Thought I would share my truck lifting experience as I learned quite a bit with my latest mods.

I first lifted my truck with medium Terrrafirma springs and regular length shocks. Drove it for a long time like that until I advanced enough to need some more clearance.

The medium springs in the back were always too weak. if both rear tires hit a bump at the same time there would be a lot of rear end drop, even when unloaded.

I also noticed my steering was a bit vague on center.

My other issue was side to side sway on rough roads was annoying. I made a run on the Whipsaw trail in BC Canada with my buddy in his D1. We noticed how much I was swaying back and forth compared to his. This was a quick snap back and forth. The D1 would sway more on a side hill, but would not snap back on forth on uneven terrain like the D2.

We figured this was due to the extra thickness of the D2 front swaybar compared to the D1. All the swaying was bad for traction. I kept lifting tires after hitting bumps.

I replaced the medium springs with Terrafirma heavy duty. I also installed Terrafirma 3 degree castor correction arms.

At the same time I removed the front swaybar and replaced the shocks with the same Terrafirma regular length units I had before.

The truck now sat much higher than before. After fitting the HD springs my front measurement from wheel centre to bottom of wheel arch was 21.375 and 21.75 at the rear. Given the RAV specs this means the front is up 2-1/8" from stock and the rear is 2-3/4" up from stock.

After this work the ride was nice and smooth, the HD springs do not seem to contribute to small sharp bump response, but the swaybar removal certainly did. Much nicer ride on the road.

After this work I noticed a loud drumming sound in the cabin when putting the engine under load. Hearing this sound I remembered that this sound was occurring with my medium lift and I just thought it was my muffler wearing out.

I figured it may be from poor angles on the front driveshaft now that I had both lifted and turned the axle down with the castor correction arms. I decided to measure the angles and draw the driveline in AutoCAD. Turns out that the mods gave me an angle of 7 degrees on the single universal joint a the diff. This is really bad for single universal joints. To confirm I removed the front driveshaft and drove the truck around. The drumming was completely gone. I now knew for sure this was occurring even with my medium lift before.

Keep in mind that my truck has been converted to a TD5 diesel with a 5 speed so perhaps there was some harmonic with the diesel engine pulses and pulses from the 7 degree u-joint.

I was surprised that no suppliers wanted to sell me a drive shaft with a double u-joint on each end. Both Great Basin Rovers and Pats Driveline said they had not heard of anyone having such issues despite the well known angle limitations of single u-joints. The geometry proved the u-joint must be creating vibration.

Pat's driveline said for me to get my existing front shaft balanced first to make sure. My shaft had very low miles at this point and I was skeptical given the large 7 degree angle. After custom balancing the problem was unchanged.

Finally Pat's allowed me to give them the money to convert my shaft to have a double u-joint at each end. Upon installation the drumming was gone. Super smooth like a new truck!

So if you lift you should consider a custom from driveshaft. I bet a lot of folks are driving around with a drumming noise and just figure their truck is old and makes noise.

I also had to remove the front cross member to fit the greater diameter of the new driveshaft.

The other issue that came up was the super thick width of the clumsy welded Terrafirma castor correction control arms. My 245 75 16 Duratracs on factory wheels rubbed badly on the arms at full lock.

To solve this I lost my mind and ordered the Terrafirma Dakar 16 X 7 wheels made by EVO Corse in Italy. I installed 235 85 16 Firestone Destination MT tires. The wheel offset ends up with the outer face of the wheel being about the same place as the factory wheels, but with the rim being 1" narrower, it moved the wheel 1/2" from the control arms. The slightly thinner tire section also helped a bit. No rubbing now and I get a larger diameter tire. The Destinations are a full 32", almost 1.5" larger than the C-Rated Duratracs. I also realized that the 245 75 16 tires really did not fit well on the 8" factory rims. The rim was too wide to allow the sidewalls to have a nice bulge.

So I get full lock steering, and the tires are still under the wheel wells so mud does not fly all over the place.

These tires run very smooth. I was surprised because my last set of E-rated tires made my truck ride like an unloaded dump truck. The truck rides like a 70's American car now. Unfortunately the truck also handles poorly, it leans way more and has an abrupt turn in. Once settled in a turn it is not bad and you get used to the lean. The worst is an S bend going from left to right turn or vice versa. That is when things feel uncomfortable at anything above 90 km/hr. I think a lot of that is from the increased height at the rear of the truck. It seems the castor correction did not do much, of course perhaps without castor correction, the extra lift, crossmember and sway bar removal would have made the handling even worse? I guess I changed to much at once to be scientific about all this.

I have decided to drive slow and enjoy the nice ride for now. I wonder if the front cross member would help with handling?

Off road the truck is a monster now, so much more traction and clearance and you can spend all day on the trail in supreme comfort.

 

Very interesting you were having driveshaft trouble on just a 2" lift! I'm having a multiple double cardon shaft spun up soon for my rig, but I'm on 3.5" and the vibration is fairly severe on the interstate. Not an issue I had with the two prior trucks I had on the same 3.5" lift, however.

Definitely is a nice upgrade, however, particularly if you're offroading.

 

Great write-up. Thanks for sharing!