I have a 94' E350 chassis "shuttle bus" that started its life out as a transport vehicle for disabled people. I've since converted it to a motorhome but the leaf springs were shot so I changed them out recently.

The bus was originally a bit over 12,000 but with the wheel chair lift, all the seats, etc removed, and my new items installed, it is now just under 8,000 lbs. The leaf springs I installed were donor springs, but were in really good shape and rated for roughly 3k lbs each, which left me to believe that my rear axle should be able to support 8k lbs. Since the heft of the vehicle is clearly the 7.3 diesel engine, I should be well under weight for the rear.

The problem is that I lost just under 2" of lift when I swapped springs. The new springs are the same part # as the old springs, but 1 leaf less on one side and 2 less on the other (I'm assuming they had 2 extra on the passenger side b/c it was the side with the wheelchair lift).

So, if the springs are rated more than high enough for the vehicle weight, it seems the logical step to level the vehicle back out would be lift blocks. Otherwise, adding more leafs to raise it up will in theory make the ride quite a bit stiffer (it rides way better with the new leafs).

However, I see a lot of posts about not using lift blocks due to axle wrap and other unwanted side effects, so I'm concerned about that as well. Is my best option to use lift blocks and then add sway bars, or should I just add some leafs to the springs and deal with the harsher ride?