Here’s my personal experience with DJM’s Dream Beams and Rear Shackle and Hangers. I recently saw the nice write-up about the AIM i-beam drop kit, I thought I’d do something similar for the DJM set which I purchased and installed on my ’66 F-100 2WD. Hope this helps anyone trying to decide between the two sets or wants a visual comparison of how they look.

<o>:p></o>:p>I decided to go with DJM because:

1. From feedback on the boards, it sounded like a better product.
2. Their company is close to my house.
3. Feedback about how AIM’s tech support is wanting.

The DJM factory is only about 30 minutes from my house, so I called them up and then went down to the factory/showroom. The sales manager Grant helped me and he and some of the other guys down there were very knowledgeable with the trucks and super helpful. I wound up picking up the Dream Beam kit (3” Front Drop, 5” Read drop) (Beams w/ bushings, new king pin set, tie rod extenders, and other hardware needed for the drop), the rear hanger and shackles, and front and rear shocks. Note: I was told for this year truck, no rear axle angle shim is required to adjust/correct drive-shaft angle, nor is any C-notching of the frame with this particular kit height. I also picked up separately a new set of rear spring bushing and radius/control arm bushings. <o>:p></o>:p>

<o>:p></o>:p>The install was pretty straightforward, I was able to do the install in about 3 days on the driveway (starting approx around 11am – working til 5pm), so maybe 20 hours. I work kinda slow too (drinks, bathroom, food, daydreaming) so if some of you work quickly you could probably cut down the time considerably. The biggest “problem” I ran into during the install was grinding and chiseling the 8 factory rivets holding the factory rear spring hangers on. Was very time-consuming.

<o>:p></o>:p>Regarding the tie rod extenders: I had read the feedback about how the AIM tie rod extenders were much better than the DJM ones, so I had ordered a set from AIM before I even picked up the DJM kit. After I got the DJM kit, I found the DJM extenders were simple and well designed, and although some have said they seem flimsy I actually found them well constructed and strong. Granted the AIM tie rod relocators are hefty visually and appear “stronger”. I installed the AIM set first since I had bought them, and I personally did not like the way they installed – the holes for the spindle pins and tie rod are not centered with each other on the AIM relocators so they can easily cause a huge toe-in-toe-out front alignment discrepancy. Plus if they ever shifted/rotated for some reason, it would throw off alignment again. I then installed the DJM set and personally liked them more since they centers the spindle pin with the tie rod in a “stock-fashion”, so even if it ever rotated, it would not change the front alignment. Gonna ebay the AIM set.

Pic of the AIM and DJM tie-rod relocators side by side. AIM left, DJM right.





<o>:p></o>:p>Effect on Front: The kit advertises a 3” drop in the front, but I found it more like a 2-2.5” inch drop. With the stock wheel and tire, there was about half an inch of space between the top of the tire and the top of the wheel well. It didn’t look very good with the stock tire size. I was wishfully imagining tucking the front wheel into the wheel well a bit, but this isn’t possible (while retaining proper front geometry) without doing a bag or IFS setup up front. After installing the kit, I think that AIM and DJM only do a 3” drop for safety reasons – any lower and the bottom of the front spring bolt and radius/control arm would ride below the bottom of the rims. In the event of a flat tire – big trouble. The kits leave a little room for safety. Some of you might bring up cutting some coils out of the front spring to get it lower, but that’s not for me and I’m sure I can get some backup here on not recommending it. I ended up going with shorter tires on the front. I just plan to run the truck as a lowered stocker.

<o>:p></o>:p>Rear - On my truck the kit dropped the rear of my truck to the point where the stock rim tops are flush with the top of the fender opening. It looks to be about 4-5 inches (the kit comes with couple of locations to relocate the rear spring on the hangers and shackles to adjust height – I selected the highest ones for max drop) in the rear. I will go out and measure again and post a little later the actual height drop.


Before Pic:




After Pics:


<o></o>

Pose-Off



Driving: After front alignment, the truck feels more stable on the road. Definitely the new shocks and bushings help along with the lowered center of gravity. I got her up to about 75mph on the freeway a couple times and she did handle better, although there was still some white-knuckle driving at that speed. I think power steering would help this a lot, but I don’t have any plans for that yet. Will probably add a power brake booster sooner than later.

<o></o>Also, with the new look, I went ahead and dropped about 30 bucks for a Cherry Bomb glasspack and some hangers and shackles. The truck looks and sounds like it should be fast, but with the original 168,000 mile fe, she’s all show and no go currently. Oh well, still a hoot to drive =).

<o></o>Sorry this was kinda long, but hope it helped some of you out there.

 

Nice, thank you!!!

--Mike

 

I personally would never do that to my truck, but that was well done sir! Good looking truck and nice lab too!

 

thanks guys! glad you like it

not sure why all those smiley signs ">"are showing up in my post, i didn't add them - appear by themselves and i can't edit them out - strange.

 

Thanks for posting this! This is the set up I want to go with on my truck. I was thinking of going with mono leafs in the rear, but their rear set up seems to work well and is a lot cheaper. Hope mine looks as good when its done.

 

Thanks for this report! I was ordering the same kit without the 5" rear lowering kit. Instaed I bought the 2" rear shackles. Also an Anti-sway bar 1" for the front suspension and a complete MP Power Brake Kit with vented rotors and power booster.
But my project is still in progress. I hope i have time in february to pull off the cabin from the frame and the engine + tranny too.

Here a picture of my parts:



Thanks for your "how to" post.

Greetings from germany

Carsten

 

Truck looks good. I put a set of dream beams on a ranger for a high school kid here. I was really impressed with the quality of the beams. I think they are better built than the factory pieces. I am not sure about DJM's marketing though. He had previously installed the 2" drop coil springs, and he called tech support before ordering the beams to make sure that he would be able to get the truck aligned. They said no problem with factory springs, but they didn't recomend running the drop beams and springs together...but then again, they sell them together in a kit....he couldn't get a good answer out of them as to an explanation on that deal. But he was able to get it aligned, so all is right....
Where those beams coated with like a grey and black hammered finish?

ROb

 

yeah the ones in the kit were the gray and black hammered ones. same finish as the rear shackles and hangers. shortened springs would definitely throw wheel camber off using the dropped beams - funny that they sell them as a kit. i agree that the kit is well engineered and straight forward as a bolt on kit.





wow a slick in germany! nice looking truck.

 

You could probably get away with cutting one coil out of your front spring to get a little more drop. I cut two out of mine when I was experimenting with the dropped look on my truck and the camber was out but not to bad, this was also with the 30 year old springs so they already sagged quite a bit. That is a nice truck though, makes me miss my 1963 unibody. I kick myself in the *** everyday for getting rid of that, but when your a kid you just don't know.

 

Are those arms welded all around the seams or just on the tabs there?

They look like they are slid into each other and then welded.

 

hi gustav129 - yeah they are welded around the seams as well as along the tabs.

here's an article i found on how the manuf.:

http://www.djmsuspension.com/Articles/DreamBeams.htm

i also saw an article online once about how they had an engineer checking out race cars and chassis and saw that some of them had tube over tube design, how strong it was, and that's how they got the idea to do tube over tube. looking for it but can't find it online now. maybe someone else has seen it.

 

Height of the front tires seems to be of concern with the dropped suspesion, anyone have knowlage of max. tire height. I'd like to run the same tire size front and back, 10" wide?

 

Great post, very detailed and informative...thanks! Anyone out there with experience with dropping a '73 w/ dream beams? Like 'em or not?

 

Great post!! This is exactly what I want to do to my truck and your report helped me make up my mind!!

What size tire do most agree is best, front & rear with this type of drop? Most likely I will go with the stock 15" steel wheel with poverty caps.

Thanks again for you write up! This site is full of great info!!

 

Echobunny, what size tires did you use?