How to: Chevy 63" Leaf Spring Swap

Yes, that is Mark Murrell, he is now retired from BLM Fire. He has been ecstatic with the Jeep, especially the cost and maintenance so much less than Class 10 was. The pic is from the Mint 400 quite a few years ago, he/we are currently prepping it for the Baja NORRA Rally.



Tell your Dad it is good hands, Mark is a steady racer and Finisher, which we still cant seem to do with the pickup

 

Good to see it still getting used. We lost track of it there for a little. If he ever goes to sell it, you know where to find me and I wouldn’t mind buying it back

back to leaf spring/63 talk haha

 

63s still truckin! Now running 16" Carbon Shocks, using 15.5" of stroke during articulation. Vertical travel is still 13-14" depending on the day. Need to do poly bushings, and add a thin leaf or two to the pack to help against axle wrap. May also do some bigger spring perches to help with that as well.

 

... that looks great. I have all the parts sitting in the garage waiting for me to find a lot of free time to tear down the rear and install the 63s - I took the parts out so I'd have to stare at them every day ...

 

I did the whole 63 thing, haven't gotten to test em flex wise besides in the garage. But on the road with the TG creeper shackle mounts (same idea as orbits), the ride is unique and excellent. I really like how it leans and plants in a corner now too, wasn't expecting that behavior but it's very stable.

Mockup:





Frenching:







How it sits right now:

 

Another Tacoma done with Chevy stuff!
Rock auto new leafs, ruffstuff hangers, temporary 14" bilsteins until his Kings show up.

 

Looks awesome - I'm targeting this weekend for mine. going to start removing the basics tonight and grind away tomorrow. Please share any tips to keep in mind ... I have a step by step written down but my plan usually goes off the rails once I get into it.

 

Very nice . Send me a couple of those stickers haha. Fuck yeah.

 

Day 1 of the swap in the bag. Holy sh$t getting the front hangers off suck. Took me forever to get the first. Then the rear took about 15 minutes. PS is clean and ready for leaves. DS still has the hangers but the most of the rivets heads are off so I have a bit more grinding and sanding. Felt good once I got past the point of no return, but still nervous about getting everything lined up.

tomorrows plan. Finish DS cleanup. Tack and line everything up. Burn them in. I have the shocks and relocate but I may save that for another weekend and simply limit travel until then. I’ll see how the day goes …

 

when this is done I'd like to see if there is too much lift. I did the 1gen tundra leafs on my truck and it gives about 4-5" of lift and that is with the spring shop bending the leafs so it has as little lift as possible. hopefully it will sit level..

 

Mine is too high right now. I need to reposition the rear. the shackles are 28* and I'm going to try to reposition the rear mounts to see if I can drop the rear 1" and hope I'm in that 20* ballpark. My fenders are cut so my measurement reference is top of axle to bottom of frame rail. Stock I hear is roughly 8.5". I'm about 12" and would like to be 10.5"-11". I did stick my spare 35 in the back of the bed which helped slightly, but it still sits higher than I want. It does ride softer which is great but I gotta get the 14" shocks in, lower the rear just a tad and fool around with the pinion angle. To make everything even more complicated, I mashed my DS on the last wheeling trip a week before this which introduced some good vibrations in the 40-50mph range. After the new leaves, that range expanded to 30-50mph. Bringing it down a tad should help and then I can fuss with the pinion angle and look into some sort of re-balance. Always something

I'm pretty sure this is sitting on its own weight right before putting the 5100s back in. I'll get to the rest of the work next month when I have a free weekend.

 

My truck sits 1.5" over stock front and rear. Im using old chevy 63s, where as I've done new leaf packs on the last couple trucks I've done and they sit a decent amount higher. The new packs also bend/w weird so i actually prefer junkyard packs lol

 

^^ that is a nice stance...

 

Can you fit tacoma bump stops with the ruffstuff plate? I currently have durobumps

 

You would need to either drill the plate out, or weld the bumps onto the plate.

 

How many leafs are you currently on?

 

4, and a half leaf on top of the pack to act as an anti wrap leaf

 

I have a 3+1 and thinking of removing the overload. My 3rd gen is a dclb so the rear is a little heavier especially with my bruteforce rear bumper with swingout/spare. Do you think I would need an aal along with something to prevent an axle wrap?

 

Yeah I have a spare, bumper, along with spare cvs, driveline, and probably 150lbs in tools so probably the same weight.
I ran no overload with 3 leafs and it was alright, definitely had some bad wheel hop breaking them loose on the street. Offroad was fine besides in sand/snow.

 

Hmm..tough decisions now..already have all the parts with 14 inch fox 2.0 with AG shock relocation. Trying to weigh the pros and cons of 63s