Frame braces?

I know there's lots of talk about the partially boxed frame on Tacos, but I haven't really seen much about any easy bracing to shore it up. Not much talk about it on second gens either, as far as I can tell. I heard about someone rigging up an X-runner brace to their 2nd gen, but it's a passing reference from 2006.

Surely there's got to be some spots that could be triangulated- rear shock mounts, rear shackle mounts... something like that?!

Any fab shops considering this sort of stuff for the 3rd gen? @Mobtown Offroad , maybe?

In theory, some chromoly tube with mounting plates to make triangles would be all that's needed, (heck you could even roughly imitate the X-Runner X-brace but for 3rd gens) but obviously you would need to find good existing points to mount it up without losing clearance. Does such a thing just not exist?

 

What makes you think the frame needs more bracing?

 

Maybe he's out in the dunes doing sweet jumps

 

Well I hear people bemoan it all the goddamned time so surely someone must have thought of bracing it somehow. Maybe those are just the people who like to piss and moan about things.

I don't think it needs it in day-to-day use & it's fully boxed in the front suspension/motor mounts area, so really the only spot I would foresee the frame potentially need a little help would be near the rear axle.

So I looked at a pic of a 2nd gen frame which is roughly the same as ours:


The shock mounts are actually pretty close (almost spot on) to that existing cross member. So scratch that. However, look at where the rear shackles mount in. Doesn't that look like it could use a little reinforcement? I know the rear bumper acts as another cross member, but it just seems like you might find spreading/twisting stress concentrated in that area- especially if you're taking full advantage of your articulation.

If it's no issue on a stock travel suspension, I'm more than happy to keep my wallet heavy and the frame light.

 

FYI - That is not a second gen frame in the pic you posted. Yes, there is a serious need to box and strengthen the frame they are very weak, twist easily and are also known to fold over your bumpstops. @jeffz0rz makes a frame plate kit for second gens. It is also a good idea to remove the OE spare cross member and replace it with an X made from tubing to minimize lateral twisting.

 

Scratch that, I found a 3D model online... Funny, it looks nothing like that other frame!! (EDIT: Makes sense now given what @Evenflow posted haha.)

Still seems like those rear shackle mounts could use some extra strength, but I'm stumped on how you would easily fab something to hold 'em more firmly. That's why I'm not a fabricator though.

 

Instead of adding braces and stuff (it isn't my sports car), I just hope this generation of Toyota frame actually lasts and doesn't rot away

 

You could always weld in some sheetmetal to fully box the frame, then put in a couple of deep tubes connecting the two ladder frames together to give it torsional/shear rigidity BUT you will inevitable mess with the ride quality. For better, for worse, I cant be sure but it will affect it and probably be somewhat speed dependent.

 

I've seen a few pics over the years of shackle mounts twisted out. Most remove them completely and weld in a shackle flip bracket.

 

Tow hitch would help reinforce the rear for you

 

Here's some good stuff! Evenflow tagged Jeffz0rz in another post.

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/jta-metalworks-san-diego.382744/

 

Here's MHO why you don't see any/many kits out there............. there's no money to be made in doing it.

99.9% of the owners don't need them. They don't work the vehicle that hard, and the frame is quite adequate for how their vehicle is used.

Those who do need them are doing a full on build of some sort, (like the link provided above) and either can do their own fab work, have a source for the one-off work they need, or they are I'll-fix-it-when-it breaks-types.

Like @lotuscupcar suggests, this isn't a sports car where a rigid chassis equates to better high speed handling. If someone is building a Tacoma for on track adventures, that's a whole 'nuther game. But again, the market is so minuscule that it would be very difficult to turn a profit off developing and producing a kit.

 

I'm not saying they wouldn't sell, but it would be so rare that it might not be worth the time and investment to do the r and d. ROI would be fairly poor. The reason I say this is because the guys who would actually benefit from this are already most likely fairly skilled fabricators who can access the plate and tubing and know how to do this. The only reason one would want to do this is to eliminate chassis flex under some serious crawling. Although we'd like to think this is our market but it really isn't. The majority of the market is do some light to moderate wheeling which the Tacomas are more than capable as is. Who knows, maybe one day I get around to doing it. We talked about doing a bunch of work to one of our shop trucks, specifically @jowybyo 2014 DCSB. We plan to do a Chevy 63 swap, FJ t case and we are going back and forth on either SAS or a really good long travel set up. We are most likely going to get up with Jerry @JLee about the shock perches he offers now. Maybe when we do the Chevy 63 we'll pull the bed and get crazy. Who knows...

 

I hear ya! At the end of the day if there's no real easy way to do it, it would be silly to spend a lot of R&D time!

What I was looking for would be something bolt-in that would shore things up as well as possible with minimal fab work. Like, I could live with the fact that it wouldn't be as optimal as welding in new mounts and boxing if it was something you could throw on in an afternoon and get 60-70% of the rigidity gain. The school of "something is better than nothing."

I did actually find something that sort of fits my idea, though!
http://www.definedengineering.com/products.html



Looks simple enough, a length of DOM that locates the 2 shackle mounts. Drill 2 holes in the existing X-Brace to bolt it in. Problem is it looks like you need to shitcan the stock spare mount, and I don't know how strong it would actually be in terms of preventing "spreading" of the shackle mounts. Looks like it would work well in keeping them from folding inwards, but not spreading outwards. I'm not an engineer though, I just pretend sometimes.

 

Short answer to frame flex: Mobtown 4pc skid plates....problem solved.

 

Lol...people do so much suspension work to get good articulation.....then want to take some of the beneficial frame flex out? Welding in bracing here and there without doing the engineering work to design for flex and prevent stress concentrations is likely to cause more harm than good. Welding improperly designed stiffeners in can actually make the frame weaker due to stress concentrations at the weld joints.

 

Skids and rock rails otta solve most problems.

 

I'm of the opinion that your suspension should be handling all the flex and articulation, not the frame. But yeah, all good points with stress risers & concentrations- also worth pointing out is the fact that these C-channel frames already have rust issues, I'd wager boxing it in is only going to exacerbate issues on an already apparently sub-optimal design.



It looks like the simplest (if you could even use that term) option for shoring up the shackles would be retrofitting a 2nd gen X-runner brace. It would require designing and welding on mounting tabs or sourcing a set of X-runner shackle mounts, though, which is a remarkably un-simple thing.

 

Yeah, on a desert race truck, I can see where a stiff frame is beneficial and will allow the shocks to do the work. If your going slow on offroad trails and rocks, meh...shocks aren't doing much work.