I'm a newbie to Toyotas. I recently picked up a 1991 Toyota Pickup with the 22R-E/5 speed manual. It has this wonderful open rear differential that dug a nice big hole in the sand the other day. When loading this truck my expectations seem to surpass what the engineers at Toyota planned for. A full load of firewood managed to reverse the arcs of my rear springs. So I have a few goals with this truck. I understand these may not be consistent with the interests of other forum members but this seems to be where the good Toyota information is.

I'd like to swap the rear axle for something beefier that will spin both tires. It doesn't need to lock but it would be nice if my 5 lug wheels continued to fit.

I want to increase the load capacity of this truck. I'm having trouble imagining what might need to be changed beyond rear leaf springs and bigger brakes.

So I'd very much appreciate recommendations on what sort of axle I might be able to find in a junkyard that will:

Increase load capacity
Spin both rear wheels
Accept the same 5-lug wheels
Install easily
Not cost big $$$
Similar final drive ratio, currently 4.10 (?)

Also, sources of bigger leafs would be helpful. Buying some 1 ton replacements seems easy enough but I have to think there are less expensive alternatives.

 

Put a locker or limited slip in the differential.
Get some custom springs built up, or add and add-a-leaf spring (Ranch SoftRide AAL kit is good), or add some air shocks or coil overload spring in there.

 

lock the rear and install airbags on the rear suspension. there are some dually toyota trucks out there but i don't know anything about them. if you need much more capacity you should probably start looking for a full sized truck.

 

I like the airbag idea. I only exceeded the truck load capacity once and the only issue seemed to be the suspension. I started looking on Ebay and found a few model specific kits.

I'd much prefer to put my own kit together. Has anyone added helper/overload airbags to their rig?