Replacing the Alcan Leaf Springs - with Chevy 63s

I've very much enjoyed my Alcan leaf springs. The first set I had was near as perfect as I could ask, and working with Lew - the new owner in 2020 - on the second set was a pleasure, even if the end result wasn't as perfect as I could have hoped.

Rather than go for a third set of Alcan's - which I am 100% sure would solve my problems - I'm going to try something a little different in the hopes of finding a solution that gives me a ride that is a little softer - but that can still carry the weight of the Tacoma; in the hopes of finding something with a little more travel - but that costs a little less.

Anyway, one winter day, I headed to Zane's @Speedytech7 to do the work. He'd already done a bang-up job of installing Chevy 63s on his Tacoma, and I knew the whole process would go a hundred times faster if I had his help.

That is, unless things ended up like when we relocated my rear shocks. Surely though, we've become smarter over the years.

 

Day 1

I pulled in about 2:30pm on a random Thursday afternoon. After being thoroughly impressed by Zane's new remote-controlled hydraulic gate, I unloaded the bed of the Tacoma so we could start the disassembly process once he got home from work.

I'd packed the bed as full as I could, to simulate the weight of a trip.

Sure beats working in my outdoor, uncovered, 1-car parking pad.

Even before Zane showed up, I started with the easy stuff, removing bolts here and there, so we could lift various bits off once there were two of us to carry the loads.

Zane's job is a thankless one, but does have one benefit - he works 4 days a week and gets home somewhere around 4:00pm in the afternoon. Our plan then, after quick hellos - and several thank-yous from yours truly - was to try and do most of the disassembly before calling it a night. That would allow us to destroy - and then rebuild - the Tacoma the following day.

With Zane diving right in, things began to move at lightning speed. This guy knows his Tacomas and it was hard enough to keep up, much less take photos.

In mere moments, Zane had the bed rigged to the engine hoist, the easiest bed removal ever - didn't even need to remove the tent and bed rack first!

We'll just store this over in this other bay of the shop!

Removing the bed gave us easy access to all the other bits that we'd be stripping off the truck, but before diving in, I thought it'd be a good idea to pressure wash a bit of the EMHT debris off the now-exposed frame, top of the gas tank, and all the other nooks and crannies that had previously been tough to get to. It was a job that would make our lives just a little cleaner, though we'd still encounter plenty of dirt - piles of it in fact - as we pushed deeper into the project.

Getting the outside of the frame clean was easy. Unfortunately, that's not where the majority of the dirt was to be found...

And then, the race was on. Plugs I'd never seen before were quickly disconnected. Fuel lines were separated so the gas tank could be removed. Brake lines, ABS sensors, and the e-locker on the rear axle were disconnected. It felt like Zane simply waved a magic wand and completed task after task, as I opened and closed drawers on his tool chest looking for the socket I needed to disconnect some reasonably unimportant part.

Zane had the gas tank unplugged before I could even grab my camera.

I had to put the fuel filler neck bolt back in to snap a photo of it.

There were three bolts on the gas tank skid, and I only caught Zane removing the final one.

The e-locker plugs and breather were quickly disconnected.

In no time, the small bolts securing the rear brake lines - and everything else attached to the axle housing - were removed.

No better time than the present to drain the rear axle (we wouldn't be reinstalling this one)!

With the gas tank removed, and every line-or-wiring harness between the frame and rear axle out of the way, it was time for a bit of measuring. Our goal - to know the exact location of the rear axle in relation to the frame - was something we wanted to make sure that we got right. Getting it wrong could hamper our ability to complete the project at all, even to the extent of making the Tacoma completely undrivable.

The problem - as we already suspected and would later confirm - was that the good folks at Toyota weren't as precise as they perhaps could have been when assembling the frames of these early-2000s trucks. Cross-members are mostly perpendicular to the frame rails. Holes cut into the frame are sort of in similar locations from side-to-side. And, naturally, no two trucks are exactly the same.

Thanks Toyota!

 

We started by drawing a plum line on the frame to the location of the center of the rear axle.

Next, we measured from this hole on the transmission cross-member - which appeared to be in the same place on both sides of the truck - to the center of the rear axle.

After getting what we thought we needed at the time - but which would later turn out to be barely enough for us to eek out success - it was finally time to disconnect the still-reasonably-new Alcan leaf springs. We had two choices at this point - we could remove the rear axle from the leaf springs by disconnecting the u-bolts, or we could remove the rear axle and leaf springs as a single assembly by pulling the bolts from the front spring hanger and the rear spring shackle.

Why remove it piecemeal when you can just remove and roll the whole kin-n-caboodle out of the way?

Still plenty of room to work if we store this assembly right over here.

We only had one more thing to do before taking a few measurements, and that was to cut out the muffler. This wasn't technically necessary, but it when Zane suggested that it would be easier for us to weld the passenger side front hangers for the Chevy 63s - and assured me that he had a sleeve we could use to repair the exhaust when we were done - I was happy to get the monstrosity out of the way.

Apparently, things were moving so quickly that I was struggling to even focus the camera at this point.

And with that, it was time for burritos and bed. Day 1 had been a huge success, and having gotten to the point where we could start installation of the new leaf spring hardware in the morning, I was sure that we were way ahead of schedule.

Even with all the bits removed, we still weren't confident that the rear frame was strong enough to support itself.

Day 2

We were up bright and early to start day 2, hoping that our measurements from Day 1 would be sufficient to accomplish our task. Conceptually, it was a simple 10-step plan:

1. Do a bit more measuring to figure out where the new front leaf spring hangers would be installed, then weld them up and tack them in place.
2. With the leaf springs temporarily installed in the front hangers, figure out the positioning of the rear hangers.
3. Cut off the factory-installed front and rear hangers to make room for the
4. Cut into the frame of the Tacoma - you know, "no big deal" - to french in the front hangers.
5. Tack the new front and rear hangers into place on the frame. [
6. Install the Chevy 63 leaf springs and rear axle.
7. Take a bunch of measurements and reinstall the bed to make sure the rear axle was in the same place as it had been originally with the Alcan leaf springs.
8. Finish weld the new front and rear hangers.
9. Cut and weld a couple frame-reinforcement plates around the front hangers.
10. Reinstall everything we'd removed on Day 1.

Simple enough! ish?

All the bits and pieces we'd be using to complete the job.
(Except for that massive axle Zane had hanging around the shop.)

Things were going smoothly until approximately the second-half of step ...1. That's about when we realized that our yesterday-selves had measured a lot, but probably not quite enough as our today-selves would prefer. Still, we muddled through and completed one step after the other - Zane doing most of the welding and me doing a bunch of cutting and grinding.

None of the bits and pieces from RuffStuff come assembled, so Zane got to work on those while I prepped the frame.

Just gluing metal together...

Making the frame shiny.

Does this look like the right place?

The first test fit.

What's this? All lined up? How could we have gotten that right?

A quick test fit with the bed, to make sure things look good in the wheel wells.

Ever thankful for all the help Zane was contributing - not to mention the shop space - I'd made it clear that any food for the duration of my visit was on me, and that we should eat well. Or, if not well, then at least we should eat things that Zane liked. So, as 2:30pm rolled around and we'd not stopped for lunch, I gently reminded Zane that I needed him to keep eating so that he had enough energy to keep helping me with a project that would take me an order of magnitude* longer to do on my own.

* For all you math nerds out there, that means Zane was doing 90% of the work, for a few measly meals.

It was not nerve racking "at all" to cut the frame.

Huh, where'd that pile of dirt come from?

Well, that can't be good for frame rust.

As Zane worked on the front hangers, I chopped off the originals on the rear.

Slowly but surely, Zane hogged out just the right amount of frame.

It was a lot easier for me - I just had to get the positioning right before melting them on.

Molten metal.

The new ... and the old.

Turns out, the same thing would happen for every meal that had happened for our first - both of us easily consumed by the project at hand - each one seeming to shift later and later in the day. It was just after midnight when we wrapped up day 2 and ordered up a hot pizza that would be quickly consumed before we headed to bed.

Day 3

With only finish welding of the new hangers and reinforcement plates remaining, we thought - or at least I thought - we'd wrap up the job within an hour or two, leaving plenty of time get started on the next activity that we had planned for my visit...

After a bit of fiddling, a perfect fit.

Gluing on the last bits.

A bit of primer all around.

I'm not one of those guys who likes a throaty rumble out of the back of my truck. We definitely needed to get the muffler back on.

Painted and the Chevy 63s in place!

Zane tells me that these little plates - which space the leafs of each spring and keep the friction down - is part of the secret to their fabulous ride.

Turns out that it took us until just after 2:00pm to wrap up that final bit of fitting, welding, and painting. By then, we were hungry and - once again - late for lunch. The truck wasn't completely back together - not by a long shot - but the remainder of the reassembly would require us to dig into our next project. Since we were still - literally - waiting for the paint to dry on this one, it was time for burgers and a short break.

After lunch, we'd have less than 30 hours to complete the second project - a tall order that would see us working late into the night - with no way of knowing whether we'd be successful until the very end. Still, it was a project I'd hoped to accomplish a couple years earlier when I'd visited Zane's shop to swap out my clutch - and we were both determined that we'd get it done before I had to blast off for home.

Keep reading the rest of the story - New Diamond Axle Housing from Front Range Off Road.

 

Epilogue: Are U-Bolts Really a Single-Use Part?

There's an ongoing "discussion" in the world of truck modifications:

I'm changing something about my leaf springs, can I reuse my U-bolts, or do I need to purchase new ones every time?

I'm not here to answer that question - I've been known to tell people that they should always use new u-bolts, while regularly reusing them myself - but I did want to share what happened to me on the way home from Zane's.

After working our way through most of the second project I alluded to above, it was time for me to blast off towards home. We'd accomplished almost everything we'd set out to complete, but there was a little bit of work that I'd have to do once I got home. And, doing that would require me to remove the Chevy 63 leaf springs we'd just installed (with some brand-spanking-new 5/16" u-bolts).

Beefy.

I didn't view this removal as any sort of problem; I figured that they would still be new enough and I'd reuse them. The problem was something else entirely: the top plate I'd purchased was designed for 5/8" u-bolts, not the 9/16" that I had on hand. Being smaller, mine would fit, but there was a bit more space around each bolt than we were comfortable with when we tried installing them using the supplied washers.

Luckily, Zane had some larger diameter fender washers, and we installed the u-bolts - torquing them to 110 ft-lbs - before I hit the road for a 300-mile journey.

It wasn't until I got home and started backing off the nuts that I realized how much force is really involved with u-bolts, and why there are those who suggest that the bolts deform under load may not be entirely wrong.

These washers were not up to the task of combatting 110 ft-lbs over a 1/16" gap.

Hopefully some extra thick Grade 8 washers will do the job nicely until I can get some 5/8" u-bolts that fit the top plate correctly.

So maybe the moral of the story is this: reuse your u-bolts or don't, but for goodness sake, use the correct washers!

 

 

 

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