jefe's suspension and off-road trailer update

Raften,
Mine came with a thicker, single upper secondary spring. How thick? A friend gave me his early 2001 Dodge 3500 secondaries he did not want. They were a pair of thinner leaves per side but had the same 500 pound 'overload' character as the mono spring. I tried with just the two thinner ones and it was about the same as the mono thicker one that came with my truck (a 2500, BTW). Then I put em all on and found it was the best with the addition of using Stable Loads. This recent spring upgrade was just to bring the rear axle ride height up to a more level plane. It worked. A comparo:

For you, what I did was about the quickest and dirtiest way to get it up and get to carry more weight short of buying new $1200 heavy duty rear spring sets.
Add-a-leaves: $99
new longer U bolts and nuts: $65 plus shipping
a pair of used Dodge 3500 secondary springs: free
I paid the price by installing all this stuff myself.
jefe

I'm guessing since we both have second half of the '01 year you had just one thin overload on top. The first half of the year they had two. So you added the second thick bottom overload and a thick and a thin overload on top, correct?

I have to beef up my spring pack and think I will use yours as a guide when talking to shops. Please let up know how it rides empty and loaded after you have put some time in with the new pack. I have about twice the loaded weight to deal with.

jefe, after seeing your rig in action on a couple of off road adventure, I though your suspension was already stiff enough as it was.

My, you boys have some good looking suspensions; some of the very best I've seen. My whole premise was to make a package on a budget, just adding leaves that were given to me or were cheap. I checked into complete new spring packs and the going rate was about $1200 per axle.
As we get older and get off-road, we need to truss-up to stay afloat.
Cal wrote:
"Do you ever have any trouble with the top stack twisting wrt the main stack?"
jefe: not yet. The upper secondaries are bound by the U bolts and have a separate centering pin that holds them together. The main pack has that 1/8" shim which little ears to contain the lowest springs. The u bolts allow only 1/16th inch clearance on each side also limiting spring shifting.
Mello wrote:
"what prompted the upgrade? Did the original springs lose their effectiveness?"
jefe: I just wanted the rear up maybe 2 to 3 inches to bring the camper loaded level with the 3 inch lift on the front. I had plenty of springs already. I was already at the recommended max on the factory lift blocks (4" is the max before axle wrap consumes you) and looked at replacing the lower, thick and useless overload spring with a 5-leaf mini pack which would have softened the ride and given a 1 inch lift. For the price, not enough lift. I looked at all the alternatives to see what was out there and decided on $99 add-a-leaves which proportedly give a 3" lift to an unloaded truck. What I could not find out was what a 2000 pound load over that axle would net result be.
The answer is: 2" lift. The add-a-leaf is pretty stiff and has a lot more curve than the main spring pack so the ride of the loaded truck, so far, is directly attributed to that one spring doing it's job without much help from the factory leaves. This will change when the upper secondaries are fully engaged, which should happen after adding 500-600 more pounds of cargo. I have used add-a-leaf packs in the past on various applications with varying success. They are a quick and dirty way to add either height or carrying capacity but have some strange quirks, like a stiff, jerky ride on my XJ.
Another quirk is the inexorable flattening of the add-a-leaf. They simply loose some of their spring as time marches on, which in some cases is a good thing. They are like old men, loosing some of their spring over time.
DJ's springs look like he had no upper secondaries from the factory as evidenced by the new looking upper frame secondary bracket, newly attached thru the appropriate holes in the frame. Each of those springs has a 500 lb. load rating. 6 total giving a 3000 pound load rating. Notice this is done with no Stable Loads, just the stock rubber snubbers.
I should tell you of my experience with re-arching of spring packs. In about 1972 I was driving a 1970 Toyota Land Cruiser FJ55 (Chevy V8/Overdrive/Warn winch/53 gallon gas tank/tomba burro/Power lok rr diff, sleeps 2+2), a wagon with pretty flat springs and wanted to get more 'up', maybe a few inches to clear my HUGE 11x15 True Trac tires on 10" wide rims. I had a very reputable spring shop re-arch the springs using oil quenching and various springy techniques to re form them. I was great with a net 3" lift and no loss of ride quality. My smile turned to a frown however as, over a two year period the springs started to sag, slowly and inexorably back down to 00.0. Only my experience. So, keep that in mind when you discover that you can re-arch your springs for cheap. Yeah, cheap and made to stay that way.
regards, as always, jefe

Jefe - Looks great, should improve handling on and off road! Always good to see photos of changes and improvements.

Looks great! I'm sure you'll notice a marked improvement "off road."

Will look forward to your testing results, from the Mojave Road trip, especially the photographs. Have fun, you have certainly put in the work for this excursion.

b

Looks great, Jefe. You should be good to go now. Forgive me if you already mentioned it, but what prompted the upgrade? Did the original springs lose their effectiveness?

I did basically the same thing to mine. 3000# overloads. Yep, steel trumps balloons everytime!!!

Jefe,

You got enough springs in that stack? Just kidding -- enough is whatever is needed. Steel is better than air. Looks a little like mine.
Do you ever have any trouble with the top stack twisting wrt the main stack?