Lifting your 4Runner is great in so many ways. You raise ground clearance making it more capable off-road, you give it a better appearance, and you make it look less like the soccer mom SUV at the grocery store. One of the down sides of lifting any vehicle is ruining the geometry that is the factory suspension. All the connections that hold your moving parts to your chassis are designed to work in a specific way. When you lift your truck you change that range of motion.
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Centering
When we start looking at the rear axle you will see there are several links keeping it centered. The upper and lower links keep the axle centered in your wheel well, while the panhard bar keeps your axle centered from side to side. The panhard bar connects from the driver’s side on the axle to the passenger side on the frame. When stock this bar is nearly flat. After a lift the bar will be slanted upward. Now this changes the travel of the rear axle when going over bumps.
Imagine trying to hold a door shut with your arm. Having your arm straight and level will give you a more firm brace than if you were to place your hand at the top of the door with your arm at an angle. This is also true with how the panhard bar works. When you lift your truck you are changing the angle and the operating range of the panhard bar. Instead of traveling a few inches on either side of level, you are now traveling a few inches on either side of an extended bar. This will create an arc like travel in your rear axle.
1.5″ Lift to 3″ Lift
In my previous suspension setup I had 1.5” rear lift springs. I will tell you I never noticed any kind of issues with these, but when I went up to 3” rear springs it was immediately noticeable on bumps. When I would hit bumps with the 3” rear springs you could feel the rear end almost bounce sideways. Kind of a wishy washy feeling in the suspension cycle.
Solutions
I decided I needed to do something to try to combat this situation. There are a few solutions out on the market to help solve this issue. One of the most commonly used ones is an adjustable track bar. This is a bar that replaces the stock panhard bar with one that you can adjust the length on. In theory this works to get your axle back to center from side to side, but does not solve the issue of how it affects the range of motion. Your bar will still be at an angle, thus reducing the effectiveness to handle the range of motion.
Eimkeith PCK
This is where the eimkeith PCK comes in. This is a steel bracket that gets welded on to the axle side mount for the panhard bar. This gives you 2 more holes to raise the level of the bar up to make it level again. This gets the geometry back to stock for the rear suspension. I will tell you that driving this setup for a couple weeks now I can notice a tremendous improvement on the way the rear suspension handles bumps. No more wishy washy feeling. I have even taken this on a pretty mild trail and I will report no ill effects from this mod. The great thing about this is you will still retain the use of the stock hole if you ever choose to go back to the factory suspension. So now you have 3 setting to get you dialed in.
In a perfect world you could add this bracket and pair it with an adjustable panhard bar to get the axle perfectly centered. You will probably end up with a stronger bar as a result too, but I definitely don’t feel the need to mess with my rear suspension any more. I am very happy with how this turned out.
Installation
I ordered my bracket from Treaty Oak Off-road along with some KDSS spacers. The KDSS spacers are great if you have KDSS. It will eliminate some if not all of the lean, and it will eliminate any contact that may happen with components in the rear end. I took my truck to Toy Crawlers in Broomfield CO after a buddy delivered there for work. He talked to Jacob the owner for me, and he was nice enough to squeeze me in when he really didn’t need to. He was a real joy to deal with, and I highly recommend anyone who needs work done in the Denver area check him out.