4th Gen Longbed Tacoma Offroad MT64 Install lessons learned
I recently purchased a 2026 long bed Tacoma off-road and I’ve done a few modifications to it. I personally installed Old Man Emu MT64 front and rear suspension. I am running Mickey Thompson 255/85/17 on the stock wheels.
I learned a lot on the Install and I would like to share with anyone who may be searching for concise online instructions. ARB does not include any outside of the brief included guide for the UCA.
First off, I would recommend to anyone who decides to do this grab what I believe is necessary. two jacks (one to lift the frame and one to lift suspension), a jack stand, metric wrenches and sockets, torque wrenches for lover than 100ft/lb and one up to 200 ft/lbs.
I would also recommend a ball joint puller for the spindle removal (I used autozones duralast part number #84-005 which did the trick for me).
To start off I would like to say anything I say here is just my experience and shouldn’t be used as gospel nor should it prevent you from checking other informational sources.
The install took me about 8 hours overall working majorly on my own and having my neighbors lending hand occasionally for when a third hand would be nice.
Time for the actual install:
I started with the front suspension on the driver side because I have heard from here and other forums that it would be the most difficult. I like doing the harder parts when I’m mentally fresh.
i jacked up the truck under the frame with a harbor freight floor jack and two short sections of 2x4 for extra height. Once I got to the level I needed to remove the tire, I used a jack stand to sit statically under a rock rail I previously installed.
I removed the wheel and got to loosening parts. I loosened the UCA, spindle castle nut, tie rod, sway bar end link, and lower strut mount. Once loosened I opted to replace the UCA first and leave the strut in place to hold the axle in the front dif.
The upper control arm balljoint that connects to the spindle is a PITA if you don’t have the puller I mentioned above. I initially hammered on it to no avail. Purchased the puller and viola the joint comes right off. For the control arm I was able to use a regular claw hammer to get the Joint loose. A rubber deadblow did not do the trick, but the regular claw hammer did the job in one or two small swings.
The UCA bolt on the driver side is a $?!$& To say the least. The bolt requires either a lot of “encouragement“ to go over the intercooler hose mounting point (what I did) or you need to remove some trim pieces and loosen the intercooler itself to be wiggled out of the way during bolt removal and re installation. (there is a video on YT that shows this process from a Toyota dealership using Trd parts).
Once the UCA was removed and the OME UCA reinstalled, the process becomes much less difficult. I placed my second floor jack under the lower control arm to control the vertical movement during the install.
You will have to lower the lower arm enough to remove and also install the new struts. I put a couple of the nuts on the top a few threads to hold it in place while I got the lower portion in place.
Once you have everything back together loosely just go through and torque everything to spec. the hard part is there is no torque specs for anything outside of the UCA bolt. for info I used the Toyota torque specs for anything outside of the provided specs from OME.
The passenger side is the same process but the UCA bolt doesn’t have an intercooler to deal with. I had to call ARB because I (my own mistake) over torqued and snapped one of the top hat studs. There are no replacement parts for it so they helped me out significantly by sending me a new strut.
I also had to call them about the brake line / abs line bracket that comes with the kit. they were able to walk me through the right orientation for the brackets.
I can upload some pictures to show the right way to mount the brackets.
Once both fronts were on I had to loosen the front sway bar mounting bracket to spin the whole assembly to re index it with the new lifted position.
The rears were way easier. Just lifted again from the frame, removed the wheel, removed sway bar end and removed the lower shock bolt with the second floor jack under the axle.
I lowered the axle enough to easily remove the spring and replace it with the OME spring. I removed the old shock and replaced lit with the new shock. I got a thread or two on the then had to wiggle the lower into place while going up or down on the second jack to find the right height to pass the bolt through. When you are tightening the upper bolt on the shock, make sure you get past the nylock portion of the nut then torque.
The sway bar in the rear easily reinstalled with a little pressure to help the bolt through. I torqued everything then lowered the entire truck and retorque everything while the suspension is under its own weight.
I went and got the new tires installed at discount tire. Before I drove off I checked the fitment in the front and rear. Both front and rear had clearance even while at any portion of the turning radius. I did not have to remove the crash bar or the stock mud flaps.
Took my Tacoma out for its first real trail in east San Diego county today and it performed great. I lifted a wheel or two but no rubbing anywhere from the almost 35” tires on stock wheels.
Ask me anything you would like to ask if you are planning on doing this install. I will do my best to reply back and upload pictures of whatever you may need.
-J