OME leafs in to front of a 93 SAS 4runner? (2 Viewers)

[Airdreams1]

GRM I can't really understand your first pictures. Sorry.
What size tires are you running on the white truck? They look pretty huge. 35's???

Yeah I have a very hard time explaining to people and getting them to actually understand what it is I want to accomplish with my 4Runner. Just trying to get the east reliability and easily front solid axle keeping it very low. That seems to be impossible to understand for most people. Most of these guys do not understand any of it until they get hurt and have back issues or something like that. Things that happens when you start to see them sell off their massively lifted trucks.

I seem to have a very hard time explaining to the self-proclaimed front fender well is actually higher than the rear fender well if your truck is sitting level. My friend rear fender Wells are exactly the same height I've made nearly every bit of torsion adjustment possible......... Also some of these same people tell me I have a second generation 4Runner. They think that just because the truck became a third generation that also in 89 the Forerunner was became a second generation. How to get a big laugh out of that.

 

[GRM]

I have 35's on my 86.

Note that there isn't much room between the leaf pack and the frame to get these low without linking the front end.

Here is an picture with the truck unloaded. There is about 5" between the frame and the spring pack, and about 3" between the frame and the tie rod/drag link. I've also had troubles with the pitman arm hitting the leaf spring. Everything is very tight on my truck and it's still 5" of lift over stock.

Also do note that trail gear has you put a 3" bump stop extension below the frame to help gain clearence. On my truck the bump stop hits the bottom of the frame.

Have you considered linking the front end, or going to a SUA leaf suspension?

 

[ntsqd]

I used "Patch", my '84 Xcab, in very much the same way that you're wanting to use your 4rnnr, but I also used it to chase desert races. I now have an '88 4rnnr myself. Intent is to use it in a similar though not as abusive way and also to DD it. I get what you're saying and sympathize with the exclusive rock-crawl mentality that you've run into. Ran into that same kind of mentality on RDC, only there it was all about "why don't you dump that live axle, get IFS, and link the rear?"

FWIW, and no measurements to confirm it, but it looks like the 2WD truck frame rails are the same as the LA 4WD frame rails. At one time I owned one of each and visually they were very close. A cursory examination of the frame specs in the FSM seems to support this. Where I expect IFS 4WD frames to get in the way the most is the zone where the drag-link passes under them, particularly under the passenger side. To go over the spring with the drag-link gives you little up-travel at a low lift height and going under it may result in too much bump-steer due to the at-rest operating angle. Even just FJ/FZJ80 radius arms and coil-overs eliminates those issues.

Even with a LA frame converted to cross-over steering with a flat pitman arm I hit the OME left main leaf with the drag link's TRE. Grease zerk actually took a small divot out of the spring. I designed a spacer to move the steering box off the rail by about 5/8", but never got around to building it as it was so infrequent that it made contact that I quite worrying about it.

Total Chaos does or did the GM 63's on the rear as a SUA configuration to get the supple travel while keeping the truck low.

 

[KLF]

"Solid front axle swap" and "keep it low" are mutually exclusive.

I have OME springs on mine, actually just had them replaced with new ones last December, and it is as low as possible (assuming an IFS-era frame), but definitely higher than stock. Barely legal here in NH. High enough that it's getting challenging for me to get into the truck as I get older, there's no way my wife can get in unless I have a stool for her to stand on. I only have about 1-1/2" of up-travel remaining above the pass side bumpstop when the truck is sitting level, that's not much. I had less than that before I had the springs replaced, and it was constantly bouncing off the bumpstop, even on minor bumps. I need the bumpstop there to protect the draglink from hitting the frame.

I suppose you could not run hi-steer, but then what is the point?

If you are not using the truck for rockcrawling, requiring lots of suspension travel, then I see no benefit for swapping out the IFS.

 

[ntsqd]

The western deserts desire a fair amount of suspension travel, with a bias of about 50/50 unlike rock-crawling where something like 80/20 in favor of droop travel is desired.

As an example, this is part-way thru a 75 mile long stretch of more of the same, complete with little and not so little wash-outs - some of which you can't see until you're in them:

And although this road is exceptionally good, they aren't all able to support 75 mph like this:

Some look like this ("The Wall", back-way into Lunar Crater):

or this:

Can't have too much supple wheel travel on these roads.

 

[KLF]

I don't see how that requires a solid front axle. There are long-travel IFS setups that are very well suited to that type of terrain, with a good pair of Bilsteins you'd be better off and spend less time bouncing off the bumpstops.

Take a look at the Ford Raptor, that truck is probably the best thing on the market for that type of driving.

 

[ntsqd]

It doesn't, however the long travel IFS kits widen the front track by 6". It looks OK in pictures, in person it looks really dumb and I'd guess it wouldn't pass Inspection even with fiberglass fenders. For one reason, there are no kits that I know of that use ball joints - they all use spherical bearings and spherical rod ends for the suspension joints. Works great as a race truck that gets totally torn apart and inspected after every race. Not so great for a street driven truck that sees all sorts of weather. I'd sooner go radius arms with coil-overs on a LA than go with an LT IFS kit.
In the pic below (in ID by about 100', north of Jarbidge, NV) there are 4 LA's, but only one on leafs, me. Yet when high speed recon is needed there are only two of us who do it, me and the EB closest to me.

Reasonable up travel on leaves with a decent ride quality can be done because I have done it. It takes some work and decent dampers (bils 5100's up front at the least with 7100 RR's being better), but the IFS frame forces some less than ideal compromises to get that up-travel. For that reason alone with an IFS frame I'd skip leafs and go right to radius arms and coil-overs. Build the radius arms at a length where the front drive-shaft has little to no plunge. Make the radius arm, trac-bar, and coil-over axle brackets BOLT in place of the leaf springs so that if you bend the housing it is simple to replace it. If you can't use a "Johnnie Joint" at the frame end of the radius due to inspection reasons then use the Ford radius arm bushings. Buy them from Ford, you want the OEM rubber bushings. The urethane aftermarket bushings have less than a 1/4 of the OEM rubber bushing's life span.

 

[ntsqd]

Thinking on it further, the FJ/FZJ80 radius arm bushings will likely work too. I just have no familiarity with them and I do with the Ford parts. I would venture that those too should be Toyota OEM rubber parts rather than something aftermarket of either rubber or urethane.

 

[GRM]

For the sake of others reading this thread in the future- I decided to take more pictures of the leaf springs in my '86 to show that there isn't much more room to make the truck lower than mine is (on leaf springs).

In these pictures there is 3.5" from the top of the u-bolt to the bottom of the frame, and 4.75" from the top of the leaf spring to the bottom of the frame.

Plus- there is a very small dent in the oil pan from the front diff. There is no where else for the front axle to go.

 

[GRM]

And a picture of the truck at ride height, with 90% of my camping gear in the back. It is ~5" over a stock '86, wearing 315/75/16 BFG All Terrains.

 

[Airdreams1]

So what is the approximate height do the bottom of the door.

 

[Ozark cruiser]

For the sake of others reading this thread in the future- I decided to take more pictures of the leaf springs in my '86 to show that there isn't much more room to make the truck lower than mine is (on leaf springs).

In these pictures there is 3.5" from the top of the u-bolt to the bottom of the frame, and 4.75" from the top of the leaf spring to the bottom of the frame.

Plus- there is a very small dent in the oil pan from the front diff. There is no where else for the front axle to go.

View attachment 1420338 View attachment 1420339 View attachment 1420340 View attachment 1420342 View attachment 1420343

What springs are these

 

[GRM]

What springs are these

They are very old National Spring SOA springs for a Jeep YJ wrangler. They were all the rage in ~1997. I had them rebuilt by Deaver spring to better carry the weight of this truck.

Last I checked Deaver still makes a very similar spring, but specifically for Toyota trucks (it’s the same dimensions as the all pro / trail gear spring, but reverse eye.) it used to be sold through poly performance, but now can only be purchased directly. I’ve rode in trucks with the Deaver version in friends trucks, and can attest it’s a great spring.

Big difference over a typical toyota spring is the reverse spring eye, which lowers the truck about 1.5” over a similarly arched spring.