[BLOWNYOTA]

Ok so I've had this set-up finished on my truck for about a month, and am just now getting around to taking pics of it. I will get better pics later when the bed is off, but a couple members asked some questions so i thought I'd post and see what kind of response i recieved. It was definetly a Daunting task for myself and my roomate who aren't exactly the Gieser Brothers, but we have some baisic fab :welder: know-how. Tube is all DOM with delrin as the arm bushing and 5/8" hiems for the links. I feel bad posting such rusty stuff, but the undercoating wore off when we went to the dez. The valving was difficult to get even close because its a 1.7:1.0 ratio so they are super stiff, which as most of you know transforms to heat...which is bad. I will be changing some stacks tomorrow night to try and button it up before this weekend. anyhow, any input would be great....things you like...things you don't like, I'd like to hear it all. Also I'd like to say thanks to the guys at True Off-Road for helping me out and pushing me to just sak up and do it. OH! and i almost forgot. I'm posting a pic of my driver side inner fenderwell. Yeah, thats a hole (from the castle nut), and the imprint of the UCA on the inner fender well. My roomate decided to go hit up some SX whoops at MACH 20 when he borrowed my truck....J/K (just Joshing ya AHHH HOTA...thats AJ in espanol)


SOOOO i tried to post the pics but they are like 1.38 MB
heres the link

http://www.trueoffroad.com/photoGallery/4/21

-Drew

 

[DesertTRD]

Ok so I've had this set-up finished on my truck for about a month, and am just now getting around to taking pics of it. I will get better pics later when the bed is off, but a couple members asked some questions so i thought I'd post and see what kind of response i recieved. It was definetly a Daunting task for myself and my roomate who aren't exactly the Gieser Brothers, but we have some baisic fab :welder: know-how. Tube is all DOM with delrin as the arm bushing and 5/8" hiems for the links. I feel bad posting such rusty stuff, but the undercoating wore off when we went to the dez. The valving was difficult to get even close because its a 1.7:1.0 ratio so they are super stiff, which as most of you know transforms to heat...which is bad. I will be changing some stacks tomorrow night to try and button it up before this weekend. anyhow, any input would be great....things you like...things you don't like, I'd like to hear it all. Also I'd like to say thanks to the guys at True Off-Road for helping me out and pushing me to just sak up and do it. OH! and i almost forgot. I'm posting a pic of my driver side inner fenderwell. Yeah, thats a hole (from the castle nut), and the imprint of the UCA on the inner fender well. My roomate decided to go hit up some SX whoops at MACH 20 when he borrowed my truck....J/K (just Joshing ya AHHH HOTA...thats AJ in espanol)


SOOOO i tried to post the pics but they are like 1.38 MB
heres the link

http://www.trueoffroad.com/photoGallery/4/21

-Drew

Very creative, but how are you getting 17" of wheel travel out of a leaf pack that will only allow 14" on stock pivots? Or are you using a longer leaf pack? Either way, way to go its nice to see some different ideas being used on tacomas.

 

[BLOWNYOTA]

when taken down to the main leaf the top of the leaf hits the frame, and at full droop, its 17" below the frame. So i really have no idea how they cycle 17" if they are only good for 14" but they do it. Im sure the shackle benefits it too.

 

[TORR]

Yea, seriously, how did you get the deavers with only 14" of travel to cycle 17"??? Just kidding. In reality a leaf spring is not like an A-arm setup where you are going to have something limiting your travel (ball joint angles, innter fenders...). If you took your stock leaf springs and put a crazy 12" shackle on there, I bet you could cycle almost 20" of travel, but it would all be downtravel. That is why you see the stock length deavers with specs everywhere from 12-17. And the 62" from 18-22. It all depends on mounting and shackle length. Not trying to talk down on anyone, just trying to prevent misunderstandings that can become truths.

 

[drabnor]

lol, the holes only gets bigger

 

[DesertTRD]

when taken down to the main leaf the top of the leaf hits the frame, and at full droop, its 17" below the frame. So i really have no idea how they cycle 17" if they are only good for 14" but they do it. Im sure the shackle benefits it too.

Ok i just saw that you removed your bump stops, just an fyi you should run them, they prevent teh spring from going into a negative arch (which is very bad for the spring)

 

[BLOWNYOTA]

No there are bumps. BIG ol daystar ones mounted to the frame instead of the spring. And air bumps are going on soon. As far as the spring going into negative arch, as soon as i break one i will let you know, but ive never heard of one breaking.

 

[Dick Foster]

Hey Corey!! Who did you let get on your keyboard. That post was way too nice to be coming from you. You grumpy curmudgeon wanna be.

 

[DesertTRD]

No there are bumps. BIG ol daystar ones mounted to the frame instead of the spring. And air bumps are going on soon. As far as the spring going into negative arch, as soon as i break one i will let you know, but ive never heard of one breaking.

Measure at full droop from top of springs to center of bumpstop, that will show true travel, measuring from frame to leafs will produce 17" all day long but thats not where your cycling too... Thats as bad as some of the sas guys claiming 36" of wheel travel because they measure from fender to ground LOL...

Where/what day you going to test it?

 

[TORR]

Ok, the full 17" of travel is coming from the thought that we can compress the bump stop 2" (it is a 4" bump stop). SO, from 2" down on the bump stop to the very top of the u-bolts(tallest part of the spring) is the measurement. Remember, we have a longer shackle on there. No mean to argue here, but just trying to set the record straight. How about this; I built a 1.7:1 ratio in the rockers, and put a zip ty on the shock body and we are using ALL of it. It is a 10" travel shock, so that equates to 17" of travel at the axle. Like I said, not trying to argue, we are just trying something new. We have already tested it man, sorry. We spent a few days in the desert near barstow last weekend and go out to the dunes (pismo) at least once or twice a week. We are always willing to go play tho, so if you are ever in the area, hit us up. By the way, we have revalved those shocks about 6 times trying to get the valving correct. Thanks,

 

[SEAN_at_TLT]

How far into a negative arch are the leafs at full compression? Deaver doesn't suggest more than 1-2" max on those springs you have, otherwise they will lose their elasticity and begin to fatigue. We are using the same springs and some 12" shocks to get about 15" of travel out of the rear of our '89 4Runner w/o cutting into the cab and w/o cantilevers. the shocks only hit about ~40º on full compression too.

Although trick looking, cantilevers are maintenance intensive (lots of bushings etc) and shocks wear through seals and bushings faster (from the weight of the shock resting on the seals/bushings at all times as compared to a vertically mounted shock). Plus the damping effectiveness of the shocks is compromised severely being positioned at such extreme angles.

 

[TORR]

At full compression the packs are really negative arched. Probably like 6" or so. I know that this isnt the best thing for them, but we are pretty much over it. I know Scott at deaver pretty well, and have like 50 million sets of those leafs sitting on the shelf, so if they break, they break. Last time I talked to scott he didnt think much of it, saying that unlike some other spring companies, they keep really close track of where they get thier steel from, and because of this higher quality steel, fatigue is not such an issue as it is with other springs. Did you mount the shocks rock crawler style (tops pointing up into the bed)? We used delrin for the bushings, so those arent really going to wear out anytime soon, and the heims will be good for a while also. Not to start any arguments, but I talked to some higher ups (really higher ups) at some shock companies and they all said that you can mount the shocks any which way and they will work fine. Also, those 2.0s are not the final shock, some 2.5 or even 3.0 bypasses are coming. And again, I am not Toyota building this truck to last 300000 miles without changing the shocks, this truck gets a LOT of attention, so if stuff starts to wear out, it gets replaced. Remember we are dealing with nitrogen charged shocks here, so the mounting angle is irrelevant. There is a piston sperating the oil and nitrogen and they are charged to about 200 psi, so the force of gravity acting on one axis versus another isnt going to affect the internals of the shock. In my opinion. Unless you mount them upsideown maybe? Thanks,

 

[synovus]

Last time I talked to scott he didnt think much of it, saying that unlike some other spring companies, they keep really close track of where they get thier steel from, and because of this higher quality steel, fatigue is not such an issue as it is with other springs.

That's very interesting, because from what I've seen from many others' posts, the Deavers can be rather susceptible to fatigue/sagging. I have a used set of their 7-leaf packs that I have yet to install. They were on the previous owner's truck for about 1.5 years and lost quite a bit of their arch (determined via measuring during a phone call with Deaver). In fact, I will have to get them rebuilt/re-arched before installing them. Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems that if you're throwing 'em into negative arch often, it would only accelerate the fatiguing.

 

[YoTRacer158]

dont forget deaver's have a lifetime warranty...so if they wear out, you get new ones

 

[BLOWNYOTA]

I appreciate all the comments (seriously), because like i said, we aren't the Gieser Brothers, we still have a buttload to learn.

 

[drabnor]

dont forget deaver's have a lifetime warranty...so if they wear out, you get new ones

are you sure?

 

[DesertTRD]

dont forget deaver's have a lifetime warranty...so if they wear out, you get new ones

Who said they have a lifetime warrenty? They dont.

 

[cb77DEMELLO]

dont forget deaver's have a lifetime warranty...so if they wear out, you get new ones

I don't think they have a written life time warrenty but they usally take care of there customers.

 

[DylanICON]

I appreciate all the comments (seriously), because like i said, we aren't the Gieser Brothers, we still have a buttload to learn.

Nice job guys!

Mounting the shocks flat like that doesn’t affect function; they can be mounted in any position. But it does affect the bending stress of the shock. When the shock is generating the most force it is also subject to the most inertia acting sideways on it. This is when the shock wants to buckle. It the shaft is strong enough it won’t buckle but it will wear the shaft bushings and piston wear band WAY faster. When you start getting serious with the valving (ie. Bypass) you could run into some problems with buckling. I would move the reservoir to its own mount, the weight of it piggy backed to the shock like that will wear the shaft bushing faster(I like the DR sticker on the reservoir).

You can get some really cool progressive shock action out of a bell crank like that if done correctly. Then again you can get some really bad falling rate ratios too that make it want to bottom bad if not done correctly. The way the link changes angle through its travel has a lot to do with it.
Here is a picture of a relay arm that is a little different but has a 17% rising rate from droop to ride height and from ride height to bump has 56% rising rate….almost makes a bypass not needed. This geometry could be rearranged to look like your bell crank and have the same caricaturists.
sorry the picture got cropped and you cant see the down link

 

[SEAN_at_TLT]

Great info Dylan. I think that clears it up a lot for us non-engineers

As far as the Deavers, when we picked up our 8-leaf Tacoma pack from Jeff just a few weeks ago he said a few (1-2", 3 max) of reverse arch would be okay but ideally no more. Even though Deaver takes care of their customers, why should they replace a leaf pack that was abused or misused? That's no ones fault except the customer. Now these guys are a shop so if they want to pay their money to put new springs in that thing every few months then what's it to me? Nothing really...

No, our shocks are not mounted rock-crawler style. We just made some lower mounts that sit a little below the axle housing and then a new crossbrace/upper mount. (Similar to the mounts we had Chris make for us on our LT Taco at Rockstar Trux) Ask Dan he might remember...