ALL-PRO Lift and Swampers - Bandi's FJC

[bandi]

frogeye previously said:

I had no idea you had two FJs. I've got an idea, return yours to stock and mod hers now!

SHE HATES MY FJ, "tooo loud"... Ya think she
would let me run swampers on hers... LOL...
Plus she would be banging her knees on the
AP rock rails after I throw the lift on it too...

[bandi]

Since it was an Incredible day last Sunday here at
the jersey shore, warm and all, I added my Toytec
Diff' drop kit, along with a few other things...

The Drop Kit Went in quite easily, and even though
they say it's a 1" drop kit, it actually only drops it
about half amount, since the kit provides 1" spacers
for the leading edge of the axle mounts, but the rear
mount stays the same, however, I did read
somewhere about trimming the rear mount to gain a
tad more... It has seemed to do what I needed, by
the looks of the CV angles...

Then replaced my original ball joints that were a tad'
loose, and also adjusted my coil overs back up and
inch, since I dropped it and inch over the summer
when I had the issue with the CV's grease seeping out
of the boots from to much of and angle on them...

Now even tho my front was lowered an inch, my rear
OME 896 springs were sagging to where the rear was
still lower then the front, so after raising the front
back up as I said above, I decided to add my old
daystar spacers back in to level the FJ again...

Well, after all was said and done, and I measured my
FJ against my wifes, I am at 3-1/4 lift in both the front
and rear, having the original stock rake... Looks great
to me, now I just need the front end toe set, and my
new tires mounted...

I am unhappy with the OME rear springs, and I will need
to replace them... From the looks of the springs, it seems
they have failed, not broken... All the coating on them
have spidered, cracked, and rusted bad, and the springs
have settled beyond the point they should have, since
the FJ sat lower in the rear then the front, even with the
front set only 2 inches over stock, and for being the
OME 896 heavy springs...

I was thinking of going to 897's like Mir' did, but it's a bit
more funds then I can toos right now into the FJ... I am
unsure if there is a warranty on the springs, or who I
could contact about it, specially since I bought them
from Jim_D in the summer of 06', but they were new, it's
just that I did not by them myself...

OK, The INSTALL !...

OK... Still never reinstalled the skids yet, but
ToyTec does give you the needed spacers to
do that too in their kit, something that you
don't find in other brands...

I am also looking into trimming the rear mount
a tad to get a little more drop, more when I
figure that out...

First, you need to remove the skids, in my case,
front bling, front tin and middle tin...



Here is a shot on the front mounts that the
spacers get installed on...



Here is a shot of the rear mount, which I read on
a forum, or maybe it was in Toy'Owners Mag, that
you can shave the mount to give you a 1/4"-3/8"
more drop on the diff'...


An overall view of the mounts and diff'...


I put a jake under the diff' in order to lift
and lower the diff' easily for removing the
bolts and adding the spacers...


I used a 22mm socket to loosen the mount bolts,
with a 19mm wrench up on the top to hold that end...


Here are the two bolts after I removed them with
the bottom bushing plates...


Here are the 1" spacers(round), and also the stock
bolts and the new grade 8's that toyotec provided,
along with washers and nylock nuts... Also here you
can see the skid plate spacers(square) and bolts too...


Here you can see the the spacer installed, making
sure the upper and lower bushing plates are back
where the go, along with the new washers too...




And here they are, all installed !... Very easy, only
about a 1/2 hour job really, unless your taking some
pictures.. ...


Once I find the article on triming the rear mount, I
will finish' er' up !...

[4XX4]

Nice job and great write-up. Glad to see you bring this thread back to life.