'63 chevys or OME for Rear on 33s?

[Buckums]

with high risk of being flamed, i'm sure i've missed something. But....i've done a ton of looking and searching and i have gathered a lot of excellent how-to on doing a chevy spring swap in the rear. Pirate was good as well, but i'm not running 37s on hardcore trails. i'm running a ext. cab with camper shell, 33s with 4.88s and an Aussie .. mostly on jar your teeth out washboard at some speed, some DD, and very minimal rocks. Searching everywhere i can, i haven't seen a comparison of running minimal lift, low shackle 63s with the OEM springs on a mini. One runner comparison, but still not exactly what i'm looking for. Has anyone had both and could possibly compare how they would work with the kind of driving i'm talking about?

My Second question is if Chevys are the way to go, what is the best front spring to run? Rears in front are popular but look to give too much lift, and i'm not sure how they would perform on the DD side of my project - maybe i'm wrong here. i've heard bad things about ruf front springs being too harsh - maybe i'm wrong here too. Even if i do 63s i'm leaning towards doing OME heavy in the front (running a winch and ARB bumper eventually) but not sure if i get too much lift in the front? Any feedback on real world experience much appreciated. Flame away if necessary.

 

[gnob]

Run ome. Imo chevys are dumb.

 

[Buckums]

Why are they dumb? i know the consensus here is that OME is hard to beat, and i agree from my experience with my 80. but... just looking at reasonable alternatives that perform and it seems like from those that have them, chevys ride great and have a decent load. any more color on the hatred for chevys would be appreciated... gnob have you ever ran them?

 

[gnob]

Let me clear up the "legend" of chevy 63s.

Popular because they were about the longest, cheapest junkyard spring available when leaf spring crawling was big. End.

Just like everything else thats stock/junkyard then fit to your sorta stock rig. To make work right, theres lots of other shyt to do to get it right.

Have i ran them, no. Could i have, sure. I didn't because after fűcking with the mazda spring swap for several years, bending leafs, adding mil wrap leaf, folding shackle etc. I decided to just throw that shyt away and run something engineered for my rig.
I am currently running the common All Pro 56s. To be honest i really haven't been terribly happy with these either. I still do think theyre the best cheap option for what i do.
I frankly will go links before throwing big money at leaf springs in next iteration.

 

[Jeremy9A]

I'm running the 63" chevys on my 87. My goal was lots of travel with little money. I'm also running a 47" long front spring. For my truck on 37"s it works well. It's a soft but sloppy ride but works great in rocks and trails. But it probably isn't necessary for a mini truck on 33"s.


Edit: I shouldn't say that they aren't necessary. That is all relative to what someone wants out of their truck.

 

[Buckums]

So links ahead of the tried and true and expensive OME? low range link kit i assume since engineered for your rig? that's an interesting option. maybe the right option. one i put aside as not take away from the everyday driving joy i get from my rig when not twisting it up off road. maybe the wrong assumption.

 

[gnob]

As far as big money leafs, i was thinking more like Deaver. Imo ome aren't really expensive.

 

[ntsqd]

I ran OME fronts and 63's on the rear using a WFO mounting kit (with my own spring "plates") under my '84 Xcab known as "Patch". 33-10.50's & 4.88's. Bils 5100's with 255/70 valving up front and remote res 7100's with 275/78 valving at the rear. The rears started out with the std for leaf spring Bils valving of 255/70 and the damping wasn't right for the GM springs. Made my own shock mounts to push the shocks as far over close to the tires as was reasonably possible. I kept the longest 4 of the GM leafs, and ran the over-loads from a Mazda installed upside-down to prevent kinking the springs on the perches. Note the marks that the U-Bolts have rubbed into the bump-stop.

That combo of springs & shocks worked great for chasing desert racers, "overlanding", and crawling. The desert racing vets that I know were always kind of amazed at how well that leaf spring truck worked at speed.

The thing about the 63's that few realize, and it is visible in the pic above, is that they have a spacer between each leaf at the center pin and a plastic slider at each leaf tip. Note that there is a full length air gap between each pair of leaves in that spring. That significantly reduces the internal friction in the spring and produces a much nicer, more supple ride. That lack of friction also reduces the spring's own "self-damping", which is why the rear shock valving needed to be stiffened up slightly. I will venture that leaf springs that do not have these spacers and tip sliders are actually the stupid springs. The OME's under the rear of my 4rnnr have these spacers, but only because I made and installed them!

 

[Manhattan]

So.... is the simplest, best-of-both worlds setup: OME springs, HDPE/teflon sliders and longer center pins?

 

[yotadude520]

I had the 63's on my 1980 that was a crawler on 33's. I was really impressed with the flex and the ride out of them. It rode pretty damn well for what it was.

I've got OME's on my 87 SAS Xtra-Cab and am very pleased with them as well.

FWIW, I can't really say one was better than the other. My mini flexes nicely even with the OME's. I'd say save yourself the heartache and get the OME springs, they're pretty inexpensive.

 

[ntsqd]

I think for the rear the simple best is a set of GM 63's. Even with the spacers added to the rear OME's they do not ride or work as well as the 63's under Patch did. They're not all that bad, they're just not as good.

 

[yotadude520]

Oh and by the way don't worry about being flamed. We're not like the people on yotatech who are rude and tell you that you need to search more.

We're actually helpful.

 

[ntsqd]

Except for the flip-off emoticon......
LOL

FWIW I ran the OME front springs in the OE hangers and the 63's in a WFO mount kit. With a 'glass shell on the bed the truck sat almost level without any camping gear or similar loading. I welded the rear shackle hangers onto the frame butted up against the rear of the OE hangers. The WFO front spring hangers were set such that the shackle angle was about 4:15-4:30 at normal loading. To do this the OE rear spring front hangers will need to be removed. I left the RS inner front hanger in place due to the parking brake cable attaching to it. A BFH 'moved' it out of the way of the spring.

 

[Buckums]

This is super helpful. ntsqd it sounds like you had very similar truck built for a very similar purpose. Do you have any pics of patch with that set up that you could share?

 

[ntsqd]

Here's a few:

 

[Buckums]

thanks. Did you use the 5" shackle that comes with the WFO kit? how bad did the rear sag once you started adding typical camping weight ,etc? i typically have some tools and other crap back there at all times. i suppose i could leave the chevy overload if needed?

 

[ntsqd]

I used the WFO shackle. It did sag some, but it curiously didn't sag very much with a week's worth of trans Nevada on dirt gear in the bed. As I recall the GM over-load is a monster. Whatever O/L that I used, I put them in deliberately upside down so that they curve away from the spring, not towards it. Whole point of the O/L's was for the working leaves to lay down onto it gradually and not kink over the sharp edge of the spring perch. This lay-out does take them into a reversed arch (best way to kill a leaf spring is to do this, the further reversed you go, the more damage you do). This also keeps the rising spring rate progression much lower and more gradual. Patch rarely "bucked".

 

[LowDown]

My experience with 63s:
The good - Great flex, support a decent load, cheap and easy to find for initial purchase and cheap replacement. New bushings are reasonbly priced and readily available from multiple places like Summit Racing. I think I have less than $200 in two sets of 63s, new bushings, and hardware. After 10 years of wheeling, I recently replaced one tortured set of 63s with a low mileage set that paid around $50 for.
The bad - They're long as hell and depending on how you set them up in your truck, the shackle ends can be rock anchors. The shackle ends of mine are exposed, hang kind of low, and get beat to hell.
Worth mentioning - A traction bar is a must with 63s otherwise axle wrap and hop will be bad. Factor that cost and labor into consideration when making your decision.

 

[yotadude520]

My experience with 63s:
The good - Great flex, support a decent load, cheap and easy to find for initial purchase and cheap replacement. New bushings are reasonbly priced and readily available from multiple places like Summit Racing. I think I have less than $200 in two sets of 63s, new bushings, and hardware. After 10 years of wheeling, I recently replaced one tortured set of 63s with a low mileage set that paid around $50 for.
The bad - They're long as hell and depending on how you set them up in your truck, the shackle ends can be rock anchors. The shackle ends of mine are exposed, hang kind of low, and get beat to hell.
Worth mentioning - A traction bar is a must with 63s otherwise axle wrap and hop will be bad. Factor that cost and labor into consideration when making your decision. View attachment 2222530

Great advice right here. I forgot to mention that my 1980 Crawler had a custom ladder bar attached to the axle to help with that.

 

[ntsqd]

In 12+ years of using them under Patch I never found that I needed any sort of traction bar. No doubler, 4.88's, and only a rebuilt 22R with a very mild cam. Maybe with more gearing or HP, or both something would have been necessary. Early-on I speculated that I might need/want to add some urethane bump-stops to the fronts of the O/L's or to add some "limit straps" to the rear of the O/L's like the OE O/L leaf has, but that never proved to be needed.