So I put a brand new 3" skyjacker lift on my 82 longbed and I have to say that the ride is horrible. I use the truck as my DD and my spine is killing me everytime I get out of my truck. My question is: what can/should I do to get a better ride out of my truck. Different springs? shocks? or is the whole kit just to begin with. I am however very happy with the flex I get from it. So I would def like to keep or better my flex.

Thanks.

 

Any lift that uses stock spring hangar locations and is over 2 or 3 inches will ride like a brick.....get longer springs or springs with less lift

And stick with the Toyota specialists like downey, all-pro, marlin, TG, etc.....

 

yeah thats pretty much what I thought. I just can't afford the all-pro, marlin or TG stuff. I was tossing around the idea of using OME but I wanted a little more lift than that kit gives you. Can I run my 33's if I put the OME lift on?

 

Also the problem with getting longer springs is that I will need to get someone to weld the hangers. Which wouldn't be a problem if I had the money to spend on it. I'm trying to sell the kit I have on it and with no or very little extra money spent to get a better riding suspension.

 

You bought a generic, cheap lift and you get what you pay for ...

Save up and go with a leaf pack for YOUR truck from Alcan or Deaver. You send them the weights on each axle and the total and they will custom assemble a leaf pack for optimum ride AND flex for your truck how you use it.

 

Sweet appreciate it. Do the Alcans and Deavers need to have the spring hangers relocated? Also are my generic shocks going to work fine or do I need to look into replacing them as well? And last but not least where can I order alcans and deavers? Which are better?

Thanks.

 

http://www.alcanspring.com/
http://www.deaverspring.com/products/leafstoy.html

These are essentially custom springs, they will do whatever length you want.

The shocks would be the next thing to fine tune the ride...

 

I took a look at both websites and it seems like Deaver is more of a baja/speed style company. I did fill out the order form for Alcan and liked how you could pretty much tell them what your truck is like. Its cool how they take all of that stuff into account. The only things I'm worried about are the price and whether I can get a good ride with the stock hanger locations. Dirtoyboy suggested that I need longer springs to give me a better ride and I agree with him. Why else would all of the major companies use longer than stock springs? Besides of course flex.

 

Well, certainly it is easier to get a better ride with a flatter spring, but if you can't relocate the spring hangers, then something like this will be your best bet.

I am positive that you will be pleasantly surprised. Last time I saw prices for Alcans, they were about half what the Deaver page showed - they are quite reasonable actually.

 

What about an OME kit and just add 1" lift blocks and/or longer shackles to clear my 33" tires? I have heard great things about OME but I went with the skyjacker kit because it was about an inch taller. To be honest I think I could run my 33's with a 2" lift with maybe some fender trimming.

 

I think some people put 63" Chevy springs in the rear and stock springs in the front to get about 3" of lift (If I'm wrong please correct me) This would be cheap if you already have the stock rears and you could get Chevy's for like 50 bucks out of the junk yard. You would have money left over to have someone do all the welding. Again I'm not sure if the yota rears lift the front 3" but I know the Chevy's lift the rear 3". Just something else to look into...

 

Yeah I have given a lot of thought to the chevy swap but I don't have the stock fronts anymore. They were so badly sagged it was unbelievable, which is why I got the lift in the first place. I could just order some 3" alcans or deavers for the front.

 

I'm waiting on shipment of fresh OME rear leafs from TRDparts4u.com.

I also did a bunch of reading on the Chevy's and the Ford F-150 springs (threads over on Marlin's forum). If I wasn't going with the OME's, I'd probably do the F-150 swap, as they aren't as long as the Chevy springs. But I have too many other things to do to the truck and decided on a bolt-in part with a good reputation. (I also picked up the matching shocks all around from OME, and the SDORI ball joint spacers)

I think on a budget and with some time, you can put together some nice spring packs with F-150 springs on the rear (requires hanger welding) and then mess around with some of your own packs on the front, or new replacements from Alcan or OME, etc.

 

Get the ome'S... you won't need blocks to clear 33's. They'd clear on stock rims with stock suspension if they're narrow.

Cheers

dave

 

Thats if I can sell the whole kit I have on it now, otherwise I'm just thinking about going the chevy swap way.