Recurve Springs

[swank60]

Anyone done this? I talked to a shop this morning and they can do my truck for $300 per axle.

Sounds like a sweet deal - they add a leaf, recurve the old springs and can do it in one day (adding my poly bushings and new rear shocks that are sitting out in the garage waiting for cooler weather) and lift it 1", 2" or 3"s.

Anyone else do this? Anything that I need to look for? The alighnment is perfect in my truck now, but should I have them do it when they lift it also?

 

[stinkyfj60]

I do the alignment any time i unbolt the axles from the spring.

I dont know about doing a rearch, I heard that each time you do that the spring will loose some of its ability to keep from settling, but i dont now how long it would be before they started back down. Of course the extra leaf will help that. Now I would watch out for lifting it too much using a rearch like that, seems to me that would make for some short springs and terrible shackle angles...

 

[chitown40]

swank, My local spring shop added my add-a-leaf and rearched the rears for about $200. I took it to Spring-Align, a local shop in the area that services mostly heavy duty trucks and fire apparatus. I spent a few hours watching them and they did a bang up job. My rear was saggin quite badly (about 2") when I got the truck. The shop completely disassembled the spring packs, added in the leaves, measured, and then reassembled them with new pads, heavy duty clips as opposed to the light duty metal bands, and installed the springs for that price. I'd shop it around a bit. My recent pics of my rig in my post about a week or two ago show the "after", nice and level.

Rob

 

[swank60]

swank, My local spring shop added my add-a-leaf and rearched the rears for about $200. I took it to Spring-Align, a local shop in the area that services mostly heavy duty trucks and fire apparatus. I spent a few hours watching them and they did a bang up job. My rear was saggin quite badly (about 2") when I got the truck. The shop completely disassembled the spring packs, added in the leaves, measured, and then reassembled them with new pads, heavy duty clips as opposed to the light duty metal bands, and installed the springs for that price. I'd shop it around a bit. My recent pics of my rig in my post about a week or two ago show the "after", nice and level.

Rob

Did you bring them the leaf, or did they provide it? Becuase if you brought it, that's almost in line with what I was quoted today...well, almost.

I am shopping around though - I've got a call in to another place that's close by - much busier, bigger shop. I'll see what they have to say.

 

[Mace]

I got an estimate of $250 for a set of 2.5" lift dakkar's (front only)

That sure makes getting a set of old ass springs temporarily rearched sound like a bad idea...

 

[DocB]

Bring it to Amarillo; to Texas Spring on Fillmore. He can do it in a day. He is an old blacksmith; has been working on ONLY leaf springs for like 35 years. He disassembles the packs, makes a custom LONG second leaf, heats up all the leaves, re arches them one at a time with a 5 lb hammer, cools them down, then heats them again to "temper" them. Charges about 375 per end; expensive I know but mine has been re arched for a year and has not settled. At the same time, I used 1 inch longer in front and 2 inch longer in rear shackles and new poly bushings. Used cheap Heckethorn shocks. Very happy with the results. Here's me flexin my totally bad ass 32s. I run 32 X 11.50 with NO rubbing at full flex; 33X12.5 rub even with a OME kit I've heard.

 

[chitown40]

Yeah, I bought the add-a-leafs from a guy locally. They were the MAF long leafs. I paid about $35 for the pair.

The spring shop said they would need to special order anything for an import truck since they use a metric spring that is just a hair larger than the standard U.S. sizes. They said it probably wouldn't make a huge difference if they put a smaller spring in, but they said they'd rather do a perfect match and do it right. So I just waited until I found a good deal on the leafs.

You might want to hold off and save a little more for a set of Dakars, since I heard the lift springs will hold up better than a re-arch.

 

[RoddQLD]

I got a local blacksmith to re-arch my leaf springs and he charged $77 au per pair.
He added about 1.75 inches to the rears and brought the front up to suit (I had the extra leaf removed and the fronts reset to as far as he could go).
You can't really over-arch the leafs because if you did you wouldn't be able to get them back into the shackles/pins. If you get them arched enough so that they still go into the shackles then once they have the weight back on them they sit just right.

I believe that some aftermarket spring makers use loonger springs so that they can arch them up more, but then you have to consider longer shackles (but they are illegal here!).

Just remember that if you have your springs arched up toooo much and toooo stiff then it wont want to flex very well.

 

[swank60]

When I talked to the guy briefly Friday, he said that the pull each spring pack, heat them up to recurve them and add a leaf that matches the new curve and add in all of the pads and such, too. I asked him about the add-a-leaf kits and he said what that usually does is add a leaf with a heavier curve that forces the others into place without having to heat and match, etc.

As for the OME vs the OAS (old assed springs) I really can't complain about what I've got now. The Toyota springs have held up really well all these years, and I really can't complain about them at all. Plus, $600 to have it all: lift, new bushings, shocks, etc withouth having to touch it vs a $1200-$1600 lift kit with me up under it for a full weekend screaming and busting knuckles with little or no help...well... I don't see any complaints from you guys with the recurves.

Thanks for the input everyone! I'm still going to talk to the other shop(s) and ask more questions, but I think this is the way I'm going to go.

 

[rat]

Hello guys,
I'm no expert here, but I had an add-a-leaf done on my '89 FJ75(re-set and leaf added), because the original springs had sagged. It lifted the truck, but made the ride really hard. So hard that if I go off road I must lower tire pressure. Next time I will definitely look into Old Man Emu, or other aftermarket springs.
good luck
Al

 

[CruisinTiger]

Hey Swank, I live in SC and had a company in columbia sc called columbia spring, or somethin like that. This guy was the expert, he had a big fire truck in the yard, a couple of dump trucks from michigan there, an ambulance from NC there, all to have there springs fixed. I had the stock springs on there and of course they were flat. He measured it as is, then jacked up the front and back to where the cruiser was 4 inches taller in the back and 3 1/2 inches in the front (this made the cruiser level. And that was the lift I had. I believe he measured the arch in the springs. He was gonna charge like 500 to do it himself, or 200 for me to take the springs off and bring it to him. So I took them off and brought it to him. He added a leaf that is thicker than the stock ones and goes pretty much from the front to the back. So he heated them up and added the leaf and binded them back together. And that was 4 years ago and I still have the same lift on my fj60, no sag at all.