My 79 F250 sets too low in the front end. it has a massive spring pack in the rear plus some lift block/bump stop between the springs and the axle which I have been told is factory and I have seen them on several other ford trucks. anyway all of this makes the truck hiked up in the rear. I just want to level the front out a bit. there is 4 inches of difference between the front a back tire to fender height. I stuffed a set of three inch blocks under the front which made the truck look great but it drove like crap very squirrely at anything over 35-40mph plus the axle alignment shifted because my steering wheel went crooked which I know could have cause the poor handling . I thought about taking the blocks out and putting some taller shackles on. Or what are some other options to get the front leveled up? I don't want much lift just 2-3 inches would be
enough.

I forgot to mention that the truck has a solid axle with leaf springs for front suspension

Thanks Lynn

 

Your wheel went crooked because the drag link was too short and the wheel had to turn to compensate. With a non adjustable drag link this will happen when you lift with any method. Your turning radius was also sacfrificed as well.
Blocks up front are never a good idea and you have seen some of the consequences of them.
You have the option of adding some add a leafs up front or changing the entire spring pack.
Simple either way, but you will require a steering correction to fix the steering after the lift.

 

Thanks 75F350, I'll call my local spring shop and see about adding some leafs. I figured the ball joints in the drag link would flex enough but I was wrong I guess it is a pretty steep angle. does someone make an aftermarket adjustable link or a would a drop pitman arm work. do you think the blocks themselves made the steering loose or just the drag link angle because of the height, just curious ? what about pinion angle?

I've heard blocks are a bad way to lift the steer axle what makes them worse than adding springs or other methods. do they lean or flex more I mean three inches of lift will still put the steering connections in a bind no matter how you do it. I'm not trying to come off as a smart @$$ I definitely know now that blocks are not good I 'm just curious

 

Its no problem, we cover this quite a bit, but another thread cant hurt right?
Blocks up front promote axle wrap for acceleration as well as braking. Since the steer axle will see caster changes during normal suspension cycles, the added force or leverage applied by the blocks makes matters worse. Hit a dip under braking, or just the natural crown of the road can make a lifted truck wander and can be difficult to control. Now we should also consider the side loads of the steer axle and all of the torque applied during a turn, and then add some blocks and we have a recipe for problems.
These side loads can cause the standard block to fall out, and once the steer axle is out of control you lose your truck.

Ok, next, your drag link. YOu noticed the poor angles of the rod ends and noticed the angles were steep, but stop for a moment and consider the physical difference in ditance between the stock steering arm and the pitman arm. Lift the truck with any method (even normal suspension cycles) and you will notice that the higher the truck goes, the relationship between the pitman arm and steering arm gets greater. Since the drag link is the same length, only one thing can happen. The steering wheel turns.
This happens during normal driving, and especially off road. We know this as "bumpsteer."
Small solutions are to decrease the angles of the drag link, but the problem itslef remains a constant, and will continue to occur. This is just a design problem with the stock design. This is why we no longer see this design and also why a great upgrade is some form of crossover.

Now your front springs:
Adding leafs will create a rough ride, and can limit axle travel, so off road performance may suffer. You may consider having a spring pack made. Your stock front leafs were designed to use only two leafs and adding some arch can shorten them to the point that the shackle angle becomes poor and again the ride will suffer.
These thick leafs may no take well to this re-build, or addition of leafs, so new packs might be the best bet.

 

Sorry to take this off topic, but what did your title say to get bleeped out? I can't figure it out.

What did it rhyme with?

 

yeah I don't know why it got censored unless I misspelled suspension and after looking at it now it would be easy to reverse the S & I while typing then the censor would block it.

Thanks again 75, I didn't realize it was that common of a mistake/question it was probably another thread or FAQ on that subject that I missed. but your explanation was very informative. I did notice a lot of bump steer so much that it was scary I figure the blocks plus the jacked up drag link made the truck loose as heck.

 

Im suprised 75f350 didn't mention superduty springs. They are almost bolt in and give 2" of lift.

 

Thats because 75F350 has not confirmed that an SD spring will provide any lift at all. There has been much speculation but many questions have come from this claim. One is which spring will provide this? STock spring? Which code as there were many. Leveling kit leaf packs provide greater than 2 inches so I am not sure where the lift number comes from.
I use SD springs as an alternative to larger lift numbers in the area of 6 inches or greater. Small lift numbers are an area that I have not really found myself dealing with.
I have offered to lift a stock truck with a "V" code spring (for free) but have had no takers.
I just cant make a suggestion without known the facts. I can only know the facts by performing the work myself. Thats the only way to maintain a reasonable response with some data to support the suggestion.
Perhaps this truck could be the guniea pig.
I have a gut feeling that a stock SD spring would not be the best choice for such a small amount of lift. I am not fond of the two leaf pack and dont really see much of an advantage for this application.
Perhaps I an wrong, and it would be nice to get someone to try this, but it is quite a bit of work. Might not even work at all, or maybe not provide a decent result.

 

Oh, I thought you had it dialed in alittle. If I had a good way to match the rear for lift and some down time on the truck, I might have taken you up on that offer. That and the 2000 miles kinda puts a damper on things.

 

Tough to find local trucks that have not been lifted yet. Those miles might just shed a little light on things.

As far as being dialed in, I can get pretty close to the exact ride heigth, as long as I stay with a particular manufacturer. I have found that some advertised heigths are slightly different from manufacturer to manufacturer. Unfortunately the variables with smaller lifts are greater so there is some uncertainty as to what would actually work well for desired lifts. Results may vary so the unknown is well,,,,,,,,,,unknown.....

 

Do you know what stock gas superdutys would net in a stock '78 f250? I don't know how many different codes there are.

 

I combined a stock SuperDuty main leaf with the rest of the leaf pack from my HighBoy. It worked fine, and rides way smoother with more axle droop than before. Now I need new longer brake lines. The spring arches are pretty close to the same. Seeing how it sets now and the load on the springs, I probably gained two inches max. I would like to change it some though. I would like to have a new long leaf made to go the entire length of the main leaf to help distribute the load of the 3rd leaf better, seems to apply a point load on the main leaf where it contacts the leaf. Maybe next month I can afford to do that. Of course all of this applies to the Highboy chassis, your results would differ.

 

Since the frames are almost identical up front this should apply to both frames, with one exception. This exception is the difference in stock leafs. The early truck has a decent amount of leafs and the later truck does not. I would imagine that the use of the SD main leaf would be a plus mainly due to the fact that it is one inch longer and this changes the poor factory shackle angle thus improving ride and suspension extension.

I do believe that you are right on trac with the longer support leafs Scott. You are right on track. Truck looks great by the way.......

 

The main is actually one inch longer on both ends, for two inches longer to the shackle from the front mount. I am in that set-up about $20 so far. Good thing I went to highschool with the guy's son that owns the spring shop here in Boise, ID. My buddy set me up with the bolts for free.

Thank you Ed, compliments from you are always appreciated.

 

so if I'm reading this correctly I could find a super duty in a junk yard and ****** the the main springs off of her and give it a try. I just want the truck to look more level I'm not really going for a ton of wheel clearance for larger tires, and I don't want to dump 300 bucks in the front suspension because that money could be better spent elsewhere on the truck and bad come to worse I would just have to live with the jacked up rear

Scott, did you have to mod your steering if so what?