Frozen?

[punkrider99]

wow i haven't been on here in a loooong time!! unfortunately the truck is on hold for a few months. my car has taken priority as it needs to get finished before i ets from the army (which is a great thing in itself!).

anyways i picked up some lifted leaf springs for my truck and i thought to myself 'hey this should be an easy swap'. yeah well not a single nut or bolt remotely budged when i went to pull the stock springs out. i even put a 1/2" drive impact wrench with 125 psi line pressure on the stuff and nothing moved. is it common for this stuff to freeze up? i had a '77 chevy p/u with way more rust than my tacoma and it didn't even have this issue. any suggestions? i really don't want to :saw: the stuff off but if i have to then i have to.

any meet-n-greets in the springs coming up?

nate

[tacotoy]

spray everything down with PB Blaster for 3-4 days and then try to loosen it up. mag chloride is your enemy!

[poorhillbilly]

yea man, i feel your pain. i had to cut the center bolt out of the passenger side leafs on my truck when i put in some AAL's and its only a '99. leaf springs are jstu so close to the wheels and have the most stuff thrown up from spinning and such that they seem to get the worst of everything.that and they move ALOT! that doestn help amtters either.

[Commutacoma]

I had access at the time to an air-wrench that would kick out 600 Ft-lbs and it would not budge (I was living in Massachusetts).

I sawed the bolts off with a sawz-all and made 3 trips to the hardware store for a total of about 25 of those "rescue" blades.

I went to a spring shop and they added that new bushing/bolt for real cheap.

[DriftinCO]

When do you want to get together Nate? Will and I are up for some brews about any time.

Any chance of getting together to take a look at the truck? I gotta put new brake pads on my car this weekend...and get the garage emptied...wife wants to put her car back inside

[punkrider99]

i'm down for whenever. like i was saying before the car ('03 vw jetta) has taken priority over the truck. i promised my wife that i would finish it this summer. a few of my fellow vw ethusiast buddies think its a potential magazine feature car which is very flattering. i'm just having fun with it but it really does need to get finished up (custom body work, nitrous, suspension...).

[punkrider99]

well four months later and i got the deavers on. everything was going well until i got to the passenger side front spring mount. the factory bolt was frozen inside of the bushing and it would not budge at all. i rented a sawzall from home depot only to have the blades i bought go flat in about 20 seconds. i busted out the grinder and cut off both sides of the bolt. then i pryed open the springs mount and pulled the springs out. omg what a pita that was! what should have taken me two hours took me ten! oh well at least its done. so with 5 leaf deavers and lift shackles the truck is now level instead of prerunner. i don't really like lift shackles but it gets the job done for now. still running the stock shocks so those need to be swapped out with some longer travel shocks soon. other than that i'm glad i finally got the deavers on there.

[BlingTaco]

well four months later and i got the deavers on. everything was going well until i got to the passenger side front spring mount. the factory bolt was frozen inside of the bushing and it would not budge at all. i rented a sawzall from home depot only to have the blades i bought go flat in about 20 seconds. i busted out the grinder and cut off both sides of the bolt. then i pryed open the springs mount and pulled the springs out. omg what a pita that was! what should have taken me two hours took me ten! oh well at least its done. so with 5 leaf deavers and lift shackles the truck is now level instead of prerunner. i don't really like lift shackles but it gets the job done for now. still running the stock shocks so those need to be swapped out with some longer travel shocks soon. other than that i'm glad i finally got the deavers on there.

FYI....believe it or not, if u-bolts are torqued down correctly, they will seize and "lock", so many times you need to take a grinder/torch to the center of the u-bolt to remove. True u-bolt threads are designed that way as a safety. Many peeps think you can get more than one use out of em...