Forgive me guys, but it's been a while since i've worked on one of these trucks, so i'm not 100% sure. My brother and i were under the back of his 98 Tacoma thinking over shock options and such, when i noticed this:





Is it just me, or is the overload flipped over? All the tacoma's i've had the pleasure of working under have had the overload spring the opposite direction compared to this one. This is obviously where the lift is coming from in the rear, but it's not done right in anyway. For the record, this truck has always had a rather harsh ride. My dad, who owned the truck before my younger brother, says it rides just like his old '81 solid axle. The way it is setup in the rear right now equal's out to about 3 inches over stock. To match it, we put Rancho RS9000 Quicklift struts on with toytec top plate spacers. The truck now sits level, but if I am right, and this is wrong, we plan on reversing it. What would ya'll recommend after that to regain the lift, and possibly make the rear end flex a little better?

 

you are correct, the overloads have been flipped. pretty easy fix.

 

I know it's an easy fix, I just wanted to vaildate my own thinking. Aside from that, we were considering shackles for the rear of this truck, once the overload was placed the correct way. What are the pro's and con's to shackles? I've never used them, so I have no experience...

 

My cousin had 3 inch shackle lift on his 97 tacoma as well as bilstein 5100s upfront to level it out. he said it drove like a totally different truck than stock. he definitely liked the way it turned out

 

make sure to adjust your bump stops for the shackles or you will kill the springs. i learned the hard way.

 

Uhm that looks like a short leaf add a leaf.. They typically give a rough ride.. Think skyjacker.. Procomp..

Replace it with a real leaf pack.

 

im with scuba. looks to me like they took the the overload out and threw a add a leaf on it. the end of it is shaped like the AAL in my truck. if that is the case, the AAL needs to be on top of the overload, i think.

edit- maybe im wrong, maybe they did just flip the overload. cuz it looks thicker then a AAL. man i bet that thing rides liek a goat wagon with 0 flex out back

 

The overload that i have on my T100 is about 1/4-3/8 of an inch thick. This leaf is almost an inch thick. I'm almost completly sure it's the stock overload that's just flipped over. You cant see it in the pic's, but there is a 1/8 inch gap between the top side of that overload leaf and the next leaf in the pack, between where the tip of the overload makes contact with the pack, and the u-bolts.

 

thats definitely an overload spring flipped over. look how thick that sucker is. plus it has gaps at the ends.

 

Well now that we seem to have a concensus on what it is, I gotta help my little bro figure out what kinda lift he want's to do in the rear. Block's are definitely out of the question, so that leave's an AAL, or shackles. All i've ever used is AAL's, so i have no experience with shackles. What do you guy's think? Pro's and con's on either?