Rear suspension v2.0! I finally decided to step up to a full leaf pack on the truck. The wheeler's three leaf HD add-a-leaf worked very well for most things but it had a few shortcomings. Mostly, sophistication. It held some weight, rode fine, and was generally quiet. But it also stacked up really bad...meaning that it was soft, soft, soft, then BAM!, extremely firm. I also found that once it hit that extremely firm zone, when loaded with a lot of weight, it took nothing to blow through the rest of the travel and smash to the bump stops.
For replacement, I ordered the following:
All-Pro expo springs
U-Bolt flip
Timbren bump stops
Fox bargain basement shocks (recommended by All-Pro as appropriate travel for the springs)
Stainless steel extended rear brake lines
After a several months long, and very frustrating process, All-Pro finally delivered all the goods. I didn't do some crazy write up because it's been done well already. Just check out TacoDoc's install and you'll get it.
So, on to some pics and notes!
Install the rear brake lines first. It's easy. Accessing the rear drum brake bleeders is a bit of a pain. The bleeder is in an odd, sunken location which makes it hard to get a wrench on. I ended up cutting my flare wrench to fit better. It worked fine. However, the wrench pictured below is way more awesome for the job!
AutoZone. I'm sure much cooler ones exist but this one works great.
As far as bleeding the rear brakes, it's really simple on VSC equipped tricks. Turn the ignition key to 'ON' (don't start the truck!), hold the brake pedal, open the bleeder valve and the ABS pump does the rest. It'll pump the fluid for you. Make sure to NOT allow your reservoir to run low. Air in the master cylinder means a trip to the dealer from what erase arch I could find said. Close the bleeder, let off the brake and you're done. You may have to fill the reservoir and repeat depending on your situation but it's so easy.
On to the springs. This is how they show up
A hateful amount of stickerage.
Nothing a little 3M adhesive remover, a plastic scraper and a knife can't fix! Took about 15 minutes per pack.
Then, paint! You'll want to paint. They come completely beat up because they weigh about 70lbs each.
Follow TacoDoc's report and you'll end up here...with a few added notes.
1. I used a lot of BelRay waterproof grease on the bushings. Inside, outside, make sure all the grooves in the bushings are greased. Don't be shy with the grease!
2. Install the Timbrens on their mounts and onto the spring plates before you put the u-bolts in. If you don't, nothing fits together! If you install the timbrens on the u-bolt flip plates first, the washers for the u-bolts will push up against the edge of the timbren mount and locate nicely. If you do up the u-bolts first, they'll likely slide in the slotted holes in the u-bolt plate and not leave enough room for the timbren mounts. Ask me how I know! Frustrating. Doing it the way I recommend will require that you get a crows foot for your torque wrench to properly torque everything.
3. The Fox shocks come with the wrong lower mount bushings installed. They are much too wide to fit in the lower mount on the axle and there is no sleeve for the bolt. However, the correct bushings and sleeve come in the box with the shocks. I used two sockets of appropriate size along with a clamp and swapped them with little more than a balancing act trying to keep everything aligned while I clamped it all together.
I have a question for those of you running this setup: the way the timbrens are mounted, they fill up with crap and water...and can't drain. Any issues with that? Anyone else care?
In general, the kit is pretty good. The notes I posted would have been good to know at the beginning. The main gripe during install is that the general layout of the timbren/mount/u-bolt flip plate is a little lazy. Much of the issues I had on installation could have been eased with a very slight couple of design tweaks in the timbren mount.
The second, and ongoing, HUGELY ANNOYING gripe is that my set (and two others that I have heard about) creak so bad! They creak when you turn, when you stop, when you go over a bump, when you accelerate, when you look at them too much, when you don't look at them enough, they are ALWAYS creaking!! I've read about one guy discovering that the creak comes from the area where the springs touch mid span between the center bolt and the slider pad at the end of each leaf. He had to loosen up his pack, glue hard rubber under each leaf at that location then grease the rubber interface to the leaf below. That sounds like a super sucky job that I'm none too excited to get into. Any other folks out there with that issue? How did you remedy it? I would be extremely excited to hear of all the solutions out there.
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