Lowering amount on the front and back

Hmm - are RAV4 springs that expensive? £38 a pair here:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/NEW-CD-AUTOPARTS-REAR-COIL-SPRINGS-BAGGED-PAIR-TOYOTA-RAV-4-MK2-2000-2005/252953901833?fits=Model%3ARAV+4&hash=item3ae53a3b09:g:VB8AAOSwcdRY91or

You'll need to measure them, but at that price if they were the right diameter I'd probably just buy them to try. If you can get an old spring out of the HiAce then I'd go to a place that stocks RAV4 springs and compare them on the bench, you'll soon see if they are a plausible alternate just by laying them out side by side.

every rav4 I searched gave me a lot more per spring must be searching wrong lol
trouble is I don't want to get some a they be no good just to get a baseline on rav4, I've got my baseline on the Hiace ones, I'm considering a one off pair made as there seems to be a few spring companies around that will do a set

Agreed, no one wants to buy useless springs, although they are cheap for a try and can be sold on.

I'd get the good/uncut back spring out and measure the diameter, length and thickness of the steel, then head to a place with a few RAV4 springs and compare them.

Then choose one that identical diameter & thickness but slightly shorter and use that, e.g one about 50mm longer at free length will be under 25mm on the van I reckon.

Rear end is done eventually, don't ask, should have cut more spring out but that's for another day, lenso alloys on rear to with 225/50 16 tyres, got to wind some more out of the front torsion bars to drop a little more and switch tyres to new alloys and suspension done, next is the leisure battery job,
Now, how can I host photos as photo bucket charge the earth too

Sounds good!!

Put photos here for free:
http://postimages.org/

Cheers for that GPW

Height looks perfect to me.
To slam it 'properly' you end up running on the bump stops, no use to anyone

Did you add the window stickers or are they original?

Window stickers are all my idea, might take some off, bit too much maybe, I do wish I'd taken another half coil out though, just to loose that gap I still have, bump stop is about 25mm from the axle but they are easy enough to cut down

I quite like the stickers, some looked japanese so I wondered if they came with it!

25mm to the bumpstop (unloaded?) is not great - how does it drive?
Mine have about 5mm and it's not enough, I'll probably put 20mm solid rubber pads under the springs.

What you may find is that bigger diameter wheels and tyres fill out the arches better, IIRC there was a car (Landrover discovery?!?) that had compatible wheels but I can't quite recall what it was.

Very nice Mick, just need a big shiny tailpipe now!

As it's coming up to salty road time you may wish to consider waxoyling inside the panels and doors if it's not been done. Not sure how to get it to flow in this weather but it's worth doing as these JDM vans are not waxed like the UK spec stuff is.

I've already splodged a load of underseal under it, covered most of the floor, the bottoms of the front doors are shot so will be a body project for next year, need to get the leisure battery install done now then have a better side exit exhaust made up, that is just a slash cut cherry bomb, straight of the down pipe, does have an awesome turbo whine when running

Well I know why the front won't drop any more, I've bottomed out on the lower bump stop, so wheels off and trim the sh*t out of the rubber next

mickB wrote:

Well I know why the front won't drop any more, I've bottomed out on the lower bump stop, so wheels off and trim the sh*t out of the rubber next

Ah yes, my front was just resting on the rather-too-well-used bump stops so I raised it. The ride was terrible!

Raised the rise height???? Surely not, the lower the better remember 😂 I'll be cutting vast chunks from both front bumps

mickB wrote:

Raised the rise height???? Surely not, the lower the better remember 😂 I'll be cutting vast chunks from both front bumps

I recall that the bump stops are pretty small - unless I missed another set somewhere else. I got the impression that any thinner and they'd be a 'crash crash' instead of a 'bump bump' sound. Take some pics when you're down there!

Maybe you could have the hubs modified to make it sit lower?

That's the lower bump stop pretty much on the arm

Ah yes, they are the ones I saw, I thought they looked tiny for such a large van, maybe the shocks have stops built in.

Careful you don't bend something or stress the wheels too much if there's a big bump you meet, I'd take it easy at first and see what you think of the ride!

GPW wrote:

Ah yes, they are the ones I saw, I thought they looked tiny for such a large van, maybe the shocks have stops built in.

Careful you don't bend something or stress the wheels too much if there's a big bump you meet, I'd take it easy at first and see what you think of the ride!

I really really need to trim that bottom one its a bit harsh over certain sleeping policeman in the cab

I haven't had chance to jack up again but from memory the plate that the lower bump hits looks like it does nothing but be a stop for the bump stop, so trimming the rubber plus adjusting [re: hit hard with hammer] will give me more movement on that lower arm,

What do others think ?

thread still going

I haven't done a lot, the van is a driveway ornament at the moment which I need to fix and start using it more, the front bump stop trimmed the van didn't drop anymore so I've checked and the standard shock bottomed out, no more give, so the next move is get there vw t4 lowered shocks fitted and then I should get some drop on the front and can then cut more out of the rear coils

mickB wrote:

thread still going  

I haven't done a lot, the van is a driveway ornament at the moment which I need to fix and start using it more, the front bump stop trimmed the van didn't drop anymore so I've checked and the standard shock bottomed out, no more give, so the next move is get there vw t4 lowered shocks fitted and then I should get some drop on the front and can then cut more out of the rear coils

I'm still fettling my garage ornament too, I think vans take on a life of their own and become a hobby in themselves lol.
As the weather is much better now I'm working on the front super-bright Ford transit Mk5 headlamps and wiring. I have running and indicator lamps on the wing mirrors and new running lamps on the new headlamps so I've been wiring that up. Next stage is to punch a new Q-max hole behind the headlamps so I can adjust them with a screwdriver from inside as currently I have to take them off to adjust them, it's only one more hole and I can get blanking plugs easily to keep the weather out.

This also coincides with 'operation cabin filter' as the inlet is above the RHS headlamp, I have a wire grill there now, foam would be easy on top but I'm trying an Alfa 159 Febi carbon activated pleated filter cut down to the right side to see if I can get that to fit first as I think it's better than a bit of foam.

I've also been researching springs, with a lower ride you may want stiffer springs, I reckon the Merc G-class rear springs may be similar. For mine I looked for a spring platform or jack of around 15mm but the poly ones are very expensive so I'll DIY them. Just a few metal or rubber plates with a central mandrel drilled out of solid 20mm rubber sheet with a hole saw, bolted together. Then I can shim it until I get the right drop. I also looked at DIY poly but haven't pursued that yet.

the headlamp/running lamp mod sounds intriguing, any pics ? or got to wait until its done

I've got the MOT up in May so really need to sort the rear fog lamp, got told last year to bolt one on after I got the pass and still haven't, oops, I want to work out where it goes within the rear lamp cluster preferably

I managed to dig my springs out today after finally working out how to support the back of the van without the suspension!!



Toyota was in fact correct and the rear box sections are to be used - they need axle stands which have to be offset (back and forward) however and on a ramp it's a bit tricky - easier on solid ground.

So the bad news is my springs were not nice lowered springs from Japan but someone had butchered the original ones (they have two dabs of green paint on) by cutting them. As a result the free end has dug a pit in the lower rubber seat and the (now unevenly seated) spring has rubbed the paint of it and the swing-arm socket. I was saddened to see this because in Japan it can't be that hard to buy properly formed lowered springs. It also told me that it used to ride higher when first converted, because the rubber takes time to deform and get squashed so it probably lost around 10-15mm of height over the first few hundred miles.

Some stats: the spring wire is 15mm, the spring diameter is around 126mm and the cut length is 270mm, which after time is 10mm too low (10mm compressed length, so around 15-20mm too short). I.e. if people want to slam their supercustom with an angle grinder cut the springs to 285mm minimum, but of course cutting is still a terrible thing to do.

Regardless I need to raise these 10mm (when in use) so I'll be fitting a 10mm rubber disc in the bottom of the trailing arm socket and trying to get the offcuts to form a wedge so the spring can sit less awkwardly, as the cut always makes them lean away from the cut end.

On the plus side, thanks to Mick's 400mm measurement (normal distance from wheel centre to top of wheel arch) I was able to re-create that and measure the position of the rear brake compensator.



On mine this was a 6mm gap where I have drawn on the adjuster in the photo, yours may vary slightly.
So when unladen and sitting nicely on it's wheels that adjuster needs to be in that position so the back brakes operate with the correct force, slamming a van without doing that (like the Japanese doing my van LOL) will give too much braking power to the back risking lockups and the rear end sliding under braking.

I've cut my springs

back yard customs.......

nice info again GPW, I forgot to check my brake compensator so need to do that although braking seems fine when hit hard and it passed MOT rollers OK

Hi Mick,

Yes I remember you cut yours; now I can see exactly why I advised you not to LOL .
There IS a 'fix' however, we merely need a rubber spring base that is designed for a tangental cut spring.

The issue is that our upper and lower spring pads are flat, designed for a spring with 'square ends' - which means a spring which can sit on a surface without leaning over like the tower of pizza. When we cut one of those ends off the cut end it now a 'tangential' end - and when you try to sit it on the cut end it falls over.

Thus when the cut spring is in the van and has 450kg resting on it it also tries to fall over, and the sharp end digs into the flat bush that toyota fitted and over time burrows through - lowering the ride over time, and transmitting more noise into the van as the rubber barrier breaks down.

So we need a spring bush/pad/mount that has a ramp on it to correct the - now incorrect - flat surface it rests on. Several cars use these from firms like Febi, the problem is to get eBay sellers to stop robotically ask for a registration to see if they fit and to actually get a ruler and measure them for a spring that measures 95mm on the inside and 125mm on the outside.
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Febi-Bilstein-Rubber-Buffer-suspension-17088/362318620102



If they all totally fail to do this there is a plan B which involved getting some Leisurewize spring assisters and cutting them into a wedge shape to achieve an almost-as-good ramp mount for the spring.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Coil-Spring-Assisters-Suspension-Gap-Spacer-Towing-Trailer-Adapter-PO6-52mm-65mm/123126491496



I'll try to get the spring rate of the spring today by standing on it and seeing how much it compresses - that's a vital number we'll need if we ever get custom ones made...