Hammer Hangers® by Archive Garage 2005-2023 Tacoma Shackle Hangers

Possibly, I think these just let the leaf springs do their job

 

Thabks @ARCHIVE just dont go off road as much as i used to so wanted to make sure these helped with on road quality as well

 

They absolutely do improve on-road ride quality

 

I expect you should have some solid results. I know from a ridigity stand point, the stiffer the frame with minimal flex...the more your suspension actually works by itself. I think with stuff like this, you could finally see the full potential of your suspension vs having half suspension and half ass flex from the frame that the factory sets it up with.

I remember talking to a guy about this and he said something along the lines that it helps Toyotas design philosophy to make the frame very fluid as it helps to give into the small bumps due to the lack of quality suspension from the get go. So by having a solid suspension system on the truck will be hindered to a degree by the crap frame sway without a product like this.

 

Anyone running these hangers with Dakar’s?

 

Probably a couple dozen+, I posted a couple reviews from Dakar users at bottom of post #218

On Instagram: @maxx.powell @pdx_trdor @alex.busta @Discoveries_unknown

 

Are they noticing any more travel with these hangers?

 

@ARCHIVE so i would just need #1 or #2 spacers. Im assuming two for u402s i picked up at deaver and nothing for shackle option if im using stock shackles, stock bushing which i think you suggested for stock shock location

 

4/21 Edit: @Slvr14tacoma I just found out Deaver now supplies the correct width bushings/Sleeves usually so if you have bushings 02P02842 or 02P02843 with .875" OD bolt sleeve that is ~2.87" long, you do not need spacers.

If you bought Deavers a few months back and the bushing p/n is 2247 I believe, and the bolt sleeve is .75" OD x 2.75" long, then add 1 .125" spacer per spring eye on the outboard side, to equal 2.875".

 

Alright, incoming write-up but I am now running Archive shackles with a set of "fresh" OEM leaves.

After vigorously jumping on the bed and rocking it all down, but before any appreciable settling I am looking at about 1.5" (a bit under) of lift!!

 

Gained 1/4" lift and 2 1/2" of droop. Now my shocks are the limiting factor.
First two pics are before and the rest are after.
Before
Ride height 40 3/4"
Droop 43"

After
Ride height 41"
Droop 45 1/2"

 

Ok ill have to measure thanks. picked them up roughly a year ago. these are on the “serious” list

 

I'd say that 1/2" of that is the Hammer hangers. You did measure a difference in spring pack thickness between your stock and the TRD Pro Double Cab springs. You're probably went from "w/o firm ride" springs to "w/ firm ride" springs (see pics). Measuring the pack thickness is real world, the parts catalogue might be incorrect.

Here are listings for 2017 model year from Olathe Toyota Parts, and it seems you were right in post #175

2017 TRD Pro (Double Cab Short Bed)
https://parts.olathetoyota.com/auto...gine/rear-suspension-cat/rear-suspension-scat
2017 Tacoma SR 2.7 Access Cab
https://parts.olathetoyota.com/auto...gine/rear-suspension-cat/rear-suspension-scat
If you scroll down there is 1 part number that is different 48210-35810 that is not able to be ordered:

 

So here's the confounding thing. I bought my leaves from @Vitalzone who had a 2016 OR.
I measure the packs, they are off by about one tenth.
We get the stock packs off during the install, and laying them next to each other his pack is just a hair taller than mine:

I measured thickness again. About 1/10th off. Looking for any difference, I notice some individual leaves are stamped "35" and others have a "44" or a "71"...
I flop the springs over to look at the top, and it hits me- it's the SAME PART NUMBER.

What in the actual hell?!?! @Mike330R who also has a 2016 DCSB Offroad is helping me do the install and he points over in the corner of his garage. "There's my leaf pack, check those!"

SAME. PART. NUMBER. I'm thoroughly confused at this point because we have 3 leaf sets with the same part number, one with 20k, one with 13k, and one with 700 miles. They all measure a different thickness, and the 13k pack is the thinnest, 20k in the middle, and 700 mile is the thickest so there is literally no rhyme or reason at this point.

Then it dawns on me, I think we are looking at the wrong criteria- it's maybe sorted by year, not options package? I really should start a thread and ask people to read off their leaf pack numbers.

Extra-confounding tidbit: Toyota T-SB-0171-16 for the driveline vibration specified replacement of leaf packs for some trucks. Regardless of trim, access cabs get one PN, double cabs get a different PN.

ANYWAYS TL;DR it's all a massive cluster and your guess is as good as mine at this point. I just went with the youngest packs on hand!

 

I looked at 2016 and 2017 part numbers, same I believe. Maybe Toyota just started raising the ride height or load capacity.
Another thought, the DC "w/o firm ride" might be the same AC "w/ firm ride".

Anyway, did you drive the truck yet?

 

But then my poverty tier A/C (option code BZ, the stripped down "utility package" that removes rear seats, cruise control, intermittent wipers, and so on...) should not have "firm ride" ...

Anyways yes I have driven it, and I am impressed. Write up is partway written and I should post it soonish.

 

Just saw this, I have the older 2247 bushings, if my order hasn't been sent out yet could you send me an invoice for the spacers so I can pay and get those added to my order?

 

Okay, first off let me get some tips in about the install.
If you DIY it schedule a full day, and be sure you have good drill bits on hand. You really have to plan on it taking a while because the rivet extraction can be a bear.

One thing to look out for is definitely DO NOT try to grind your rivets totally flush. You will end up being unable to see where the rivets actually are.

You can see we ran into that problem and our guesses were... miscalculated:

However since you have to relieve the holes out to 1/2" anyways this really didn't matter.

For the bottom rivets, we had an extra long 1/4 bit and an extra long 1/2 bit- we wore them both out even with copious motor oil and WD40 but they are a lifesaver- you could also use a drill bit extender with regular bits. This is especially important to help clear the exhaust on the passenger's side. It sounds ghetto as hell but set up a floor jack under your drill and sloooooowly pump it up, this will save your arms. It absolutely has to be done with two people, one to hold/run the drill and communicate feed rate and one to man the jack.

Even with the rivets mostly gone I had to get under the truck with a hammer and give a few hard swings at the mount to get it to release. Mine were an absolute pain.

Once you tackle the rivets everything else goes pretty smoothly.

Do not skip the step where you flap wheel your frame and hit it with some paint:


Worth noting: if you have a stock exhaust it clears perfectly with OEM springs, but you may not have a lot of room for further droop:


I'm not 100% sure of this because we didn't measure, but I would swear I picked up a little bit of droop travel on a stock for stock swap:


And, as I had posted before, I gained about 1.5" of height but that is likely to settle out to about 1/2" according to Archive. I reckon that's about right, but maybe a hair conservative.

 

So then, on to the meat of this then- HOW WELL DO THEY WORK??

TL;DR? Really, REALLY well.

Being a chassis/suspension nerd I already knew it was going to be an improvement- chassis flex is your enemy, as it keeps your suspension from doing its job predictably and well. In a perfect world your chassis would be 100% rigid and only your suspension would move. There is no such thing as an infinite young's modulus though, so we strategically seam weld and brace things to remove as much flex as possible without adding too much weight. As an example of what chassis rigidity can do, driving a 1st gen Miata after seam welding, bolting in reinforcements over the frame rails, and putting in a roll hoop is an "oh my god" moment. The 1st gens are notorious for suffering from a bit of a noodle-strength unibody, and such a course of reinforcement immediately makes for a more confident, snappy go-kart feel even with tired 80,000 mile shocks.

I could go on about this but you would fall asleep.

Anyways, I didn't notice much of an initial difference pulling out of the garage and heading out of the neighborhood (admittedly there were practically no road imperfections or bumps)- but once I got to contend with some more adverse conditions, the change was obvious. Maybe it's not as much of an "oh my god" moment as the Miata, but damn impressive nonetheless.

So far, the improvement is most apparent on the highway when I found myself inadvertently going about 10mph faster than I normally go. It's very nice, I've found that the "highway jiggle" is far less pronounced and dare I say, the ride is almost car-like.

On speed bumps you no longer get the "bouncy ox cart" sensation from the rear, it feels a lot more like the front suspension confidently soaking up the bump and moving on.

No appreciable off-road or washboard time just yet but I will report back with my findings there as well.

So far, well worth the price and then some, but maybe not the DIY install.

 

@ARCHIVE

Here you go man... Hammer Hangers, Dakar Leafs, Icon 12" Extended Travel Shocks, @Wheeler's Off-Road Inc SuperBump Stops with Spacers and UBolt Flip, and the Dynatrac ProRock 60 Axle.



With the help of @Zac of all trades we did the install in about 6 hours or so, as this was our first time to ever undertake something like this, it was a learning curve on what to do and how to do it correctly.

First off, jack the rear of the truck up and place jack stands as high as safely possible on the frame so the rear of the truck is off the ground. Put jack stands under the rear of the axle so the rear tires are barely off the ground I would suggest. Remove the rear shackles from the shackle hangers, I would also suggest remove the shackles completely from the leaf springs. Honestly, at this point, you could remove the jacks from under the axle, or leave them, up to you. But just get the leafs as much out of your way as possible.

Honestly, the safest way is to grind the rivet heads down flush with the stock hangers, I would also suggest going ahead and cutting off the stock hanger so you can get to the bottom rivet heads as well. Once they are all smooth, take a center punch and put a punch in the center each rivet and then drill a small pilot hole through each and then go through with the drill and start drilling to say 1/4" or so.

Side note, once you have the pilot hole drilled in all of them and they are all flush, you can pretty much go ahead and take a pry bar or a ball joint tool and try to pop the bottom of the hanger out of the rivets and then pop the top out as well. Then taking the grinder again and grinding the rivets flush with the frame once more. You can then take a punch and 3lb sledge and push the top rivets out pretty easily, but the bottom ones should be drilled out to 1/2 to be safe as it will bend since the washer is there. Then go through and drill all the holes to 1/2" and make sure all the holes fit well with the supplied bolts. Then grind the frame rust and the give it a good coat of paint and let it dry a little bit before installing.

Take note as we did not do the above on some of it and it was a pain in the A.

We also found the easiest way to install them on the truck was to remove the jack stands from under the axle and let the suspension fully go down, install the hangers onto the frame and then using a hilift jack or floor jack, raise the rear of the truck using a attachment point at the hitch or under the hitch to bring the rear of the truck up so the hangers go up enough so that the shackles drop down to be able to get the bolt through the leaf bushing. We ended up having to do it one side at a time, so lift it up, get the driver side bolt through, lower the truck a little and then go to the passenger side so we can get the leaf bushing into the shackle and then lift the truck again so the shackle will drop enough to be able to get the bolt through as if you don't do that, the bolt will hit on the Hammer Hanger.

I would do it again, but I would at least know what I would be doing next time around to make it go a lot smoother.

So far, the ride to me is a lot smoother over bumps in the rear and not as harsh, there is a little more lift in the rear from what I can tell, we also had a hilift jack maxed out and the shocks were at 10" and the tires were not off the ground and the shackles were not even drooping down yet, so there will still be some more droop to be gained that I will find out how much on Wednesday when I put the truck on a 2 post lift again.

I also know that my rear brake lines are not long enough, so I already have some +6 brake lines waiting to go on instead of the +3 brake lines and those will go on Wednesday.

But enough text... here are the pictures that were taken yesterday.