Well many of you know, who have watched
my off week videos, usually I post them on Tuesday, I call them after work projects,
you've seen this old 4Runner.
It's an 87 Toyota 4Runner
And it's kind of my bomb around. You can tell it's not the fanciest.
You know, the paint's kind of gone off of it, but to me it's a no big deal.
This is my 500 special.
That's all I paid for it, and I've had it for I think about maybe 18 years now.
I haven't done a lot to it.
When I bought it, the owner thought that maybe it had 300,000 miles on it at the time
It doesn't show that on the odometer, but he said the odometer
was broken for a while, and he ran it as a commute vehicle from Joliet to Billings for a number of years.
Well, he moved to Florida and didn't want the expense of driving it down there,
so we put a for sale sign in, and I talked to him and bought it for 500 bucks.
I haven't done a lot to it. I've put tires on it.
It does drink a little oil so I just keep filling it up and I just run this rascal.
So anyway, it's become kind of my farming outfit. You've seen me do fencing in it,
and I use it as a running parts, that type of deal. It's getting to be a little weak in the back end.
A year ago, last summerish sometime, I put a a set of shock absorbers all the way around it,
but it tends to bottom out pretty easily with any kind of a bump, and when I'm a lot of off-road
it's always bottoming out. Well I have about two inches of clearance from that bumper to my frame.
So a few weeks ago I started to disassemble these springs, because I was going to run them through
my tire roller and re-arch them. I've done that to a number of vehicles, especially when they're older ones.
Well I got into this part way and saw that the springs are riveted together a couple different places,
and I was having some struggle getting the shackle bolts out of the framework,
so what I did is I bought a new set of springs and some new bolts.
So this time I'm going to see if I can get them apart and instead of re-arching them,
I'm just going to put new springs under this
and see if we can't get this to where it doesn't bottom out every little pothole in the road.
So before I start to do anything, I'm just going to measure my bumper.
From the ground up I've got 19 inches from my bumper to the ground.
New springs, as I read about them, are supposed to lift at least another two inches.
I'm going to see if I can get that, possibly a little more.
When I measure from the top of my tire,
to the bottom of my fender well here,
I've got about eight inches on the front end,
but on the back end I've got maybe four and a half, four, four and a half, is all.
It really sets down on the back end.
Now back and forth feeding cows all winter, I did get this buried once.
It was really buried and high centered, so I tend to chain up the front end,
so I have plenty of clearance for my front end for chains, but I don't in the back.
So there are times that I would probably chain this up all the way around.
Normally the front end is good,
but for my clearance I would like to bring this back up,
give myself a more a little more clearance,
plus give me a little more load capacity, without bottoming out on every bump.
So, just get this jacked up and I'll get the axle blocked so I can get the
two rear tires off the ground.
My fancy block system is, I've got some four inch thick ash blocks and I've got it blocked up
to where I have both tires, it should be clear, so I can take them off.
Now these might be metric. I'm using the 13/16. There a little snug.
This is the bumper on my axle, mounted to my springs. And my bumper
block on the frame. I bet I don't have maybe inch and a half here.
Maybe about an inch and a half clearance. and as we look at these springs,
there's not a lot of arch to them anymore.
They're sitting pretty flat.
So these are the new springs that I've got to go on in replacement,
and you can see they have much more arch to them than my old worn out ones I have.
Well I've got the nut off of this back shackle, but it looks like I'm going to have to remove my spare tire
in order to get in to try to drive this bolt out.
In all my 18, 19 years of owning this rig, I've never had the spare tire out.
I've never had a flat. So I'm guessing now is probably a good a time as any.
I need to find out where my jack is.
Must be underneath one of these side panels.
Like I say, I've never had it out.
Well, there's the jack. There's something here.
Is that the Jack handle or what?
I suppose it's a lot better to do it in here, undercover in the shop, when the weather is decent,
than a snowstorm.
some kind of tire iron, Not sure what this is. I don't think this has ever been used.
Maybe, that might show a little sign of use. and this rod
That, and this rod,
and this handle.
It looks like this is the access hole to the mechanism that holds the tire up. oh there we go
Well, by golly.
Years of dust and crud on this thing huh?
Wow.
I got the rear shackles unbolted. I don't have them released yet. I have the one side plate off.
This is the left side, and so this is the right side that I also have off.
You see I have it started to be driven out.
Before I take them out, I need to take the weight of the body off,
so I'm going to come up underneath the rear bumper and lift this up
to release the tension off of the springs. I'm not sure just how far I'll have to go.
I started out at 19". I'm about 26". So I went up seven inches.
This is the front shackle. I've got the back ones off.
This one, however, I can't break loose. I've been soaking it with PB Blaster. I've had my
air impact on it, started hammering on this end and it just won't come loose. The other side
has a gas tank right up against on the inside, and there's no way I can get in and try to hammer that out.
I put my impact on it and it won't break it loose either, so I guess, last resort, I'll have to
saw it off on either side of this spring eye and just put a new bolt in.
Any blade left? Not too bad. So with both of my ends loose
I should be able to get this whole spring out of here.
This is my old spring, and you can tell this new spring is quite a little bit heavier.
On this old original, there's three leaves here, and this new one has four,
and the overloads on this new one has a double spring, where this original is
just a single. This is supposed to add about a two inch lift over these original springs.
Well I got my spring hooked up to my rear shackles
and now, because of my extra leaves in here, I'm about an inch short
with these two extra leaves on my u-bolts.
Down here we're a little short coming through,
so I'm gonna have to get a u-bolt that's about an inch longer at least.
And then my front spring bolt, I'm going to have to get a replacement for it,
because they need to be about 9/16". I'm sure they're probably metric, whatever's close to that.
I've put just a half inch. grade eight in there. just to hold it into place.
I won't leave that there. It needs to have an insert into this new bushing,
but that'll just hold it into place for the moment. But that gets my new leaves in position. this is a
This is the bumper block, and like I say,
I'll put some new u-bolts on it, but I think it's going to work.
Well I did go into Billings to TNT Spring and Machine and they made me some square top u-bolts
that are another inch and a half longer, so those are going to work for that.
While I was there I also visited with them about the front bolt
that goes through the eye on this spring.
The new bushings look like this, and you can see that I have one in there, so a couple different options
were; this is a 18 millimeter bolt and they said I could just drill this out and run an 18 millimeter
through there. Their suggestion, however, was to put a shim roller through here, also an 18 mil,
then that'll take a half inch bolt, and I cut this to length, where this shim roller will
come out flush on either end, and they suggested that would be a good way to go, because it would
add an extra roller surface in there and take some of the wear off of this neoprene bushing.
So that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to put this
bushing in there and then I'll put a half inch grade 8 bolt to hold it all together.
And then, the last step, kind of suck up these u-bolts,
lift them up. These 9/16 u-bolts are supposed to have about 75 pounds of torque.
well I'll mount it back up, and see what we ended up with.
I'm gonna see if I can lift it up get it off the blocks.
That'll work.
Set her down.
Well, before what was a 19 inches.
Now I'm at 25 and a half. Wow! So I had four and a half inches in here before.
Now I'm at nine. So it is, mentally it's going to be quite an adjustment for me
to see the difference, how this thing sets. This set so low on the back end
for so long, I'm not going to know what to think. It made quite a difference.
Now it actually sets up like it's supposed to.
So you know, when I had to cut those two front spring
bolts, it kind of complicated the project a little bit. It would have been simple if the metal bushings
for the neoprene bushings had come with the kit, with the springs, but they didn't. So I was shop to
shop, trying to find where these little bushings were, and get all that to fit, and what all.
So I got it all done, and I was within about an hour of taking it down off the blocks and rolling it out,
guess what showed up? The bushings.
I guess, I guess they were back ordered. I don't know.
So now I have two extra bushings.
Anyway, it's nice to see this up and where it should be again.
So it'll be more reliable when I'm out doing my fencing projects.
Appreciate you following along!