Lol! Talk about missing the obvious. <blush>
I'll do that next time I'm home. Thanks!

The u-joint at the transfer case should have no angle on it. That first section of driveshaft from the t-case to the carrier bearing is essentially an extended t-case output. The differential pinion should be pointed up at the CV (or ~2 degrees below it) so there should be basically zero angle on the diff u-joint as well.

The axle tubes are bigger than 3", slightly bigger than the mini trucks. Part of the problem is the weld bead. I don't remember the exact size. Just measure the distance between the ends of your current u-bolts. I would guess 3.25" would work fine for a u-bolt flip.

Ok, I get it. Thanks tons for the angle/drive shaft info! I probably would have totally screwed that up (though I would have endeavored to be as precise as possible when doing so :-) )

I'll check the u-bolts too. It's good to hear that my initial measurements correspond to a 3.25" axle housing.

It almost sounds like a u-bolt flip at the same time would be good. Kind of tear the whole thing apart only once
rather than multiple times, springs, u-bolt flip, etc.

Ok, so I measured the axle tube this evening and found the following (for future googler's sake):
Distance between U-bolt ends around axle: 3 3/8" with about 1/8" clearance
Diameter as measured using string and circumference: 3.24"
which I think translates to 82mm tube if it's all metric. Anyway, 3.25" spring perches would do it if they need to be replaced.
I'll take a look at the front of the perches to see if they are good enough to use. Maybe a picture later too.

Chip

picture looks more like a collapsed housing as there is no deformation of the perch sides. But hard to tell w/o being there.

I got the blocks off this weekend. It's not collapsed as thought, but ground off. The blocks are hollow and the edges of the blocks which were flat/rounded are kind of knife edged. The edges of the perches are sloped from the edges of the blocks grinding on them.

Pictures sometime...

Man, the evil of blocks is compounded by loose Ubolts. I ordered some spring perches and may look into replacing them when I have the welder come out and weld in the spring hangers.

Since the perches and the axle tube are ok, an easy fix might be to weld some 2.5" wide flat bar to the top of the perch so that the block sits on it w/o hanging over the edges. That would be a whole lot easier than cutting off the factory perches and welding on new ones.

Either that or find some different blocks that fit the perches better. Those might be a "one size fits all" block that really doesn't actually fit the Toy axle very well.

That's a really good idea. I'm sure you're right about the one size fits all.

I'm going with the chevy spring swap but the holes in the perches are kind of mangled too, so putting some flat bar with a good hole on top of the perches would probably tidy the whole mess right up.

Something like 3/8" should do it, right?

1/4" is probably enough. It won't be much wider than the stock perch and part of that little "overhang" will be filled with weld, so the edges shouldn't bend. 3/8" wouldn't hurt though if you want to err on the side of overkill. <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Mine were the same way. The shop I got them from took them off a Toyota, but I guess that doesn't mean they were for a Toyota either. I noticed a wobble/knocking in the rear end and found similar to what you did. The springs started wrapping up worse about the same time, so I was already headed for an Alcan pack. I caught the deformity before it was so bad that I had to monkey with the perches, though, and had the "luxury" of a beater with a heater to drive til the springs came in.