OK so we went all out and worked a couple all nighters to get ready for out vacation trip to the coast and back while wheeling and camping in between. I originally had the '94 pickup set up with some 3.5" lift chevy 63s with the overloads taken out for a total of 4 leaves in the rear packs. With the additional rear weight of the 4runner the handling was a little loose in back. I added two thin leaves to the bottom from another stock chevy pack, which did help the handling when moderately loaded, however, when we loaded it up with all our camping gear, food and the entire family it totally sucked. Borderline dangerous even. We unloaded a bunch of stuff to save weight about 20 miles into our trip. It was still overloaded feeling and really squirmy in the turns and side winds.
After the long trip and getting caught up enough around here I realized that I had a good wheeling set up, but since the vehicle is used for a mix of overland style travel with trails mixed in and that's not going to change, we decided to add some beef to the rear springs.
I ended up adding one more short leaf and a stock overload from a set of 3/4 ton 57" chevy springs. This lifted the back about 2". Now I am making some shorter shackles all the way around to drop it back all around about an inch and maybe loose a little yaw in the process. I had 5.5" shackles up front and 6.5" hole ot hole in the rear and I am trying 3.5" in the front and 4.5" in the rear with some harder fresh poly bushings in the back shackle hangers.
Here is a pic of my new overlander style sping packs, which suprisingly are riding nice and smooth...
