So this might sound a bit crazy, but I'm keen to stiffen up the front suspension some and my first thought is to add a rear dirt bike spring in place of the standard shock to compliment the torsion bar.

What are the thoughts on this? Will they work together or will the two springs fight against one another?

I'm wanting to get it reasonably rigid on a budget and this way, at most I should only be up for fabricating the top mount similar to what I've seen in the straight coil over conversions on here. Ideally I'll be able to find a spring with a small enough diameter that it will just bolt in with little to no modification.

Is this a feasable mod or should I try to source heavy torsion bars and upgrade the sway bar first?

I'm looking at small diameter springs such as this 1200lb example v

 

control arms aren't exactly designed to hold up the weight of the vehicle since truck has t-bars to hold the weight. you'll need to reinforce them at a minimum.

personally i'd go for a stiffer sway bar and tbars before trying to convert from tbar to coil. i suppose you could use both tbar and coil, which should definitely stiffen things up as you'll have double the spring power, lol

 

KISS... Keep it simple, son. If you want coilovers, don't half-ass it. But... No need to re-engineer the truck. Hit your local Pick n' Pocket and get some 1-ton bars. After that you may be underdamped, so some decent shocks. I understand that you're balling on a budget, but doing it wrong means doing it twice. /Platitudes.

 

It was a lot of crazy thinking, I know. I had just finished a pintrest binge peeping cantilever set ups and wondered how I could squeeze an extra spring in to stiffen it all up. I've decided to work with what I've got and have since ordered new shocks, shorter for the front as it's wound right down, and standard for the rear since i'm using blocks. I'll find a heavy sway bar to fit or even piggy back two stock ones with mounting hardware, then look for t bars options if none of that does much. The rear is quite stiff but I'll look at sway bar options also.

 

I don't know why you want a stiffer ride, but I got Monroe load shocks that have coilovers built into them, check my thread "Betsy" for more information. Those paired with sway-a-way torsions creates a pretty good ride.

 

https://toyotaminis.com/forum/threads/betsy.22568/page-3

Bottom of the page has a picture

in a later post I have the model number

 

Nice set up, that's exactly what i'm looking for, cheers heaps. They obviously come in a lowered height as well then since you ditched the blocks and have lowered rear springs? I priced efs heavy duty torsion bars also at $360, it'll be money well spent. If I can spend about $1500 or less over the next couple of months having an all new suspension I'll be quite happy. Nice truck by the way, don't know how I have gotten into your build thread yet.

 

They aren't actually made for our trucks, I had to look into the shock length, compressed length, and end mounts to find shocks that would be compatible. For the rears, I couldn't find one that matched just right, so I got ones that were the right length, then popped the bushings out and replaced them with urethane ones.

Thanks on the compliments, Betsy is out of comission for a while, but I hope to get her up and running in 2018.

 

I figured I'd ad this here since it's front end related.

I'm up for a tie rod end and I'm considering a heim joint conversion.

I got the strings out today to do a wheel alignment since my car has had a slight pull and the steering wheel is a little off. Got under and noticed the tie rod thread is bent and won't turn in the barrel, so it looks like I'm up for 2/3 of an assembly.

The other thing I was looking at was the angle the outter tie rod sits at with vehicle lowered right down. I thought about flipping it but that won't work since it has the tapered shaft and seat, but a heim joint might work under the mount and use a plate washer up top.

Anyone done/thought of similar?

I found this image, it's not an uncommon thing but I'm just wondering how everything will go if I mount it from the bottom.