram for it, will try to find it and post in AM

 

[airline tech]

It would be great if we had an overhaul manual for the steering gear to view how it comes apart.
I have a exploded diagram for it, will try to find it and post in AM

Update - Well I do not have a detailed exploded view like I thought, it's just a generic and the same as the dealers IPCs, so it is of no help in showing the internals of c-clips etc..

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