I received the truck in late November, 2005. I had waited almost 3 months for it, and my patience was starting to wear thin. After having a couple mechanical failures on my little Ford Ranger I was at my wits end and told Toyota I needed a truck now or I was taking my money elsewhere. Rainbow Toyota (North Battleford) stepped it up a notch and provided me with a ~2004 Tacoma, ext cab free of charge for a month, including oil changes! That's the kind of service that will have me coming back.
I started out wanting to wear down the original Bridgestone Dueler H/T's before tinkering. This way any major warranty issues should have reared their heads and been dealt with without the worry of voiding warranty with any modifications I chose to do.
So after 78k km's the tires were dead and I was ready to get to it. I researched a couple different suspension systems and decided to go with an Old Man Emu system from ARB (
Link). It was touted as having a firmer ride designed for driving through the outback, not rock climbing. I personally have no need for a 6" lift, and this ~2" system was perfect for me at the time. An ARB Roo Bar (
Link)was also in the mix to handle lighting mounting, winch mounting and overall deer smashing fun! i really like the ARB bumper for it's robust, one-piece design with upswept wings, good air flow for cooling and the upper hoop to protect my headlights. I ordered the entire lot of goodies from 4WheelAuto.com (
link) out of Edmonton and Dan was a pleasure to deal with. He had it on a pallet and freight shipped to Saskatoon in no time.
I eagerly took to tearing down the factory setup. The new suspension replaced the front struts and coils. I went with Nitrocharger struts and OME 886 coils to handle the increased weight of the bumper and possibly a winch in the future. I had the strut and coils assembled at a shop in North Battleford and headed out to Meota to work in my Dad's garage. The tires removed, jack stands along the front frame rails (just in front of the cross member), and away we went. It was as simple as it looks. take out a couple bolts, disconnect the lower control arm, and out comes the factory suspension. Be careful to support the hub so that the half axle doesn't pull out too far and possibly damage the CV boots, etc.
The factory spring leafs were insufficient if you plan on putting anything heavier than a sled or bike in the box. The OME Dakars were a huge improvement to say the least. I could actually load the box up with a half yard of crushed gravel and still not hit the bumpers nor feel like I was driving on marshmallows. I reused the factory bushings but if I were to do it again I would just buy the OEM bushings from Toyota and put them in, saving myself the pain of removing the originals. I don't have any shots of the back end but I'll get some to show the difference.
The ARB bumper was a breeze with two people. Removal of pop fasteners in the wheel wells, some bolts along the rad supports and some nifty yoga like manoeuvres to get the original plastic part off and she was ready for the new part. A couple holes were drilled in the frame rails and the sub structure was torqued down, being careful not to crush the boxed frame (specific torque was given in the manual). Once the supporting structure was satisfactorily in positioned you hoist the main bumper into place and secure it to the structure with some fresh new holes that you drill in place to ensure the bumper is in the proper place. the reason they do this is to account for any build tolerances that may be in the truck from the start. My biggest word of advice is to leave yourself a good 3/4" gap between the bumper and the front quarter panels to avoid metal on metal contact during rough driving. I had ~1/2" and had some rubbing and needed to move it lower... a pain in the ass since new holes needed to be drilled. once the main structure was secured I relocated all of the plastics up into the bumper to clear up any clearance issues for larger tires. Also, the kit comes with the signal/running lights and clear clearance lights which were simply connected to the factory wiring. I find my lights tend to kick out on one side or another, and this only happened since the addition of the bumper so obviously the Taco doesn't like the extra draw from these lights. I will be adding a light winch and driving lights in the future.
I drove the truck to get an alignment in N.B. and there were some noticeable vibes pre-alignment. After the alignment I still had some vibes on acceleration so I put the driveshaft carrier bearing spacer on to drop the assembly. The vibes were still there. After some research I decided to be a guinea pig and ordered the first single piece drive shaft that Tom Woods (
http://www.4xshaft.com/) had ever made for the double cab long box tacoma. He was a pleasure to deal with and offered a full refund on the part if it didn't help. It was a breeze to install and it definitely cleared up 90% of the vibes and I chalked the rest up to not having axle shims and the increase in CV angles.
**Don't forget to adjust your headlights after messing with the suspension, chances are you're blinding people**
I stopped by OK Tire on 8th in Saskatoon and picked up some Toyo Open Country A/T's (265/70R17 E) from Steve and they looked great. I have since put over 100k (mostly highway) on these tires and they could do another 20k if I would have rotated them a little more.
About 20k km's after the install I was having weird issues with vibrations in 2wd that would go away in 4wd. After being to the dealership numerous times, which they were very cool about and did everything under warranty, the final fix was a new front differential. Prior fixes that didn't work included: New drive shaft, tires rebalanced, new tires, check and replace all fluids in transmission & differentials, new half shafts on both sides, new front wheel bearings (supposedly some were packed wrong at the factory), and finally a new front differential. Did I mention this was all under warranty... Supposedly the carrier bearings in the front diff are hit or miss, some being bullet proof and some prone to bad wear under any lift.
After all was said and done with the installation, and a little over 100k kms on the suspension, I have ~2" lift in the front and ~2.5" in the back. So that essentially gets the truck up to date.
