[AlbatrossCafe]

I've been waiting for this thread. I believe I can contribute.

Why is it that my front wheels never looked "stuffed"? They had room to move up in the wheel well.
I had extended rads at 650# with 1" spacer on top. Was it the spacer itself? Is the spring rate too high and can it limit full uptravel?

Could never get the front wheel more stuffed than this:

 

[AlbatrossCafe]

Swaybar was off

Are you talking about the LCA bumpstop?

So how are people getting this kind of stuffing? It must be the spacer... either that or the rock in my pic wasn't a good place to try to get full stuff

 

[AlbatrossCafe]

Anyone driven with their snorkel through the car wash?

I'm too tall for most car washes in the area, but theoretically, if I could fit, does the carwash damage the snorkel? Do you tie a plastic bag over the snorkel head, just dry out the air box when done, or is neither needed?

 

[AlbatrossCafe]

I'm too big and have too much stuff attached to my X to go through those. Would think you'd be in the same boat.

That's a safe bet... CB mounts, too much metal tubing hanging around, winch line, etc. Probably not worth.

 

[AlbatrossCafe]

Where do you guys put the jack and where do you put the jack stand when you're raising the front end? I've not been happy with anything I've tried, miss a solid axle up front for this.

I struggled with this for a while as well - the Jack was always in the way of mounting the tire, placing the jackstand, etc. But I found that (if you have a big enough jack) by FAR the best location is to jack it up by the front cross member (the jack rests just to the side of the front cam bolts) on either side and place the jackstands under the frame rails as forward as possible behind the front wheel well.

This lets you easily place the jackstands without the jack in the way, and the jack is far enough inward that your tires don't get in the way when trying to mount/unmount them.

Plus I like that this jacking point is pretty far forwards on the truck so you don't end up jacking up the back a ton to get the front wheel off the ground.

Jack from the front: (best pic I have)

Jackstand placement:

 

[AlbatrossCafe]

Onboard Air - Do I need a tank?

Do I absolutely need an Air tank for my situation?

I want onboard air for an M205 ARB Front Air Locker as well as re-inflating tires after airing down. I have no interest in running power tools or an air horn.

Do I need a tank as well? I was hoping just a compressor with a very small internal tank would suffice. For example I have this Viair 400p Compressor now and you after turning it off you can spray air for about 1 second. Is something similar good enough?

Main reason is I don't really care to have a tank mounted anywhere on my truck. Don't want to deal with it or have it in the way of everything.

 

[AlbatrossCafe]

Nope, no tank needed. I don't know about VIAIR models, but the ARB CKMA12 is the compressor you'd want. I'm running that for my front ARB, and to inflate my tires

Awesome, that's what I thought, thanks. I got the free smaller one with the promotion ARB is having now but I guess I'll just sell that one.

 

[AlbatrossCafe]

I noticed a Xterra this weekend that had one of those wing type things that I'm guessing is supposed to direct air over the back window. Do these things actually work to move rain off the window so you don't have to use the rear wiper?

Pics?

 

[AlbatrossCafe]

Oh god... that thing. Yeah, I've seen that around. I don't think I could put it on no matter how great the benefit. This is not quite the end goal with my build:

 

[AlbatrossCafe]

This may be a particularly dumb question, but it possible to body-lift half of the X?

Like say you have a 6" lift in the rear, but 3" in front and want to clear for 35's but don't need anymore height in the rear. Can you just do a BL on the front-half?

My guess is "no" because all the bolts would be at too much of an angle making it too easy for them to shear off, but I'm not sure.

 

[AlbatrossCafe]

Don't flame me please, this is the dumb ??? thread. 2012 pox what is the thing towards the rear of the reading lights? front is sunglasses holder, middle is map lights (reading lights) behind that is something with a small hole and what appears as a small sensor of some sorts.

http://www.thenewx.org/forum/15-how-tos/24214-how-overhead-switch-panel-5.html#post3705986

I asked this question the other day. The non-bluetooth hole is still a mystery. Apparently there is a piece of tape behind it?

 

[AlbatrossCafe]

Could the duration of the delay for the wipers be changed by someone with CONSULT II?

Wait... are there X's that don't have the adjustable intermittent wipers?

 

[AlbatrossCafe]

Question about Drop Bracket travel

I have a question about suspension travel and drop bracket lifts.

Imagine you have the coilover out in front. The CV binds here (Titan swap):

However, when moving the hub upwards, you find that full "stuff" is actually not at bind of the CV joint, but instead where the bump-stop on the LCA hits. You can probably get 50% more up-travel if there was nothing in the way before the CV binds. In fact I'd say the CV is closer to neutral than it is to the binding point when at max up-travel.

This pic is maximum up-travel:

Now on my Titan swap, with ideal setup I have around 10"-10.5" of travel, and the CV at ride height is angled downward.

If you add a drop-bracket lift and make the CV angle "neutral" at ride height, would you be able to get more up travel because you have more room before you hit the bump-stop? Could you get to like ~14-15" of travel this way if you used a longer coilover?

 

[AlbatrossCafe]

unless you did a diff drop kit which would then cancel it out some.

I always thought "diff drop kit" and "drop bracket" were synonymous... is that not right? Don't think you would do one without the other.

 

[AlbatrossCafe]

So given that and what Albatross and others have said, the ideal setup with the drop bracket would be an relatively level CV angle at ride height, with a coilover compressed to approximately half its available travel? And overall coilover travel limited to just within CV bind angles at full stuff and full droop? Sounds great on paper in terms of having maximum articulation up and down. But, this is coming from a guy who's happy with the hunk of aluminum on top of his stock coilovers and just glad it doesn't go THUNK when I go over bumps.

Yeah, what you said was basically what I was trying to achieve. I feel like you could get ~15" of travel with a little longer coilover, which is very high for IFS. But at the same time, that travel might be good for the desert/high speed whoops, but the drop bracket would get in the way for rock crawling and other hard obstacles. So even though you technically have more articulation, you might be worse off when trying to flex over a log or something. Plus I don't think you can really do a skid plate over the drop bracket without some awkward magic.

Also the few drop-bracket/titan swap rigs I've seen on here IMHO look a little ridiculous lol. It's a little much:

I was trying to see if there was a way to clear 35's without body lift or a lot of cutting and maybe gain some articulation along the way, but I don't want 8" of lift to do it.

 

[AlbatrossCafe]

The trimming that Jeffnjm3 did is exactly the "lot of cutting" I was thinking of and trying to avoid haha. Dexterra almost had it but as Surf said he would have had to trim more to get it to fully clear.

Out of curiosity, why are you trying to avoid a body lift?

It'll be a while before I make the 35's jump, but I was just wondering if while I was at it I could also improve articulation/travel/frame clearance instead of simply getting tire clearance - spend a little more (probably a lot more) to get a little more. Then I also wouldn't have to mess with sliders/bumpers. But it doesn't seem very feasible.

I also feel a little uneasy with body lifts. Adding an extra puck & longer bolt makes me feel like if the body was hit right it would just slide right off the frame :|

 

[AlbatrossCafe]

When I am in neutral and stopped, the time it takes between turning the knob to "4-lo" and hearing the audible "click" when it shifts is maybe 1-2 seconds. I don't think it gets much faster than that unless you want to be able to do it while moving.

 

[AlbatrossCafe]

While not a dumb question per say but Ive always wondered how a T swap compares to the 3+ grand TC long travel kits a lot of toyota guys run. Mainly in that they have a full complete custom kit where are many of our parts are stock out of a titan.

Which is my normal go to defense for the T-swap, I can go to a junk yard to get a new CV or LCA if I brake something where as the yota guys have to buy new stuff from TC

My buddy sold his FJ and wanted another rig and was debating between another FJ or an Xterra, so we were comparing this exact thing.

The "Total Chaos Long Travel Kit" for the FJ gives somewhere between 10"-11.5" of travel with around a 2" increase of wheelbase on each side. So they are pretty comparable. But like you said, it is much easier to get a titan CV from rock auto in 2 days for $70 vs. waiting who knows how long for TC custom pieces.

Total Chaos 2" Long Travel Kit Wheel Travel Numbers - Toyota FJ Cruiser Forum

 

[AlbatrossCafe]

What is "shift lock"?

 

[AlbatrossCafe]

Good to know... and I also found that you can shift an Auto-trans out of park and into neutral without turning the car on (the key has to be in the "on" position) a few weeks ago... I have been turning it on for 3 seconds just to shift for a year. :dontknow: