rear leaf question
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rear leaf question
I lowered my 68 f100 short bed 2 yrs ago by flipping the axle on top of the leaf springs and eliminating the the helper spring on both leafs (bad advise). Well, needless to say, after having the perches welded in place correctly I have noticed the rear is curling up under acceleration (the diff. was degreed in correctly before welding so this is not the issue) which is raising my driveshaft to a weird angle and vibrating the dickens out of the truck. I need to take care of this pronto! I either need to locate another helper spring for both sides or just figure something else out because brand new springs cost a fortune! Typically these trucks are universal from 67-72 but was wondering what years would I be able to use if I went looking for leafs?
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The reason this is happening is due to leverage (which you changed by doing the axle flip) cause the axle to twist when you accelerate, known as "axle wrap" IMO, the best/cheapest fix would be to buy/make you some kind of traction bar to prevent the axle from rotating during acceleration.
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long story short... tried a couple things in the past few weeks. first I bought some universal traction bars which didn't do the job because they didn't come near the eyelet of the spring and even if they did, they were about 3" off from the snubber. so, I had a suggestion and the was to check my pinion angle and compare it to the motor tilt angle. it was quite a bit off in comparison so I purchased some axle shims and was able to toy with the angle a bit. BINGO! now I understand that I will have a bit of axle wrap but with the axle at it's correct angle, when it does wrap (knowing the little bit that it does) there is enough angle to not affect it resulting in the vibration. don't forget that this is still the stock 360 and I hardly ever get into it being that it is the original block. but I do appreciate the advise.
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