How To - 1" Body Lift Install

[PSU Taco85]

I'm hoping to help others with a how-to on installing a minor body lift (1") on the 2nd gen Tacomas since there is not much information out there on them.

I installed this kit on my truck which is a 2010 Access cab manual transmission. My truck also has a 3" suspension lift on it but that should not make any difference on the procedure I lay out below. Instructions will vary between cab sizes and there may be some additional work needed for an automatic transmission but this writeup should give you the general idea what's involved.

*I in no way take responsibility for what you do to your truck or if anything happens as a result of this mod. This is only an informative thread, please consult the Toyota FSM and/or professional mechanics if you have questions or concerns.

I installed the body lift to make room for some larger tires while being able to retain the fender flares as well as being able to clock the t-case in order to go flat belly someday . This modification was a little time consuming, I'd say around 6-7 hours if performing solo or maybe 4-5 with the help of a buddy or two.

I ordered the kit from 4crawler offroad with the following parts:
• Kit D (UHMW blocks and associated hardware)
• Kit HD (Upgrade to grade 8 hardware )
• Kit CLR black (gotta look stylish )
• Kit RAD
• Kit GAS

http://www.4crawler.com/4x4/ForSale/....shtml#Tacoma3

The kit shipped very quickly and all the products were very high quality and Roger's customer service was excellent he helped me out a bunch.

On to the nitty gritty

Tools required:
• Impact gun
• Grinding wheel
• PB blaster or equivalent
• Silicone spray lubricant
• Air/Electric Die grinder
• T55 torx bit
• Various metric/US socket sizes and extensions
• Torque wrench
• Couple short blocks of 4x4 wood
• Floor jack
• Screw drivers and pliers
The parts we will be installing


Truck it will be going on


Before we start take some fender to ground measurements for the records
Front, about 38"

Rear, about 40"


First step is to disconnect the battery negative cable and wait a few minutes for the ECU to lose it's power for the airbags, don't want an airbag going off in the middle of the install!

Don't mine my dirty engine bay, it sure needs a wash


Next step is to start disassembling the interior, this was the most time consuming part of the install. I didn't want to break or snap any of the interior plastic clips that our trucks are filled with.

Remove the dead pedal by pulling it towards the back of the truck


Pull off the door sills carefully starting at one end, they are clipped in. They are two separate pieces on for the front and one for the rear


Unscrew this little black knob from the kick panel then pull the kick panel towards the back of the truck and it will unclip


You can then peel back the carpet to find this little rubber grommet, under this is the middle cab mount bolt (behind the front tire)


Remove rear arm rest by unbolting the 4 bolts that attach it to the truck, I believe they are 10mm


Once the arm rest is out of the way you can disconnect the bracket it bolts to, there are two 12mm bolts holding this on to the cab


Remove the back seats, each seat is held in with 3 bolts all together, 12mm if I remember correctly. Peel back the carpet to access these bolts




Once the seats are out of the way you can remove the black lining/storage bins from the truck. Not sure if this was necessary but I figured I'd take it out to clean under it anyhow and it seem to make things easier.
Pop the little clips out. To do this, pop the middle up with a small flat screwdriver to disengage the clip then pry the bottom lip out of the hole


Once the lining is out it will look like this


After all that is removed peel the carpet back a little more to access these small stiffening plates that are held in by two 10mm bolts, remove the bolts and plate


Below the plate there is another small plastic grommet, that is the access to the rear cab mount bolt, remove the grommet


Next you need to remove the front grille, this is simple by unscrewing two phillips screws


and popping out two clips


Give the grill a good yank upwards and it will unclip from the headlight assemblies, careful to use equal force on each side to not snap the cheap plastic Toyota tabs.


Now that the grill is off and interior is partially removed you will have access to all the cab mount bolts.

Start loosening one side of the cab mounts (driver or passenger) leaving the nuts on and then remove the opposite side bolts completely.
Since I was by myself I had to think of interesting way to do this.

I found removing the e-brake cable from the leaf springs made it easier to get to the rear cab mount since the ebrake cable is in the way a bit. Remove with a 14mm socket


Rear cab mount is a 19mm bolt.


To hold the nut in place I used an adjustable wrench with a floor jack, this was a large metric nut and I did not have a deep well socket to fit it so the wrench worked just fine.




Middle cab mount is also 19mm bolt, I used the same method of a floor jack and adjustable wrench. Here is where having a buddy would have came in handy

Front cab mount is 14mm
Use some sockets/extensions so you don't have to take the headlights and bumper off




Make sure you wheel is straight and the bolts on the shaft are able to be accessed from the engine bay or wheel well. Remove the rubber inner flaps in the wheel well that keep mud and debris flying into your engine bay.

Loosen the steering shaft with a 14mm socket to allow it to lengthen with the lift. I also marked mine with some chalk in case it fell out, we don't want to damage the clock spring.



Once you loosen one side of the cab and remove the bolts from the other side you are ready to jack the cab up to insert the lift blocks. Check to make sure you don't have any other wiring or accessories which might be pulled tight when jacking the cab up.

[PSU Taco85]

You will need to transfer the washers from the stock bolts over to the new hardware supplied.

Old versus new hardware


The rear cab mount has a splined washer that needs to be removed. Do not damage the threads of this bolt you will be re-using it (explained later) Here was my crude way of doing it

1-1/16" socket worked rather well


The middle and front cab mount bolts have a washer that is stuck on there with ridges from the forming at the factory, you will need to grind the ridges off to remove the washers.


The middle cab mount washer has an ID that is too small to fit onto the new bolt, I honed out the washer a bit with a die grinder and that worked well.


Once the washers are off transfer them to the new hardware.

Jack up the truck just high enough to slide the lift blocks under

Rear cab mount

middle cab mount


Front cab mount


Once these are in place you can put the new bolts in place. The front cab mount bolt fit very easily however the middle and rear bolts were very tight in the bushing. I used some silicone spray lubricant and pressed them into the bushings with the impact gun.

Tighten the mounts up snug but not too tight since we need movement to do the other side still.



I broke the tabs off on these mounts but I don't see what they did anyhow so no biggie


Repeat the same steps above for the other side jacking up only enough to slide the blocks under and then insert the bolts and tighten snugly.

Now onto the radiator, it will need to be dropped the equivalent amount you raised the body since the radiator core is attached to the body and the fan is on the motor which is attached to the frame.
The radiator kit comes with these mounts to drop it

They worked quite well I'd recommend these over trying to fab up your own, and for the price they can't be beat.

Unclip the top part of the fan shroud, same style clips as the front grille


Remove the radiator core mounting bolts, 12mm I think (4 total)
Top


Bottom


Once the core is unbolted from the frame you can install the drop brackets. The allen bolt threads right into the factory bolt location then the other bolt just mounts in the stock location.




Make sure you bend this little nub or it will not sit flush


Afterwards your fan shroud will not line up correctly I just used a few zip ties to keep it attached and it seems to be working fine


Check to make sure you fan is not hitting the shroud

[PSU Taco85]

Here you can see how much the steering shaft moved after the lift


What I did was spray it with PB blaster (that thing can get pretty seized up) and ensure that the splined coupling was evenly spaced between the upper and intermediate shaft so there is no chance of it popping out. I used a small hammer and whacked it into adjustment then retightened the bolts to FSM torque specs, 26 ft-lbs
http://www.ncttora.com/fsm/05+/data/...a/04400210.pdf




Once all this is done you can tighten down all the cab mount bolts after making sure the cab is centered. I couldn't find a torque spec so I just torqued to 30 ft-lbs. The hardware has nylock nuts so there should be no worries about the hardware loosening up on you.

Re-install the grille and you can now re-assemble all your interior parts, I gave all mine a nice cleaning

Ok so half the truck is done, onto the other half


Onto the bed section, there are 6 mounting bolts that hold the bed to the frame
Front

Middle

Rear


Where the bolt goes through the frame, through welded on captive nuts on the frame
Front

Middle

Rear


These were frozen pretty good on my truck and it is only a year old. I sprayed PB blaster on there and let them sit for a few days and I still needed an impact gun to remove the bolts.

Remove the gas cap, important step!


Loosen the smaller bolt (left side) and remove the larger bolt (right side) that mounts to the frame on the bracket. This will allow your gas tank fillter neck to move with the lift.


The cab bed bolts are T55 torx bit, an awfully strange bit for sure. I had to go to sears to pick up this bit as it is not a commonly used size.


Loosen up one side of bolts and remove the opposite side. (Now would be a good time to add some extra D-rings to your bed if you haven't already )


Use the floor jack and some blocks to lift up the bed


I found this little piece needed to be removed before installing the rear lift block

Use some pliers then push it out with a screwdriver. This is what it looks like, you will not be needing this


Slide the lift blocks into place

Middle

Front

[PSU Taco85]

For the rear bed mount bolt, I used the rear cab mount bolt since the bolt is not long enough. I grinded the splines off the bolt and ground the ridges on the stock bed bolt to remove the washer in a similar fashion as the other bolts above.




After the lift blocks are under the bed install the bolts and hand tighten. Repeat the same process for the other side.

Once you are done you will want to center the bed so it lines up with the cab nicely.
I took a few measurements front/back and side/side to line them up

Left and right are about the same distance away from the cab



I used a block of wood to make sure the bed lined up with the lines of the cab, there are probably better more precise ways but this seemed to work just fine.




Made a few adjustments here to make sure those were equal.

After that I moved onto the back and took measurements from the bumper to the bed, close enough for me



Once your bed is aligned tighten down the 6 bed bolts. I couldn't find a torque spec for these but I used 30 ft-lbs again.


The back bed bolts are 19mm since they are the bolts from the rear cab mount.

Now time to install the gas tank fill neck spacer.
Old bolt versus new hardware from the lift kit


Install the spacer between the frame and bracket, then tighten both bolts up snugly.



Here should be your pile of left over parts if you have installed everything correctly (don't you hate finding that extra bolt wondering where it went )



Finally we will take some measurements to compare from the beginning
Front, 39"

Rear, 41.5"


And for the pics of the truck








The bumper gaps can be taken care of with some mud flap material and you will need some material for the gap guards in the engine bay since they are not long enough.

Make sure to recheck the torque on all the bolts after a few hundred miles of driving. Any questions feel free to post up in this thread to share with others. Hope this has been a help to anyone wanting to tackle this project