SAS talk.......

[airdreams1]

So I'm wondering if I buy a trail gear SAS kit are the springs that come in it just standard front Springs? By that I mean could I buy any other brand of front Springs to put into it? was thinking I would like to have old man emu front Springs if that's a possibility

 

[Bad_Vision]

I'm partial to the sky jacker soft rides myself I have had them in 2 of my 1985 factory solid axle trucks.



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[Dropzone]

So I'm wondering if I buy a trail gear SAS kit are the springs that come in it just standard front Springs? By that I mean could I buy any other brand of front Springs to put into it? was thinking I would like to have old man emu front Springs if that's a possibility

find out what the eye to eye measurement for the OME springs is.
you could buy the T-G kit with out springs, you would probably just need to adjust the placement of your front hanger forward or back.
Be sure to tack the front hanger before fully welding and check your shackle angle and tie rod clearance for binding with the weight of the vehicle on the springs.

 

[ntsqd]

.....
SA Toys also ride rough

I had OME front springs and Bils 5100's (255/70) under the front of my '84 Xcab with by the time I was done. The rear was GM 63's with Bils 7100's (275/78). I started with unknwn front springs of the same lift and 4 single shock per tire application RS5000's under the front with AAL's and 4 more single per tire RS5000's under the rear. The difference between how I got it and how I sold it ~125k miles later was not only night and day, but the result rode so much better than this IFS 4rnnr does now (again with RS5000's) that I'm partly considering an SAS. It rode well enough that both desert racers and rock crawlers who rode in it frequently commented that they didn't know a live axle on leaf springs could ride that nice. Suffice to say that I don't buy the "SA yotas ride rough" comment. It means that someone didn't work at making it ride better because I know it's possible.

So I'm wondering if I buy a trail gear SAS kit are the springs that come in it just standard front Springs? By that I mean could I buy any other brand of front Springs to put into it? was thinking I would like to have old man emu front Springs if that's a possibility

I would strongly discourage buying anything from Trail Gear. The founder is not a person I'm willing to give any money to. All of their early, core products are clones/rip-off's of other vendors with far more integrity than TG has ever shown.

 

[airdreams1]

Well who would you recommend then? Sky Manufacturing? think someone said all pro makes one as well? And I would have no idea what other company.


Not sure I completely understand what you're saying about what you put on your truck. It sounds like you have Chevy 63 inch rear leaf springs and old man emu front leaf springs. The shock part is where I'm slightly confused as to what you are running.

 

[ntsqd]

There are other vendors that offer SAS crossmembers. Marlin and All-Pro would be the first two that I would check out. Sky Mfg. is a good guy too.

After I got it all sorted out I ran single per tire Bilstein 5100's up front (255/70 valving which is their std.) and single per tire Bilstein 7100's in the rear with 275/78 valving (not std., but can be ordered). With any rear spring other than the GM 63's the std. off the shelf Bilstein valving of 255/70 would be the place to start and will probably work pretty well.
Front springs were the std. OME front spring for an '84 LA truck.

 

[KidVermicious]

So I'm wondering if I buy a trail gear SAS kit are the springs that come in it just standard front Springs? By that I mean could I buy any other brand of front Springs to put into it? was thinking I would like to have old man emu front Springs if that's a possibility

OME front springs are stock length for 84-85 4Runners/pickups. The Trail Gear fronts are not, they're longer. When you do your SAS conversion you can put the front shackle hangers anywhere you want to accommodate any spring length you want.

 

[airdreams1]

Good to know. Wouldhave sucked to set it up for tg then get the ome & find out they won't work....


Anyone ever done old man emu Springs with a SAS and have pictures?

 

[sam24th]

For the oil pan, you can use your stock 3.0 oil pan IF your axle is pushed forward enough or you have enough lift. Ive done enough swaps to tell you that for sure. Even when you do a SAS on a 3.4 you swap to a 3.0 4WD 4runner/pickup pan. Now the better option would probably to run a 3.0 T100 pan. Those are rear sump pans and would clear better if you want a LCOG build or axle in stockish location.

My personal opinion if you were to do a swap and want it low, is french the hangers in. You'll still have to do something for steering.

 

[ntsqd]

I applaud efforts to get the ride height as low as possible, but there will be some challenges & better to know about them going in than finding them once you're committed.

With this ancient picture you can see some details of a LA truck's front spring hangers. Note the front spring pin height relative to the bottom of the front cross member, and how much arch the frame rail has compared to an IFS frame rail. The drag link needs to clear both the bottom of the frame rail and the top of spring at both locks and with either side at max compression. Been too long since I did the work to recall which two of the 4 extreme possibilities are the worst cases, but clearing the oil pan and frame rail at full compression wasn't easy with an LA frame. It's going to be even tougher with an IFS frame.

This is the truck almost exactly 20 years later with custom cross-over steering and the OME springs. Can't see it because of the rainbow flare, but that oil pan does have a drag-link caused dent in it. The right steering arm is a complete custom unit, no off the shelf steering arm that I found would have worked. Pitman arm is a flat arm that I got off a Sami guy who decided not to use a yota steering box. No idea where it came from, but Sky Mfg is a likely guess. Any drop in the pitman arm was an immediate problem for the left spring. Ideally the box should be spaced 5/8"-3/4" off the frame rail for even better spring clearance. I designed the spacer to be a frame reinforcement, but never built it.

 

[airdreams1]

If you bought the off the shelf hangers, and ran very low lift RUFS (read, 2-3" uptravel, not ideal bumpy for road driving) youll end up with about 3 inches of lift. The reason "everyone wants to lift it 5 inches" is a comfy road ride. My current rufs are whouped. I plan on getting some OME cs009r springs very soon, which should give me about 4" total lift. You could do chevy 63s in the rear and move your current springs up front.
.

Im about 2 weeks away from the SAS......
I've really been wondering about putting front old man emu Springs on for the 85. Just not sure they would work well with one of the kits . I currently have the old man emu rear springs on the rear of my 4Runner. They are fully broken and from the ground to the bottom lip of the fender well I am at about 38 inches.... (31x10.50 tires) & as it sits now it's about as high as I'd really like it to be I could probably deal with another Inch.


I really do not want to keep the ifs. There seems to be no way whatsoever to make it as high as the rear is lifted. I already have 1.5" ball joint spacers and the torsion bars cranked nearly to the maximum and have less than a couple of inches of flex in the front. That makes it ride like absolute s***. Kind of like a radio flyer.........

only reason i am doing a SAS on my 94 is that I have all the stuff (suspension, axles etc) from my 81. Doing it on a tight budget, saves me $$$ on gears etc
That being said I would go Long Travel up front if money was not so tight.

axle ID
Toyota Mini Truck Front Axle Identification
79-80 no gusset
81-83 short gusset (to u-bolts)
84-85 long gusset (past u-bolts)

As far as swapping the oil pan for high steer, just go that route, no sense re-inventing the wheel. Converting to High steer was the best upgrade I ever did on my 81.

for your front spring hanger- if you go with a Trail-Gear style hanger- that automatically adds 1.5" or so to your lift. Consider a low profile hanger such as the one Low Range Off road sells
After using the T-G hanger on my 1st build I am going with the Low Range Hanger. It will be about 3/4"-1" lower than the T-G




I would keep it IFS and just beef it

Like I mentioned before I cannot see any way to really continue using the IFS. I cannot get it to lift as high as the rear. With 1.5 inch ball joint spacers and the torsions cranked up I am still 2.5 inches shorter in the front then I am in the rear. And that is already causing all sorts of whare & tare on all the front end components. And like I mentioned before it just rides like crap.

Putting definite consideration into getting the low profile frame hanger.... Don't know what other options I really will have.
This is just 1 thing that most guys seem to forget is that extra 1inch of lift automatically with the trail gear SAS kit. So your 3-inch lift is now a 4 inch lift.
The second thing they forget is that you need to figure out the size difference in tires that you're running before and after and split the difference by 50%. You're supposed to be able to run 35 inch tires with the 3" kit. This would bring me up 2 inchs more now making it a 6" lift. That number only gets bigger with the 4-inch kit............ This is why I only want to run 33 inch tires. That way I only gained one extra inch. And if I'm able to run the low profile spring hanger and lose 1 inch I'll still end up with about a 4 inch lift. I think that would be doable. And should make the truck fairly level. If anything I might have to put longer Shackled on the rear. Currently I have stock length shackles because I was trying to keep it as low as possible so I didn't have to crank the front up any higher. To try to get the front ifs any higher would absolutely destroy everything in a very short time and the ride would be completely and utterly horrible!!!!!!!!

 

[sam24th]

A couple things to consider: What do you use your rig for?

Personally I have both a SA 22r truck and an IFS 3.0V6 truck and while I love the SA for offroad, it sucks to drive on a daily basis compared to the IFS. The IFS drives and imo handles much better on the road. Also anyone that knows me, knows I wheel both trucks, sometimes harder than I should. I have done everything in my IFS truck that I can do in the SA truck.

Second thing to consider is how much money are you wanting to spend on a swap? And how much of a time commitment do you want to put into it? This isn't a simple bolt on affair by any means.

Im pretty sure anyone that I have ever helped do a SAS would generally agree that they spent WAYY more money on the swap after it was all said and done than originally anticipated. If you piece-meal it together, which I am assuming you are doing since you seem to want to use different components. Figure in a full front axle rebuild, fluids, steering, shock hoops, driveshaft, locking hubs(usually the axles Ive seen with them from junkyards are trashed) a bunch of other misc BS I can't think of. Point is, it can get expensive pretty quick.

Im not trying to discourage anyone from doing a swap, in fact I would love to see you swap it. Im just trying to help ya out before you start ordering too many parts and dont have time, money or the commitment to finish it. Then you can sell it to me for or someone else for dirt cheap when you dont finish it. :becky:

Now for the actual SAS part :clap2: To keep it low, I'd use a sky's offroad low-pro hanger or similar. Factory rear leaf springs up front. Highsteer, shock hoops, and you need a 3.0 T100 pan and oil pickup tube. T100 pan is a rear sump so it should work better for a SAS low lift application. Just remember to take tons of pics and post them if you SAS it.

Can't believe I'm gonna say this and I'm probably gonna get crap for this, but the other option is to use front drop brackets and loosen the torsions a bit. :barf: If you primarily drive on the streets, Id go this route. Gets you lift to even it out on the cheap. It will get hung up on a ton of shit out on the trails if you wheel it though.

BTW I saw you already had some leafsprings. IIRC the 48in eye to eye should be factory rear springs for a 78-88 truck. And 45 eye to eye is the stock front springs for a SA truck. You'd need to measure from center pin to eye to be sure though. Pirate4x4 has a writeup somewhere with all the dimensions.

 

[ntsqd]

I took an IFS guy pondering an SAS swap for a ride in my'84. I bonzai'd it down Black Cyn Rd. (for those who know the upper CA deserts) and into some rough over behind Calico. He came away thinking that my LA rode better than his IFS. He ended up buying a LA truck and mixing/matching bodies & drive-train between the two ending up with a Marlin'd LA "Expedition/Trails" truck and an IFS DD.

I contend that if an LA truck rides worse than a cranked IFS truck that there's some suspension tuning that needs to be done because it isn't right.

 

[airdreams1]

A couple things to consider: What do you use your rig for?

Personally I have both a SA 22r truck and an IFS 3.0V6 truck and while I love the SA for offroad, it sucks to drive on a daily basis compared to the IFS. The IFS drives and imo handles much better on the road. Also anyone that knows me, knows I wheel both trucks, sometimes harder than I should. I have done everything in my IFS truck that I can do in the SA truck.

Second thing to consider is how much money are you wanting to spend on a swap? And how much of a time commitment do you want to put into it? This isn't a simple bolt on affair by any means.

Im pretty sure anyone that I have ever helped do a SAS would generally agree that they spent WAYY more money on the swap after it was all said and done than originally anticipated. If you piece-meal it together, which I am assuming you are doing since you seem to want to use different components. Figure in a full front axle rebuild, fluids, steering, shock hoops, driveshaft, locking hubs(usually the axles Ive seen with them from junkyards are trashed) a bunch of other misc BS I can't think of. Point is, it can get expensive pretty quick.

Im not trying to discourage anyone from doing a swap, in fact I would love to see you swap it. Im just trying to help ya out before you start ordering too many parts and dont have time, money or the commitment to finish it. Then you can sell it to me for or someone else for dirt cheap when you dont finish it. :becky:

Now for the actual SAS part :clap2: To keep it low, I'd use a sky's offroad low-pro hanger or similar. Factory rear leaf springs up front. Highsteer, shock hoops, and you need a 3.0 T100 pan and oil pickup tube. T100 pan is a rear sump so it should work better for a SAS low lift application. Just remember to take tons of pics and post them if you SAS it.

Can't believe I'm gonna say this and I'm probably gonna get crap for this, but the other option is to use front drop brackets and loosen the torsions a bit. :barf: If you primarily drive on the streets, Id go this route. Gets you lift to even it out on the cheap. It will get hung up on a ton of shit out on the trails if you wheel it though.

BTW I saw you already had some leafsprings. IIRC the 48in eye to eye should be factory rear springs for a 78-88 truck. And 45 eye to eye is the stock front springs for a SA truck. You'd need to measure from center pin to eye to be sure though. Pirate4x4 has a writeup somewhere with all the dimensions.

I do have some used leaf springs here but I don't intend to use them if I don't have to. I don't really want to mess with rears up front or some other goofy s*** with old worn-out parts.

As for what I use the truck for is mainly on road with Fire Road and other type mild off-road. The biggest issue becomes the fact that the front end is turned up so high there is no more adjustment for the camber angle. I cannot get a proper alignment to fix the truck nor can I lift it any higher to level it out and get the extra 2 inches or so that I need to make it even close. My front fender well is the same height as my rear fender well and anyone that knows Toyota knows that the rear fender well is cut much lower on the truck then the front is. Yet for some reason I keep getting told by lots of people that it looks like it is level when it is far from it. If there was a way that I can keep the front end ifs, have it ride decent, be able to be aligned properly & lift the front end up a little more to make level, then I might keep it that way period but the only option I really can see is doing a solid axle swap but this may lift it far too high for me to get in and out of easily. That would render it basically useless unless I want to carry around a step stool with me everywhere I go.

As for the expense part I have already bought a solid front axle. I am fine with having to buy the trail gear kit for the 1200+ but will probably have to wait to get a Driveline built since it is going to cost me $400 or so. Also have to wait to get larger tires since that is another 800 to $1,000. Waiting on that kind of stuff kind of sucks but I just don't know what else to do at this point. As it sits I cannot get the front end aligned and it is torn up my tires. I did the best I could getting it as close as possible since all of the shop said they would not touch it. Took it to a local guy that does not use the computer machines like the big shops do and even he said there wasn't much he could do to make it any better than what I had done to it. so all-in-all I am kind of stressing out about this whole thing. Had him look at it several months later again and he said everything is wearing out faster than it should be. Too much CV, ball joint, tie rod angle & stress...........
. Only other option would be to drop the ass end and put the front and back down to stock height. Could do that by putting back on all of the stock parts but it rode like s*** that way as well because the rear leaf springs were so worn out it was damn near touching the bump stops so every single bump was like being kicked in the back side.
I can deal with the height that I have now but if it goes much higher than this I don't think I can get into ithe easly. (I have back and leg issues.) It measures about 26.5" the body line below the door.

I'm about 99% positive that a solid axle will not ride any worse than the truck rides right now. It is literally like sitting in a child Radio Flyer wagon with maybe a 2-inch piece of foam for your back side to sit on. The rear end of the truck seems to be ok. All of the horror ride is coming from the IFS!!! And another thing is that ever since I did the ball joint spacers the front end now walks all over the road. It is aligned very close to what it should be no I don't believe that is what is causing that issue. Nor did the guy from the alignment shop. He says it is from the front end now being much more narrow than the rear end and the angle of the tie rods. He says it changed everything in the entire steering set up and basically there was no way to fix that except lowering it back down. It kind of sucks driving down the road and looking like you're drunk because your truck wants to wander all over the street. (we have a lot of really W 'ed roads so that amplifies the issue as well.)

About the only other last possible option would be to continue SAS and by the ugly @$$ truck steps that hang a foot below the cab.... just not sure if that option would work well either. They look like they would be awkward to climb on. Plus I would have to get two sets because I would need some for my daughter to be able to get into the back as well.


I guess all of that said is why I am stressing and why I would really like someone that could give me actual ground to the bottom of the door type measurements to give me a rough idea of how much taller it's going to end up being.

 

[toyotaman1992]

folowing

 

[toyotaman1992]

Follwoing this as too i dunno what i should do for a SAS

 

[airdreams1]

Well guys I have it all done and have had for a while. It is definitely much softer than my ifs ever was. That being said I was given the 4-cylinder superflex Springs instead of the heavy duty for the V6. So if I moved about 15 feet or so and hit the brakes I bought them out on the bump stop. I even cut them down as short as I could and just allowing enough space to not hit the oil pan. I'll try and get some pictures posted up here

 

[ntsqd]

Sounds to me like those springs are too light for your truck.