I made a mistake on buying my leaf springs

OK sooooo everything is on and i took it for a test run today. The new set up deff improved the ride in the rear as in softened it out. However im still kinda high in the rear and on acceleration im getting a vibration. I know some of you said about installing a shim but honestly my pinion angle is not that off at all. Maybe just a hair off. Now my center support bearing is shot and has been for awhile manly do to the axle wrap with the blocks and stock springs. Also when tightening my u bolts something weird is happening and i dont know if this is normal of not (picture below)



Its as though the bolts are bending at the bottom? They are torqued to spec and tight with no issues but the angle of these things has me concerned... i just dont want these things to catastrophically fail on me...

Please all your impute is very much important

 

the bad carrier bearing is causing your vibration, once you fix that it will be smooth

 

Yea the vibration is only when I apply torque or give it gas it rumbles. Will replace that and hopefully it will take care of it. However I'm still concerned about the u bolts tho

 

Sounds like a U joint to me. But could very well be the carrier bearing, too. They're a consumable item and it probably needs replacing any way.

The U bolts look over torqued so much that they have the plate bowed up causing the ends of the bolts to spread apart. Is there any 'broken' paint at the bottom-cent of the plate? This would be an indicator that it is bent.

 

I thought that was the issue as well but nothings bent at all. There currently torqued to 80ftlbs.

I mean from what they look like is it something that can fail catastrophically??

 

Where did these U bolts come from? They're not OEM judging by the length. They may be smaller than the OEM and have slid to the outside of the bolt holes causing them to look like that. How did they fit over the axle? Did you have to force them down with a hammer, did they just need a push, or did they slide right over easy peasy.

 

I bought these online at a suspension place ill have to look at my receipt again. They slid right on over the spring. Now they don't fill up the entire hole in the plat, not sure if thats an indication of them being too small or not.

 

A bolt's torque is specific to it's threads. Take an m12 x 1.5 pitch: it's 12mm in outside diameter and the threads pitch has a 1.5mm drop. There is a specific torque for this, but a m12 x 1.25 has a different torque.

So, if your new U bolts have a lower pitch then you've over torqued them.

Then there's debates into if it should be lubed it made up dry? What grade? Yada yada.

 

Sooooo pretty much I now need to go off the max torque spec of the new u-bolt? Nit the factory manual torque spec?

 

If the new U bolts came with a stated torque? Yes. Personally, I'd get a set from a reputable Toyota based vendor. If you did, then contact them and send that picture.

 

Gotchya, i just ordered a new set of u-bolts from fabtech... thoses are to spec at 90ftlbs. Should be here thursday. Thanks for the quick replies man!!!

 

Now guys.... for the bad news... As i drove this again im not very happy with the results that this setup gave me. The cons outweigh the pros... Now that everything has leveled out im almost 3inches high in the rear. Not the look im looking for. I took a leaf out and it did lower it but not enough to where i want it. Bottom line im just not happy with this setup and the ride it gave me. Cant say i tried though and i deffinatly learned something from this build. I will say tho that the springs would make for excellent travel and articulation along with eliminating all axle wrap. I was very impressed with that. But like i said just not the look for me and i dont want to mess with the front to bring it up with the rear hight.

So as far as what im going to do... i plan on putting the stock springs and blocks back in with the original fabtech shocks for the mean time. Im also going to keep the adjustable toytech shackle to at least level the rear out as best i can.

Whats to come (what should have been done in the first place).... I will be buying either

A> stock height old man emu springs in conjunction with the 3inch fabtech blocks and do the final adjustment with the toytech shackles

B> get the stock old man emu springs that have the extra 2 1/2 inch with the 3" blocks and toytech shackles

Will also be putting in a rough country torque bars to fieght the axle wrap..

 

well its cost money to find out sometimes but at least now you know what you need to get where you need to be.

it should be easy to sell the other stuff to get most of your money back out of it.

 

Yea ik, it just pretty frustrating when ya put that much work into something and it doesn't work. But hey I learned a hell of a lot. The only thing ill be selling are the springs tho. Everything else I can still use. Springs will be for sale at a great price

 

To wrap this thread up, just wanted to say thanks to all those who gave advise and solutions to problems with this build. Very much appreciated!!! Hope to start a new thread with (suspension upgrade trial 2) in the near future

Thanks again

 

I'm waay too late to this thread but I do have just a couple questions for you...

On page two you have a few pictures of these springs mounted with stock shackles. The angle is a LITTLE steep, but not bad. Also, it looks like the shackle is getting close to the trailer hitch bracket, not the frame. So, 2 questions.

1. Did you ever flex the truck out and confirm that you actually hit that bracket on compression?
2. If so, have you considered just grinding down that bracket a little to accommodate the shackle movement? Those brackets are overbuilt and will be able to handle a little grinding.

FWIW, the shackle may not move as much as you think. I'm running 6" shackles... here are a couple pics of my shackle angles on flat ground and full compression:

Here's my shackle on flat ground:


Here's my shackle at full compression:

 

No prooblem man, better late then never lol

Yea, turns out when i installed the toytech adjustable shackles that clearance between the trailer hitch and shackle WASENT going to be a problem, which was a major relief. However when i added the longer shackle and adjusted it to its lowest setting (1") it put me way high in the rear, more then my particular liking (like 3inches). Pretty much solved one problem and created another. If i remove a leaf from the pack it will only bring the rear down maybe 1/2" which in not enough....

These springs would deff work IF i could keep my OEM shackles with no lift. However when coupling these springs with my original OEM shackles i was then running into clearance issues with the shackle and frame as you can see from the pictures in #38. What was happening was the inside of the shackel was making contact with the frame. My stock shackles bend inward at the spring mount end. I was forced to either get longer shackles or move the original shackle mounting point back via cutting and welding and i dont have the time nor skill for that.

 

No prooblem man, better late then never lol

Yea, turns out when i installed the toytech adjustable shackles that clearance between the trailer hitch and shackle WASENT going to be a problem, which was a major relief. However when i added the longer shackle and adjusted it to its lowest setting (1") it put me way high in the rear, more then my particular liking (like 3inches). Pretty much solved one problem and created another. If i remove a leaf from the pack it will only bring the rear down maybe 1/2" which in not enough....

These springs would deff work IF i could keep my OEM shackles with no lift. However when coupling these springs with my original OEM shackles i was then running into clearance issues with the shackle and frame as you can see from the pictures in #38. What was happening was the inside of the shackel was making contact with the frame. My stock shackles bend inward at the spring mount end. I was forced to either get longer shackles or move the original shackle mounting point back via cutting and welding and i dont have the time nor skill for that.

 

^So, that's what I was asking about. From the picture you mentioned, it looks like the shackle was going to hit a bracket for your hitch... not the frame. If that's the case, you can just grind back that section to allow your stock shackle to clear it.

 

Lol yea i was deff gonna do that if it came down to it but no need to now.