chevy springs on a yota

krehel24

krehel24

<- and it begins!!!......
Joined
Mar 21, 2005
Location
Locust NC
Just wanted to know if anyone had some do's or dont's on puting chevy leaf springs on the rear of a toyota. It is a 81 toyota and the springs are from a chevy 1500(dont know what year) I know i have to move the front hanger, but is there any thing else?? thanks
 
you may have to move the back hanger as well on the older trucks. Of course your shock mounts / u bolts / etc will all be different. I'm in the middle of putting chevies on my 93 4runner, which was originally linked/ coiled.
 
I actually just finished doing this to an 85 4runner on sat. I did the chevy rear spring swap with a full length add a leaf and 3" block with 4 degree shim to fix the pinion angle. Built the rear front mounts and did a dual shackle setup in the rear with a shackle I made and the factory chevy shackle. On the front I used a combo of procomp front 3" lift springs and rear springs he had from his previous lift and moved the front axle forward 3" made new rear mounts for the front leafs and made custom shackles and front mounts thus flipping the shackles to the front to correct pinion angle. Then I installed the trail gear hysteer crossover with a IFS steering box. All this equated to roughly 7" of lift and sick flex. If you have any more questions holler, I still havn't got any pics or flex pics of it yet cause I was in a hurry to finish b4 easter. When I get some I'll post em up. Also here's a link to where I got all the info:

http://www.pirate4x4.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=20665
 
jrraw23 said:
Built the rear front mounts and did a dual shackle setup in the rear with a shackle I made and the factory chevy shackle... All this equated to roughly 7" of lift and sick flex.
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Let us know how he likes it on a hill climb.. The combination of spring wrap and the shackles opening up should be super.
 
We installed a center limiting strap to keep that from happening and save his brake line. He bought the marlin 24" (I think 24") brake line and we got a 23" limiting strap and I mounted it next to the brake line. That way it keeps the axle from dropping to far to riun the brake line and also keeps the rear axle from unloading in said situation. Since the limiting strp is in the middle of the axle it still alows for great flex on the sides during rockcrawling and other flexing situations.
 
Rich said:
Let us know how he likes it on a hill climb.. The combination of spring wrap and the shackles opening up should be super.
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Sorry Ricky...
But i have to agree with Rich. The double shackle tends to unload really bad when trying to climb. It works great on the RTI ramp....but thats not real world wheeling. The limiting straps will save the brake lines....but they are not going to help with traction.

If you add the blocks...to get the correct ride high, i would consider some type of traction bar. The long Chevys can be bad about wraping...espically once you take the overload leaf out.

Seth
 
We'll see, you're prob right but it's a work in progress so if it does start giving us hell we'll just chop it up and re-do it again no biggy. As far as the blocks, i think later on were gonna try and get/make longer shackles to reduce/eliminate the block size. And we're also probably gonna fab up some sort of lock down plate/straps to keep the second shackle out of the equation when we'd like too.
 
How did my questions not get an answered, and then the thread get turned into somthing about the wierd work someone has done:confused: :confused: :confused: , but hay its all good:) I just whanted to know if there was any thing in particular i needed to do or not to do, like move the front shakle or the rear, correct pinion angle...ect:shaking:
 
everything you need whould be in that link i provided above, it goes to the pirate chevy spring swap FAQ, sorry I kinda took the thread in another direction, lol, i was just trying to give you comparison info. you aught to check out the flex pics of the rig were discussing here i just posted in the truck forum, its got pretty good flex. But yea stay away from putting big blocks in the rear if at all possible when you do the swap otherwise it's all laid out pretty strait forward in the pirate FAQ.
 
Sorry...Front hangers are going to need to be move foward. If you dont do the double shackle...the rear hanger is probably going to have to move back....depending on how you want the shackle angle and how far foward you go with the front hangers. Pinion angle can be corrected with tappered blocks if you go that way(or shims)....or you can cut and rotate the perches (perferd method). Bigger U-bolts, and new shock mounts.

Seth
 
I did all this on mine as well
I moved the front hanger forward with the springs I had 63" chevies from eye to eye. lined the center pin location up and moved the front hanger forward approxiamtly eleven inches. I don't know remember exactly how much. the longer shackles in the back are fine in my stock rear hanger location.

just a couple of questions for you.
1. how much lift total are you looking for?
2. what are you going to do to the front to match it up
3. have you taken a look at the thread link he gave you?
4. How big a tire are you planning on running?
and what set up are you running up front?
that thread link is very informative and should answer all your question and give you about a hundred more? it is very informative about several different years of toys and which chevy springs to get a hold of. as far as the springs are concerned? a lot depends on how the springs were abused or not before they came into your hands.

But honestly the real test is when you set it down off the jack and let the weight sit on it to find out just how much lift you actually acheived. then you got to go flex it several times to see how much it sags afterwards.

mine with no blocks at all. runs about four inches of lift in the rear.
 
these springs are only about 53" long so I dont need to move the hanger much.I only need about 3" or so. These leafs may not even be chevies I dont know, but they are just about a 1/8 to a 1/4 wider then stock, I think they will work
 
3" blocks with degree shims :eek: Wait until the shims fallout on the trail and you will have lots of spring wrap
 
krehel24 said:
these springs are only about 53" long so I dont need to move the hanger much.I only need about 3" or so. These leafs may not even be chevies I dont know, but they are just about a 1/8 to a 1/4 wider then stock, I think they will work
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why are you putting those in there? how much longer are they than the toyota springs? if you're going to make a new mount then go ahead and put 63in. chevy springs in there. you can find them on 88-up chevys. i have a set for sale actually
 
because all I needed was 3" and I thought these leafs were the right ones, and I have them, and there in good shape. Mine are all but flat. How much for yours?? o yeah i just bought some spring hangers from Marlin, It was cheeper and easier then making them
 
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