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Just picked up a 75 f100 with 302 c4
i want to lower it - bad knees and back but love the truck.
it has 31 x 10 tires - does anyone have details on rims with backspacing so i can buy 18 or 20" rims for it -
I did get 1.25" adapters to switch to the 5x4.5 lug pattern.
How low are you wanting to go? There are a few options out there that you can go with. I just need a little bit more information in order to help you out.
I would take care of the lowering before ordering rims as it may effect what will work. Personally, I like sticking with 16 rims on lowered Fords, to me 20s just don't fit right.
Edit: here's my 73 with drop beams, lowering shackles and brackets in back, no major surgery here. Wheels are 16x8.
I would take care of the lowering before ordering rims as it may effect what will work. Personally, I like sticking with 16 rims on lowered Fords, to me 20s just don't fit right.
Edit: here's my 73 with drop beams, lowering shackles and brackets in back, no major surgery here. Wheels are 16x8.
Nice truck, I like how low it is in the front. Did you only use the DJM beams in the front or did you swap out the coil springs too? Seems lower than most that have done just the I-Beams.
Just picked up a 75 f100 with 302 c4
i want to lower it - bad knees and back but love the truck.
it has 31 x 10 tires - does anyone have details on rims with backspacing so i can buy 18 or 20" rims for it -
I did get 1.25" adapters to switch to the 5x4.5 lug pattern.
Any help would be appreciated...
Thanks
As far as lowing goes, like I wrote earlier there are many different routes that you can take to accomplish what you are wanting. If you are wanting to stick with the stock style setup you can put on a set of 1990-1994 Ford Explorer 4x4 coil springs on it and will net roughly 2" of drop on the front. By doing this it will not change your factory camber too much and will not eat your tires. However, now the front is really going to be lower than the rear. So, now you'll probably want to level it out a bit. You can do this by adding a set of lowering shackles on the back. This can net you between 2-4" depending on which holes you use. Quit possibly will have to use a new set of Drop Hangers also (DJM carries all of this).
Now if you really want to get low and still keep the factory style setup, you can do what I am going to do which is as follows. I am installing a complete DJM Dream Beam setup on the front and adding a set of the Explorer springs as mentioned above. This will net me roughly 5" of drop on the front and keep the camber at 0* camber to roughly 1-2* of negative camber. Then for the rear I have a complete lowering shackle and hanger setup for the rear. This will net roughly 4" of drop in the rear. Now, I have a feeling that the truck is not going to be as level as I would like and will most likely do an axle flip on the rear. This will end up lowering the rear roughly 6" and have the truck level. The main issue with the rear is going to be that I will have to ensure that the pinion angles are good and that I will have to cut a C-notch in the rear section of the frame to allow for axle travel without bottoming out on the frame. One thing to consider with this is that I am not going to use this truck to tow anything with it (Have a 78 F150 4x4 for that).
The next and one of the most popular ways that people are lowering their trucks is installing a 2003-2010 Crown Victoria (Town Car also) front sub-frame. By doing this, you will have to cut out your front cross member and do some welding on the front. Also will get rid of your stock steering box and have the rack and pinion of the crown vic front end. You will also be adding coil-over suspension to the front end. This will add so much better drivability to your truck. But, once you go this route there almost no turning back once that cross member is cut out. The steering linkage from the column to the crown vic rack will be changed also. There are a couple places that make them already to go for this set up. You will be changing the way that your engine is set into the truck also. Will require a different engine stand, if using a V8 there is a guy that makes these mounts that directly bolt in with no issues. However, if using an inline 6 like I would be if I decide to go this route, then you will have to fabricate your own engine stands for this swap. Next is the rear end. If swapping in a crown vic cradle, your rear end is going to be a lot higher than the front (even if you do the shackles setup). If wanting it to be level, you will be required to do the axle flip as discussed above. Some people are even swapping out there leaf spring setup and installing an IRS setup from newer Mustangs and even Thunderbirds. This means a lot of fabrication and time that your truck will be down for the count. Also, by installing the crown vic subframe, you will be changing the front lug pattern to 5x4.5". You will also have to deal with the backspacing that you mentioned in your post. You can also swap in a 8.8 rear end out of a Ford Explorer and that will not only give you the matching 5x4.5" lug pattern. But this will also give you disk brakes on the rear now too.
Wheels: I am still trying to figure this all out. Backspacing and Off Set is one of the most confusing things that I have ever dealt with. Though there is a guy in one of the F100 pages on Facebook that used a set of 1.25" spacers taking his lug pattern from 5x5.5" to 5x4.5". He then installed a set of newer Mustang factory wheels. The big thing with the spacers is that you have to ensure that you put thread locker on the factory wheel studs to keep those things from coming loose.
So, as you can see there are lots of things that you need to take into consideration. Everything depends on what your budget is and how much time you have to do all of this. Plus, what your skill level is and what tools/resources you have to make all of this happen. Below are some links of the Explorer coil springs that I mentioned and also the link to DJM for their lowing kit (it isn't a cheap set up). Please let me know if you have any other questions. You can even send me a PM and I will continue this conversation there too.
Nice truck, I like how low it is in the front. Did you only use the DJM beams in the front or did you swap out the coil springs too? Seems lower than most that have done just the I-Beams.
I didn't swap coils, but I have a 390. There was a bit of a rake before I even started. That said, the front is slightly lower than it should be because I took out the (dunno what they are called) metal spacer/cups that the springs sit on when I was trying to diagnose a noise. I noticed on my 77 that not all trucks have them. So for now I left them off. Didn't seem to effect anything and the camber is still good.
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