OEM front coil spring musings…

I was wondering if anyone knows if it would be reasonable to use a set of front coil springs from a newer gen Tacoma on a first gen prerunner. I have an 04 prerunner 3.4l v6 automatic 2wd w/ the trd off road package and both of my OEM coil springs have the paint flaking off on the bottom couple coils and a good bit of rust eating its way into the coils…. From what I can find, both Toyota and moog no longer have the stock coils for sale. I was wondering if anyone had tried using a set of coils of a newer gen Tacoma?? In SoCal I see a metric butfuckton of brand new stock suspension components being sold by crazy people who probably rarely go off road but felt it necessary to pull their stock suspension at 30k miles and dump $3k worth of aftermarket suspension into their truck. I think I can score a nice set of newer coils for very reasonable costs, I’m just wondering if anyone has tried this or has any opinions on if it would work ok… At worst I will just roll the dice and give it a go, but any advice would be appreciated!

 

If you are talking about coils from a 3rd gen Tacoma, they would be too long for a 1st gen.

 

I have some oem coils from my previous 03 tacoma TRD laying around in good condition. If you are in California you can have them.

 

Unless you changed your front shocks out recently (within 15k) then just get these:
Bilstein 5100 0-2" Lift Assembled Front Coilovers with OE Replacement Springs for 1995-2004 Toyota Tacoma (suspensionlifts.com)

If you did change out your shocks, then sell them and get the pre assembled unit above to safe yourself the hassle of dealing with spring compressors.

 

Not sure where you got that info, but SuspensionLifts sells moog 81104's which are about as close to stock as you'll get. After it settled in I gained 1" compared to my OEM originals.

Well he did say stock . . . the 4600's are closer to stock. For the OP the difference is the 5100's are adjustable. Well that and the price LOL

If you're considering those might as well get the whole set.

Edit: you got me curious, based on info from the Moog page it says the correct coilover number is 81102, not 81104. It may have changed, did mine last summer. SuspensionLifts assembles them and are pretty responsive, you can email them.

 

It's more likely that you gained 1" over the sagged state of the springs, than 1" of lift from "factory height". IE, your oem springs had sagged 1" in 20 years.

 

I am in CA! I’m in the SoCal area, north OC.

 

I did recently replace all 4x shocks. Like in the last 10-15k miles…

 

I’m also not afraid of spring compressors… I have used them to change the shocks/struts in a handful of different vehicles. Frankly It is a bit confusing why people are so scared of using the spring compressors….. you just have to be careful and pay attention to what you are doing. Personally I think it is imperative to use an impact wrench even though the spring compressor instructions say not to. Because trying to tighten the screw with a ratchet will try and pull the compressor to the side and that is no good. Just little short burst on alternating sides with the impact until the top hat is free has worked just fine for me!

 

Have you seen people do things? People are bad at stuff. Especially random people on the internet. It's impossible to determine an individuals ability or general mechanical knowledge in a forum.

The "just rolled in" or "customer states" video series are great examples of people doing stuff badly.

 

Fair enough…. To be honest I probably qualified as one of those people 5-6 years ago…. But after a few bad experiences having repairs made to my vehicle and having both a place and a basic set of tool I took to the interwebs and pretty quickly found out that I can tackle pretty much any job. Only things I don’t do myself is tires and I don’t have the equipment to recover refrigerant for AC work, but I found a local shop who will recover the refrigerant for $50 and then they will recharge the system for $150 - the $50 paid for recovery. He used to put back what ever he took out for free and just charge for the missing amount but times have changed and I can’t say I blame him. I learned everything from awesome forums like this one, YouTube, and FSM if I can find one for cheap or DL it. I have also collected a considerable amount of tools because I am a firm believer in buying tools if it is not outrageously expensive and I think I may use it again. I’m sure I have saved a few thousand dollars just with my $140 harbor freight shop press and $100 worth of press accessories….

 

I’ve used 2nd gen Tacoma Sport springs on a first gen xtra cab (3.4 w/ 4x4) and got about a 2in lift over factory height. They were well used and had over 100k miles on them, but rode surprisingly well. A great option for the $20 spent.

 

interesting!! This is the type of info I was looking for! I have a double cab prerunner trd, it’s a RWD truck. I wonder what the weight difference is between an extended cab 4x4 and a double cab rwd…. I recently replaced my shot out leaf springs with a set of the Dayton/husky/general springs HD springs and even with my camper shell it did lift the rear of the truck a little bit. I’m honestly not sure how much lift it is compared to the factory ride but it was a good 2.5in over the sagging OEM springs…. It made a huge improvement in the ride of the truck. It looks a little stink bug now so an inch or so might be just fine as it would level the truck out I think.

 

If you are somewhere in the southern half of CA I would be stoked to take those off your hands. I don’t mind paying you something for them either!

 

This is extremely ill advised. Get the right parts for your truck. Cobbling suspension together makes you a danger to everyone on the road.

 

I fail to see how swapping out the coil springs with Toyota springs that are going to be very similar is going to cause any sort of hazardous conditions? It can’t be much different than all the folks running aftermarket lift springs…

 

Those aftermarket lift springs are actually spec'd for the correct weight of the truck. Even throwing the wrong weight springs on a Kings, say, 800# springs vs the normal 600-650#, is going to result in the suspension being VERY stiff, and cause traction and handling issues.

 

except the fact that many aftermarket parts are designed to fit a range of different vehicles…. For instance most of the aftermarket springs/shocks I have looked at just say 01-04 Tacoma…. But there is going to be a good bit of weight difference between a standard cab 2.7l RWD and say a double cab v6 4x4…. This would lead me to believe that the springs will work for a given range of weight applications, I am sure it’s not a huge weight range, but if I can find a set of springs off a comparable Tacoma as mine, or take it a step further and find out which model of later gen Tacoma is closest to mine in curb weight…. I don’t think it would be a problem. As long as the spring is not drastically taller…. I don’t want a bunch of lift, in fact I would be most pleased with <1”.

 

https://www.mevotech.com/part//SMS81078

Take a peak at these, I was in the same boat, after a lot of research it is what I went with. They are pretty popular in the 4 runner forums.

 

Cool! I will definitely check those out! The really frustrating part is that I can get the correct spring left side, the progressive rate spring for the off road package. It’s the RIght hand side spring that appears to be made out of unobtanium…