My truck: '97 F350, regular cab, long bed with 4 wheel drive, PS diesel and 5 speed stick (4 speed with OD), GVWR 9,000 lbs.

I need the stock ride height measurements from someone that has a truck similar to mine. The measurement locations needed are: center of axle hub straight up to the lip of the fender on the front and rear axles. I'm trying to determine what the stock height is so I can determine how much lift my vehicle has.

Reason for this request is because the previous owner of my truck felt the need to "Frankenstein" the front and rear leaf spring packs. My front leaf spring packs contain 7 leaves each. My rear spring pack have 13 leaves each and also a single helper spring on each side (for a total of 14 leaves per side). The added spring leaves in the packs increased the harshness of the ride along with increasing the capable weight limit and ride height.

My right rear main leaf broke the other day about six inches from the forward hanger and I'm going to have to get another main spring to replace it. I'm considering replacing all the spring packs with a lift kit instead to compensate for the height I'll need to clear my tires and to hopefully improve ride comfort. I have 9.00 X 16" tires that are almost 36" tall. If it wasn't for the taller tires, I'd just get some stock springs and swap them out but I don't think I can clear the tires with stock height springs. I'll be looking for a lift that contains rear leaf packs instead of blocks or at least a set of stock rear springs that I can add a kit with blocks to. If I need more load capacity, I'll add the air bags to the rear after I get the spring situation straightened out.

Thanks for any input and suggestions y'all can provide. And HAPPY NEW YEAR!

 

with 36 inch tires a set of 6 inch lift springs will give you plenty of clearance.
this is 6 inch lift springs on my 88 with 36 inch tires and 500 lbs of steel plate in the bed..

 

A more accurate measurement is shock eye to shock eye. Take the body sag out of play

Stock is 18" for the front. I have nothing for the rear

 

Thanks tjc transport and Diesel Brad. I believe I can use both of y'alls info to get a close enough figure for where I'm at as it sits. I've built spring packs out of various individual leafs before for a farm trailer. This is the first time I've experienced the same type of "engineering" on an actual road-worthy vehicle.

The broken spring is shiny over only about half of the thickness of the spring. The other half is bad rusty. That tells me the spring has had a crack in it for a while before the remaining part snapped. I'm going to try to go back with stock springs on the rear if I can find some. A lift kit with new springs on the front and blocks on the rear will hopefully restore some decent ride quality and help straighten out my caster issue on the front. The way it's set up now the suspension has no "give" to it at all when going down the road (front or rear). It'll haul a load but my body can't take the ride. Wishing I'd bought 33" tires instead of the 36" now.