You can lower your old school 86-95 Toyota pickup very easily for super cheap.
Lowering Rear
- Purchase lowering blocks from eBay for about $50-$60. I went with 3 inch. This is the only purchase you need to make for the entire lowering of the whole truck.
- Before installing blocks you must remove the bump stops and cut them down shorter. Be careful likely the 12mm bolts will break. Then re-install the cut blocks. Maybe you will be able to cut the block without undoing them.
Lowering Front (2 part job)
Ball Joint Flip
- The ball joint flip is important because will provide the first 1-1.5 inches of drop. This is important because whereas loosening the torsion bars will reduce front end stiffness which is not optimal. This will not effect front end stiffness. More than likely we want to maximize our stiffness when doing this mod.
- Remove Lower and Upper bump stops and cut them down shorter. I recommend you at least do the top ones before lowering cause they are easier to get at with the truck taller. Then re-install
- Remove the Caliper before undoing any of the ball joints so that you dont pull too hard on the brake line.
- The lowering is mainly achieved by moving the bottom ball joint on-top on the LOWER control arm. It is also cool if you washers or spacers in between the Lower control arm and the lower balljoint. Feel free to add up to 0.5 inches (~12.75mm) using washers or spacers. A larger-sized nut is usually pretty thick and works for this spacer.
- You should also move the upper ball joint on-top of the UPPER control arm. This will reduce binding at full droop and also helps lower you just an extra smidge.
- I recommend having a jack underneath the lower control arm so that it doesnt swing down too agressively. But I did both sides without supporting it and it didn't swing down too bad anyways.
Loosening Torsion Bars
- Before starting hit the bolts with a penetrant like WD-40 a few times for like a week to make your life easier or better. Breaking these kind of sucks because they are not super easy to obtain.
- Measure from the top bolt to the top of the top nut. This will be your reference point.
- Loosen the top nut and measure the distance between the 2 nuts so you can maintain consistency for both torsion bars.
- I have heard that 1cm loosening on the bolt will equate to 2cm drop for the suspension. Your mileage may vary.
- Go for a test drive after making any adjustments so that any new measurements of the suspension are made with a properly settled suspension.