So i will finally get to get that lift and SAS (the sas will be a few weeks down the road as we want to test the donor truck t omake sure everything is in good working order before tearing it apart) and a bunch of other details done to the "budget Bogger" (class is finally finished and i head back to the farm on thursday ).

Anywho first thing on the list is that the box will be removed for easy of work in the rear suspension and and frame. Then starting from the front i will box the frame from the front to at least the engine crossmember as the truck is of the swiss cheese frame era and it has yet to be bent (crossing fingers on this one) and i want to keep it that way so depending on the time i have avaible i will go the entire frame or at least to just a foot and a half past the bacj of the cab. Then i will lose the front gas tank and add a few 2x2 square steel crossmembers, as well the rear bumper will be scrapped will be junked, frame hacked back a bit and a 3x3 tube welded/bolted in place with reciever. Then the new hangers/extended shackles, shackle flip will be installed witha total lift of 8" with proper angles kept. Then the new shocks will be (pro comp es9000, 15" travel all through summit) mocked up to a closer to vertical angle with a new shock mounts relocated to above bed level, and losing minimal bed space, then the shock mounts on the axle will be moved to the upper half of the axle=less drag.

Then for the front a shackle reversal will be fabed up halfway between Ivan/pro's and cutt's versions, with a crossmembe between the front hangers with reciever, the shackle mounts will be sourced from a f450 and longer shackles will be made up and proper angle set. The old rear leafs will be used up front (the one tons leafs will be thrown in the rear) and through proper location of the new hangers/shackles and a redrilled centre pin in the leafs the wheel location in the wheel well will not change. Now before the dana 60 gets thrown in i will experiment with the TTB arms and extend them instead of using drop brackets, if all goes good the arms will be for sale complete with all the rotors/3rd member etc.

Then i will be covering the entire underside with a thin plastic (similar to what is used on snow sleds) front to rear in an effort to seal the truck from the mud, and also the snorkle will put installed and ran into the cab (i have everything to do this, just need to install and drill a 4-5" holl in the fire wall )

I've got a bit of work ahead of mee in the next month , but these will help make this truck one heck of a competitior, oh and if you see something through that rambling that won't work let me know, i'd like to know in advance before i start getting dirty and halfway finished with something that won't work.

 

Sweet! Looks like you got your work cut out for you.. That should be pretty sweet when your done mate!

 

I dont know if I would trust moving the center pin? I think the leafs will crack through the old hole. How far off is the pin going to be?

 

Also, spring steel is about as hard as most drill bits, so drilling new center pins holes in the leaf springs is not going to be a simple task...

 

I agree that I wouldn't trust a drilled spring. If you want to keep the axle centered in the wheel well (wussy . . . wuuuuuussssssyyyyyyy! ) all you need to do is drill a new centering hole on the spring perches toward the forward edge of them and then move your custom hanger back about 2" and you'll be there. One advantage to building custom stuff is you can build it to fit whatever you want. If I was building a truck that wasn't bling I'd chop the front of the fender and move that axle forward a bit if you're doing the rear spring swap.

 

haha you cut a fender....yea right

 

Well he is going to be putting on CUTout fender flares .

I'm well aware of the hazards of drilling through steel like what leafs are made of. But luckily for me we have some special hard as heck (mucho ex*****ve ) drill bits we've had to use for drilling cultivator shanks on the farm, and as well i'm going to try it first on a spare set of old leafs i have lying around, but ivan redrilling the center pin on the perch is a pretty good idea.

Thing is is that i want to keep the wheel base as is as it works great for what i use it for, but if necessary i will do it, oh and i've already hacked my fenders on the thing .

 

Your truck is bling??? I thought you gave up the bling idea when you decided against chroming all the body panels and adding a purple neon light for a front driveline. Make up your mind already!

 

My driveline is red neon you moron!



The bling is not over the top anymore but make no mistake . . . it's still there as is evidenced by my chrome roll bar.

Stange, I'm not concerned about drill bits, just the weakening of the springs. Would suck to have them snap down the center where the biggest stress lies.

 

i did some reading on pirate about it, and it looks like the best way to doit is take it to a spring shop and have the hole spunched out.jus tmake sure the hole is at least 3 inches from the original. thats how they are done in the first place. Its fairly cheap to do also, and much faster

this is from that guy on pirate that is obsessed with springs and works at a spring shop

 

Ivan's truck was real bling when he went over the ocean and came back with pink **** carpet, bucket seets, a diso ball. and a 1.6 litre quad four under the hood.

 

Well i got some very good news, well i got back to the farm the other day and today i went out and measured a set of leafs from a 2wd mid 70's 3/4 ton and the front spring eye to the centerpin is the same lenght as what my 81 is, so no redilling of the springs , oh yeah i also tore into the truck today by the removal of the front gas tank. I'll be starting a new thread on the progress i'll be making over the following week or so.