Tacoma Spring refurbishing

Howdy ya'll. Finally pulled trigger on this, and couldn't be happier. Had it put together for about a month now, and its far exceeded my expectations. I was coming from factory springs which were shot, blocked with a 3" lift block, and then helper springs to try and save them before i found this mod.

I found a bad ass set of leafs off an older 1-ton chev that were 2 1/2" wide. Broke em apart, cut em down, slapped em in. I put nitro chargers all around, 881's up front, and my truck is the real deal now. Only concern i have is the space between leafs. As suggested by doug, i used wheelbarrow tire chunks as pads, and they are really thick and keep the springs apart except for where the pads touch leaving a gap running all the way between each leaf from the axle U bolt to the pad on end of leafs. Is this an issue? Do springs need to be together, supporting each other the whole way out? Loaded it with 600lb+ of cement and with my 250lb canopy i still had arch...though it was getting down there. I may throw in one more chev. what the hell right.

Cheers for all the great info!

Heres before springs

and after with OMD springs

 

Can you take a side pic? Is it stock top 2 and chevy bottom 3 you did wright? and how much lift did you end up with?

 

Going to try to get to a yard this weekend.

How do you figure how much lift will be attained by the spring you get?

 

would using say a full pack of replacement trailer springs from like big R have any result?

 

Three questions:

1) Do you just take the entire leaf pack home from the junkyard? or do you disassemble there and only take the leafs you need?

2) How do junkyards charge for spring leafs? Per weight? Per Leaf? Or do they just charge you for the entire leaf pack?

3) How much can I expect to pay at the junkyard for a leaf (or leaf pack)?

 

Usually just get the entire pack as its safer to not disassemble ot on the yard. They'll charge you by the pack, not weight. You can ask them if you took only what you needed if the price would change but I'm expecting to pay about 100-150 tops depending on the quality of leafs..

 

My first Post, so please go easy. After reading through this entire thread, I must say thank you to Doug. You sir are certainly a 'trend setter'. And everyone else for feedback on how great this mod is. I will one way or another do this mod soon; depending on the results of this post, will determine how soon.

So on to it. Would my leafs be considered normal for stock or are they bad already? It's pretty bouncy for me at 80 mph on the highway. Thanks in advance.

 

Mike welcome to TW.

Yes your leafs are normal stock leafs.

in fact those have the TSB 3rd leaf it appears.

 

Yep, he has the TSB leaf pack. They weren't designed for a truck...

Now if you want to do this mod, make sure you don't get lift leafs unless you want the lift. If you lift it, make sure you get new shocks.

 

Not so worried about the load, just the ride quality. Some of the research I've done, leans on the tires causing the crappy ride.

Thanks! I was hoping they made a change in the '13's, so I would have some fuel to go to the DS with.

Can you elaborate on... "They weren't designed for a truck..." part?

I was considering doing the Dakota leafs first (cheaper than tires), so I could see if the leafs are my issue. I'm hoping to find an extra set of stock leafs, so I can try my hand at this mod. Then if I screw something up, I can just toss my originals back on the truck.

My greatest barrier is time frame. I'm only at home (and able to have the truck non-operational) for 1 maybe 2 weeks max at a time. Even greater than that, is the availability of a JY.

I do plan on lifting, but I keep changing my mind from 2" to 3" to 4" to 6" and back down again, based of what posts I read that particular day.

 

My reasoning for saying that is you can't load shit into these trucks without your ass sagging. The packs go neutral after a certain amount of heavy load trips. Seems like Toyota used the cheapest metal for the springs.

 

THIS!^^^^^

 

Hi Folks & wow, many questions to address.. I apologize for my absense for the last 2 weeks & will try to address all questions, so bear with me please....

 

Also I have many PM's also......

 

I have a 95 Tacoma with frowning springs and need some to lift the back up to match eibachs with 5100s

 

"Old Mouldy & Dank" At your service.....

PM sent...

 

PM'd....

Its all pretty relative to the amount of ARC the donors have, generally using 2 "normally" ARC'd donors will result in a 2.5"-3" lift, the more ARC, the greater amount of lift is rule of thumb..

I can't comment to this as I use Chevy or Ford truck springs usually....

But I'd say its gotta be better than stock...

About time....

 

Nice work Josh !! looks great, nice pos. ARC & thanks for the feedback...

 

It had to be said, yes, I understand this.......smartass !!! j/k

no same old bouncing off the neighbors signal but theres going to be a change tho', like I've mentioned in the past, he knows I do & he's cool with that, its his wife that keeps turning off the router when they leave for extended time, keeps forgetting that I'm still here at home...