What have you done to your 1st gen Tundra today?

Yeah I saw really small nosed badgers on Amazon. For only a few dollars more than ¢.50.

Was thinking this would work too.

 

Do about 20 push ups first

You gotta manhandle those things into place.

 

Not a problem. I’ve been manhandling 70-100lb welding lead all day for the past 3 weeks. 65lb per spring is nothin!

 

Trying to remember the order of operations when I did mine. It was a fun night.

I jacked up the rear of my truck and put stands under the tow bar cross beam thing. I got it high enough to get the tires off and I think I lowered it a bit after they were off. Disconnected both rear shocks at the lower mount.

Rolling jack goes under the axle. I did the following one side at a time:
Loosen u bolts but dont remove
Unbolt shackle at rear (I removed shackle and all, don't remember why) and carefully lowered the spring.
Remove u bolts
Unbolted front mount and carefully lowered spring.
I crawled out and held the old spring over my head, twirled it until it built up speed and flung it across the yard. (How I remember it)
Put hanger back on frame.
Bolted new one in from the front first, bolts loosely on.
Swung the spring up to reconnect the hanger, again loosely.
Lined up axle with center pin and lifted it with the jack, installed u bolts a bit more than finger tight.
(Repeated all this with other side, including 60's cartoon wrestling move)
Once all was together I put tires back on and put truck on the ground. Gave it a few bounces and tightened everything up. I paint marked all hardware and kept checking it. U bolts were hard to get torque on but you are flipping them so you may have more leverage.

I tightened u bolts again about 100 miles later, not sure if that's needed with the archive kit. Good luck and dont forget the 60's cartoon wrestling move or you'll get bushing squeaks.

 

You know they’re great instructions when you laugh a time or two while reading them! Definitely don’t want squeaky bushings! Nice work bud!!

 

Auto parts store. Look for a coolant tester.or anything else with a tube and a bulb you can squeez to suck liquid out with.

 

Probably a 74 in which case they do.

 

Put a sticker on. Lol





Tomorrow im going make my own bed stiffeners. So I can run no tailgate. I'll try to make it look nice and professionally made.
But it's something to do on my Christmas break.
I'll take pictures and shit...

Im going to get some OEM lower ball joints next week and toss them on. Im at a 110k. Everything feels fine, just doing it as a preventative maintenance thing.

 

Lmao. Dude put a small hose on the end of that so you can actually get some of the fluid out.

 

Awesome! I wish there was an easy way to bookmark posts on this forum. I took screen shots of this. Great stuff.

 

Suhweet!!

That's what I was thinking. Should give it good lift.

You can copy the link to a specific post. Then you could save it in a list.

 

Advertised is 2” unloaded and 1.5” with 500lb in the bed. Looked like @Rheywood456 received more than 2” even with his shell and extra weight. We shall see soon, hopefully.

 

Huh. I just tried it. Went back to the post. Pressed the #at the top right of the post. A list of options came up. I selected 'save to reading list'. I was able to find it, labeled with the post number. Cool... but... do you know a way, other than creating a separate Word or similar document, for me to label the post by subject matter or topic. So I can organize alphabetically? Please teach me if you've found a good way to do this.

 

I think my truck is due for ball joints very soon.

I don't know of a way to do it other than a Word doc system. You could use Excel and create different categories.

 

Had the truck aligned. Adding that last bit of lift apparently fixed the camber as well. Mechanic said that my passenger camber adjustment is messed up and won't budge but it's dead on now. Here's how it sets now.

 

Yeah nothing too crazy. Have an extra set of hands or two to help out.

Make sure you can break all the bolts free before you take the leafs off the truck. Have 2 good jacks and several jacks stands... you’ll probably need to remove the top nuts from the rear shocks to help get more droop. Have a ratchet strap handy to pull the diff forwards or backwards when needed for aligning the holes... a good mallet and crow bar will be handy. Can’t remember the exact sizes off the top of my head but I wanna say like 21mm sockets / wrenches.

It took my buddy and I about 4-5 hours to do it. Of course it started raining on us when we started on the 2nd side so we took a little break. But everything was soaked. We did it outside hahaha

Torque wrench is a good idea. I’ve retorqued my Ubolts 4 times since install. At 500 mile increments. A few were a tad loose the first 2 times I retorqued. Now they’re pretty set in stone.

Also, think about anti seize when reinstalling the bolts.

I had to removed the one but from holding the factory plastic skid for the gas tank to get on the bolts out. You’ll need to loosen the e-brake cable mount and relocate it to the leaf spring itself. Also the LSPV will need to be extended.

I keep thinking of things as I type this lol

If I think of anything else, I’ll let you know!

 

Yeah I wanna say closer to 3”. They’ve settled a tad since driving 2000 miles, now closer to 2.5” maybe a snitch higher. But with weight it doesn’t sag and it handles so much better. The rear just stays planted! Next weekend is an off-road trip to the Ozarks for some more fun!

 

4-5hrs for you and your buddy? Wonder how long it’ll take me solo?

 

We did not rush at all... but did have a few delays including the rain.... also As one of my tips is to loosen all bolts before taking the leafs off the truck.... well I loosened all but 1 and it took us 30 mins trying to get the nut off one of the bolts holding the leafs on the hangar. It would not budge and we were slowly rounding the nut... so that was fun. Had to hulk it off. (We did not have an impact which probably would have made it easier)

 

I plan to spray everything down with PB b’laster a week prior to the project. Plus I recently bought an impact and I have a 2” breaker bar. I’m going to do a dry run this weekend to make sure I have all the tools I need for the front and rear.

 

You guys are weird measuring jobs by time

Took me just about 4 beers. a bit over 3 hours I think, I was by myself.

 

I don’t drink anymore so all I have is time. If everything works out according to plan, I’ll have a full day for the rear if I need it.

 

This is my preferred method! Sounds about right for leaf springs.

 

My sons bought me an exhaust system for Christmas. Took about an hour(2 beers!) to install it. Had help from #2 son. Wasn't expecting them to do this. But it was deeply appreciated. Still have to trim the tailpipe about 8-10" to fit the nice tip that came with it.

 

Pics?

 

That’s the best way to do it. Take your time and enjoy the time. No need to rush. That’s when things go wrong lol

 

Can I borrow your sons for next xmas? I like magnaflow....

 

Exhaust Clip ASAP!!!

 

Nice and tight fitment. How it sound?