Some data for interested parties:
I’ve had a persistent “lean” with a slightly lower passenger rear fender than driver rear fender that I’ve measured over the past week…only about 0.5” though.
Bear in mind a normal lx570 has a taller spring on that side to counter the excess weight of the gas tank…and I replaced the driver side rear with the same extra long spring to get an equal distribution of weight left to right…and I also have a spring spacer to preload both rears take some pressure off the ahc system (I had a significant driver side dip before that mod)…so I’ve got a fresh extra long spring on the driver side and a 10 year old extra tall on the passenger…which is probably contributing to the lean. If I had a new extra long spring for the passenger rear it would probably fix it…but adding spring rubbers is easy and cheap.
So I ordered some of these blue size b rubber shocks…I installed one on the passenger rear and then drove the vehicle for a few miles to, hopefully, allow the system to equalize its pressures and see if my lean reduced.
As a result, it lifted the drivers side 0.25”, bringing the total differential left and right from 0.5” to 0.25”…so it improved things as one would expect.
Then I added a second blue rubber to the same passenger rear coil, drove to equalize, and it returned…exact left to right rear fender height….getting rid of, it seems, the lean.
So if you have a lean with your ahc (or probably even a normal non ahc suspension), you might be able to add spring rubbers to even it out…very easy and quick.
I didn’t need to trim or lubricate the rubber shocks to get them installed. Super easy in the rear.
Note:
I have had a persistent driver side front lean as well (since I got the car). I plan to add some rubbers up there when they get in from Amazon…I’ll update to see if the rear lean continues to be gone…as well as whether the front lean goes away too.
Follow up: I measured my rear fender heights multiple times over the past week or so…2 of 3 times my right rear (where I put 2 blue rubber shox) was a bit high where, prior to the rubber installs, it was almost always low.
1 in 3 times, after the double blue install, things were equal or the left rear was a bit high again…ahc sort of floats and rearranges itself over time so you’ll need to take measurements over a period of time to get statistically significant data.
So I pulled one of the blues off the right rear because two rubbers over there usually led to a slightly too high corner…
I think this will mitigate my lean in the long run. If not, I might add a red (softer than blue) back there too if it’s not quite right…the various colors and ease of install makes fine tuning your suspension, hopefully, relatively easy and straight forward, especially in the rear.
I also had a driver side lean in the front (persistently since I got the car, even after replacing accumulators) though I decided not to mess with it until I got some data on rubbers in the rear.
I placed a blue up front on the left to help with its lean/weakness…then added a black to both the right and left in the front.
The purpose for adding the blacks up there is that after adding sliders, front bull bar, rear bumper, Wilco swing away, roof basket, tools, etc, that the vehicle seemed to rock forwards and backwards a bit excessively while hitting bumps/dips.
I also suspect that with hydraulic half of the ahc system picking up the slack for all that excess weight, there was a reduction in damping (harsher ride) due to the system, in practice, constantly being at a higher pressure…akin to always being in high suspension mode.
I’m hoping that the rubber helper springs will give some boost to the coils, help with the rocking back and forth hitting dips, and potentially reduce the pressures of the ahc system and bring back a bit of damping-I’m not an engineer or a Toyota expert so this experiment may be off base for some reason I’m not aware.
So far (5 miles in or so) it does appear that adding the blue and blacks up front improved damping…and also reduced the forward to backward rocking in dips…
but these things are sometimes subtle such that a placebo effect can cause one to think they solved the problem even if they didn’t.
Fender Heights after removing the rear right blue and adding it to the front left have all normalized (we will see whether that persists).
My experience with adding and substracting the spring rubbers in the rear: it’s a 5 minute job with no trimming or lube needed.
Adding them in the front: lube them up with silicone grease throughout the troughs and ridges…and cut an angle on the rubber like Grinchy references in this thread…that helps get them started. Working them in there took me about 10-15 minutes per rubber. Now that I’ve done it a couple times, the fronts will probably go in in 5-10 minutes each.
Once they’re “threaded” onto the coils, you’ll note that they overlap themselves and need to be trimmed. This can be carefully done with a box cutter while they’re installed on the vehicle (watch out for the electrical and brake lines with the box cutter, wear gloves, and don’t turn your job into an emergency room visit).
With the black spring rubbers, you’ll also need to drill zip tie ports in them as, unlike the blue ones, the manufacturer doesn’t appear to include them on the black ones.
