Pulled truck out of garage to turn it around. Daylight gives better pics.

 

Time to start the rear for chevy 63's. Jacked truck up and got my jack stands back under it and added one of my pipe stands to the rear cross member. The gas tank does need to come out. Atleast half of the Toyotas I've flipped over the years I end up replacing fuel line off the pump. This already had a kink in in the line from previous owner probly trying to take it out and gave up. It's matter of time before that kink fails and starts spraying gas. Fortunately I had one in stock ready to go. I've had these before just completely not want to break free. When that happens I would cut the hard line and use a compression to thread or barb depending on what im working with. It put up a serious fight but fortunately got the two to separate.

 

Instead of unbolting everything and moving axle out the way. Then cutting all brackets off im going do it a little differently. I'll be doing one side at a time and leaving brackets for time being. Tried to unbolt ubolts but not surprising they ended having to be cut



Gas tank out the way and parking brake cable zip tied up we can get started.





Trail gear says 11inches forward for the front leaf spring mount from stock location. They also want you to mark center of the old mount on the frame and cut everything out the way before proceeding. Since i do everything alone i knew trying to hold these mounts, measure, them, and square them then tack all without moving its position was gonna be a pain. So i took two pieces 1.5" flat and tacked them together on the sides. Then measure my 11inch spread on center and drilled 9/16" holes.


The stock mount is slightly narrower then the new chevy mount. Between the stock mount and flat bar i added thick fender washers to help accommodate the extra width. Tightened the bolts and then used jack to press against the frame. With it held in place i could easily check for square on the frame. This extra time made putting these hangers up much eaisier.

 

Just a side note. Can see it somewhat in picture but it is alot worse in person. You can see the bolt is not squared with the bracket. Had i not seen this before hand i would of been scratching my head with what the issue is wondering why the bracket was so far out of wack with the frame when everything else lines up. The other bracket was squared between the bolt and front face of bracket.

First test fit with front hanger tacked in place. I assumed everything would be the same as what i read and followed suit. That turned out to be incorrect for me. They moved hanger 11inches forward which ended being too much since you want to retain axle location. Which i forgot to add in previous post. I did run a string from center of axle up to frame and marked. This is for reference later on when springs are in place.

For your actual distance to move the front hanger. On the chevy leaf spring and the existing. Measure from front eye to the center bolt. Subtract those two, for this i had 9 7/8". They then added .25" to account for load on the springs. That brings me to 10.125" my hanger needs to move not 11".

Now that i know how much i want my hangers to move exactly. Took the spring back out and unbolted the flat bars. I bolted them together and used C clamp to hold true with one another. Moved the hole 7/8 back from 11 to give me a spread on center of 10.125".

 

New hanger location after redrilling.


Satisfied with placement of spring in relation to axle. With the first spring tacked i could cut Ubolts on other side. Once those were cut then i could allow the pinion angle to match the first leaf spring and put ubolts on and bolt axle to it. Moved to other side and with the flat bars tacking the 2nd was painless.

 

I didn't anticipate needing it but i precautionary marked center of the rear shackle mounts before cutting them off.


No more rear mounts

 

Next was to mark new location for shackle mounts. The paper stated they used 4- 2x4's to help set the shackle angle/location. I wasn't crazy about this idea for it's inaccuracies but in the end i suppose it worked enough to get a reference point on the frame.

With floor jack under rear axle. Jacked the axle up and placed the wood between the spring and frame. Then jacked up just untill the weight of the truck was off the jack stands. This allowed the springs to take the weight and then hold the shackle up to it. Was able to get the bottom shackle bolt to just go i sode leaf spring. Then with angle finder i marked roughly where i wanted the mount.

The front of the mount happend to be right at center of the old mount. Using large vise grips i did both sides at same time. This way i could set them both perfectly to where i wanted them. Do not use the rear end of the frame for reference measurements. I learned on my 4runner and same for this that the ends of the frame rails are not perfectly square with each other. Instead i used the old feont leaf spring mount and bed body mount on the frame as a secondary to be sure.


Used a speed square for straightness and then checked to make sure both mounts were also square with each other. I did not like how they sat on the frame at all. I did two quick tacks then while they are still warm took the vise grips off and leveled them out. Otherwise what you see would have been way exaggerated and more noticeable once the shackles went on.

 

With rear tacked up we could do a test fitment.

I was going for 25° or less wanting to get more lift out of these to help with the front height. Ended up landing at 28° or so, close enough and they state anything from 20-40° is acceptable depending on what ratio of lift vs flex you want out of the springs.

They necessarily perfect, but within 1° of each other. I'll be fine with that and just blame it on minute differences in the leaf springs lol.

 

With fitment of leaf springs good i could weld everything out. Set the axle back on jackstands. Unbolt the axle and pull the leaf springs back out.

I left the factory spring mounts in till the very last part incase i needed to move the front hangers again for whatever reason.

Driver spring mount gone.

On the passenger side i left a small part of the spring mount. This is to still use the parking brake cable mount in its original location. I don't anticipate it being an issue on clearance.

 

At the moment we will not be adding bumpstops for the rear. But just incase he decides to add stops later i drilled and taped the same as front. 17/64 hole and a M8x1.25 tap. After this the plates got a quick hand sanding, cleaned and painted.

 

Before leaf springs go back in and get in the way. Better to get gas tank back in place first. Parking brake cable secured back too it's mounts. You can see better now where i cut 2nd mount for it out of the original leaf spring mount. The flare fitting for new fuel line got anti seize before installed. Hopefully down the road it saves some body from having to fight it like i did too break it loose.

 

Pre cleaning pre installation for the gas tank

 

When i took the gas tank out it only had 3 of the 6 bolts holding it up. Instead of mix matching i bought new stainless bolts and washers for it. The factory thread for these is M8x1.25

With the lines hooked up and the new fuel line anti seized and tight on both ends. Before bolting the tank all the way up i started the truck and let it idle for a few mins to make sure no leaks existed.

Tank bolted up minis skid plate. With the tank up we can get the chevy leaf springs back in place.

 

Fuel tank skid plate. Before bolting this back up i gave it a generous coating of fluid film on the inside to help with rust. Wasn't bad jist a preemptive.

 

When i painted the ubolt plates the other day prior i went ahead and just did a quick wire brush and spray with brake clean and put a quick layer of paint on the spring perch just to help slpw down rust.


Greased bushings for shackle mount

 

Chevy 63's bolted in. Nothing to really go over in detail with putting leaf springs in.

Put grease every where you can obviously. Again either take the grease fitting out or install by hand with ratchet.

 

With the chevy springs done i still had to swap out the rear diff. I've done dozens of these over the years. This one turned out to be the worst one I've ever had to deal with. What can typically be a casual 90min maybe 2 hr job ended up taking me probly 5-6 hrs in total.

 

I went to start where i normally would with these. Unhook the parking brake cable, undo the brake line, unbolt the axle shafts. Well the parling brake cable pin turned out to be seized. Like really seized lol. After spraying both of them and trying to turn them just a little to help break them free i decided to abort for the time being. Hopeful that maybe i have enough play in the cable to pull the shafts out enough to pull the diff out.

After spending maybe an hour being perplexed on not being able to get either of the two 1/4" parking cable pins loose i moved too unbolting the axle shafts. These were unnecessarily tight. Had to my leg on some of them to break loose. I started with the top two on driver side. Went to the bottom two and the wrench didn't even try to grab the nut. Someone in the past 💯 completely rounded both of them off. Idk if it was from trying to loosen or over tightened.

After getting the two rounded nuts off i moved over to the passenger side. Same thing did top two first. Went to the bottom.....it seemed the individual whoever touched this rear decided he or the truck hadn't had enough punishment yet and rounded off another nut. To the point that it was baffling. We all know when a nut or bolt is stripped or rounded off. Stop trying and figure something else out. It was a sif he took a 14mm ( the correct size) with a impact and killed the nut.


Then for good measure beat a 13mm on to it and finished it off with that. Just cause you can turn a wrench or work on something doesn't mean you should. Ive dealt with these before, this kit off Amazon i bought couple years ago has been a life saver numerous times and is absolutely impressive ehat they can grab and how strong the actual sockets are. Highly recommended.

 

After dealing with those i decided to take a break and boost my confidence back up by taking the donor diff out of the axle. Took all of maybe 10mins. Pulled diff out and confirmed it was 4:88 as mentioned from previous owner of the front and rear axle.

 

So now with donor diff ready and axle shafts loose, brake line disconnected but parking cable still attached. I tried pulling the shafts out but my optimism quickly failed me. I could feel the shafts still making contact with no more play in the brake cable.

So i tried to unbolt this hinge here thinking it might give me enough play in the cable for the shafts to pull out. But the previous owner or whoever once again i had other plans. The actual hinge bolt that the assembly pivots on. The nut for that bolt completely stripped. Both bolt heads looked great fortunately. After using the kit again, was a bit of a pain but managed to get the nut off.
After the assembly was off it made no difference in amount of play on the cable. After both parking brake cables had been generously soaking over night now I managed to get the driver side pin to break loose and free it from the drum. Once one side was free I had enough play to take both axle shafts out.