Suspension Lift Without Axle Suck on your FJ40 Toyota Land Cruiser! FASHION OR FUNCTION?

FJ40 TOYOTA LAND CRUISER
FASHION OR FUNCTION?

Are you lifting your 40-Series Land Cruiser for the looks or the functionality?
When it comes to putting a lift kit on an FJ40 Toyota Land Cruiser, we are quite critical about how the lift will affect the axle placement.

Call us FJ fashionistas if you want, but the two photos above illustrate the visual cues of the right and wrong of wheel spacing on FJ40 Land Cruisers. What we are talking about here is “axle suck,” but we are looking at it from a pure functional standpoint! In the above photo comparison, it’s a dead giveaway that the driveshaft is being compressed when the wheel is too tight to the body. Over the years, we’ve installed various FJ40 lift kits and have eliminated the setups that didn’t work for us. We have fine-tuned our “perfect combination” and have been running the same setup for years! See our FJ40 “Ultimate” 2.5 Lift Kit.

We want our FJ40s to have a suspension lift, but without axle suck!

Yet, every day, we see “new-to-us” 40-Series Land Cruiser owners come into the shop with all the wrong suspension setups. Thus, we must consider that most people are primarily seeking “the look” without examining the technical implications of ill-suited suspension modifications. Take it from us, we are not trying to limit your dreams… We’ve built all the heavily modified rock-crawler-spec Land Cruisers. Thus, we’ve explored the outer limits of suspension.

Side Note: Shackle Reversal setups work great for wheeling in the rocks, but not for the street. Every rig has its best-case scenario and desired use, so talk to us before… BEFORE you spend your money!

Bucking Bronco’s
The dark blue FJ40 at the top of this post recently came into the shop and rides like a bucking Bronco! We are the Bronco state, WE LOVE OUR BRONCO’S FOOTBALL TEAM, but our rigs don’t have to ride like a Bronco, nor feel like you’re getting your kidneys rushed by Jackson and Miller! We’re talking leaf springs, so don’t expect FJ/FZJ80 coil-over ride comfort (but we’ve come close with our new suspension!). Most of these FJ40 rigs come into the shop way oversprung. Down in Australia, they play rugby! It’s rough and rowdy! They play hard! When they go to the bush, they go big, hard, and heavy, as in they weigh their rigs down with all the camping amenities! How many of you are going weekend camping in your FJ40? Does your tent weigh 35 to 55 pounds? See where we are going with this? But even still…

It’s not just a visual thing…
With the suspension lift on the dark blue FJ40 Land Cruiser, you can see how much tighter the “wheel gap” is in comparison to the “red FJ40” on the right. What this “visual cue” means is that the blue FJ40’s rear axle has technically moved forward due to “those other lift kits.”

The Other Lifts – Side Effects
We service a lot of FJ40s, and while servicing these types of rigs (with the ill-suited lift), we have to remove the driveshaft before putting it up on the rack, as the driveshaft becomes fully compressed. Sometimes, this “compressed driveshaft” is so severe that we have to shorten the shafts to alleviate the pressure on the U-joints and bearings. The shortening of the driveshaft allows for proper movement of the slip-yoke without said pressure and undue stress that will prematurely shorten the life expectancy of critical drivetrain components. Have you priced differential and Transmission Case rebuilds? We do not have these “compressed driveline” issues with our 2.5 Ultimate Lift Kit! Technically, we like to add just a scratch more length to the driveline when using our 2.5 Ultimate Lift. 

Continuing with the “other lifts,” along with the driveline pinion angles being off, the caster and pinion angles will also be out of spec. What we get from the customers is, “My steering feels heavy, and I was thinking about adding a power steering kit. Can we add that to my rig?” While we can and do, we prefer to do it for the right reasons. We will discuss this further later, but the main point is not to add power steering to compensate for the incorrect steering geometry.

Yes, you wanted to lift your FJ40 and add larger tires, but did you consider the width & height of those tires and what effects the tire size change will have on your steering “feedback?”

Negative / Positive Caster – Lift Effects Everything! 
Does your steering have what we like to call the “bad shopping cart” effect, or do you have to put your foot on the dash and then pull on the wheel to get your FJ40 to steer around a sharp corner? Negative caster results in lighter and easier steering but reduced stability when driving in a straight line. If your FJ40 has too much negative caster, it will have a sloppy or loose-feeling steering wheel (which is a lot less common than a hard-to-turn wheel).

Positive caster makes the rig drive straight. Positive caster increases the amount of steering effort required to make a turn, but also improves straight-line tracking. While a positive caster improves high-speed stability and causes the steering wheel to return to center when you let go, we are talking about FJ40 Toyota Land Cruisers. Not Land Speeders! These are 4X4 rigs that we want to turn and steer through rugged terrain. Yes, we will be driving down the highway to get to the fun stuff, so we want the best all-around setup!

We want 1 to 2 degrees of positive caster on a tire measuring 31″ to 35″ in diameter. (Past 35″, we dial in a little more). The FJ40 Land Cruisers came from the factory with 1-degree of positive caster, a large steering wheel, and 28″ tires. Tire size affects the caster setting, AND suspension lift affects the caster. Thus, we consider all this when dialing in the suspension. We prefer using 33″ tires, but with that, we also appreciate maintaining the large 18″ steering wheel. Not because it’s classy and looks the part, but rather because the larger steering wheel makes steering easier. Again, everything is a “sliding scale” of gains and compromises. You wanted a suspension lift to clear the larger tires on your 40-Series Land Cruiser.

RUST IS COOL! Rust is cool when your 40-Series Land Cruiser is mechanically sound and suited for technical pursuits! We love to DRIVE our FJ40 Toyota Land Cruisers, not just look at them parked in the garage like scale trophy models. These are real-deal mechanical 4-wheel drive vehicles, designed to take us to the last remnants of frontier wilderness and reconnect us with our original adventure spirit.
See the Red Line 2.5 Ultimate Lift Kit for FJ40 Toyota Land Cruiser – 1963 through 1984 

More FJ40 Land Cruiser reading:
The Perfect Wheel / Tire / Suspension Package for your FJ40 / 40-Series Toyota Land Cruiser Build

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RED LINE LAND CRUISERS
Phone: (719) 638-2003
Email: info@redlinelandcruisers.com
Address: 1050 Ford Street, Colorado Springs, Colorado 80915-2909