i pulled the d44 out and put my superduty 6in superlift springs under my crew yesterday these are diesel springs with a set of shackles like 75F350 has on his trucks 5 7/8 center to center with my d60 the reason i got the diesel springs is because i will be swapping in a 12v cummins after the math of the smaller tires in pic1 to the larger tires in pic2 there was a net lift of 8 7/8 lift but when the cummins is installed they should pull down a little more, i hope. this is more lift than i was after.

 

thats looking real nice. Any pics of the spring plates? The u-boly flip is a nice touch.
Real nice job with the shackles.
Makes me want to build something again.

 

the plates are just 3/8 steel that have been broke up on the front and rear at about a 60 degree to keep the sides from pulling down
i was sceptical of cutting the wedge out of the housing to do the u bolt flip but after looking at your trucks i figured i would be alright. i dont plan on wheeling this thing unless i just had to get somewhere and back .

i need to get the histeer finished. any opinions on why to run a histeer or not, the way i look at it you can get 1 ton chebby tierods for 35 bucks instead of the spendy long one for the pass. side of these trucks.

 

Actually I believe that you are talking about crossover, and not high steer. I dont recommend high steer on stock knuckles.
High steer relocates the tie rod to the tops of both knuckles, and uses a drag link that connects the steering box to the pass side knuckle.
Crossover will use the stock tie rod, and only has a drag link connected to the top of the pass side knuckle.
When high steer is used on stock knuckles, they tend to break. Ford uses a rather weak knuckle.I also reccomend the use of the chebby TRE. They are cheap, strong and plentifull.
Example of a nice steering arm:




TRE options with part numbers:



Threading a tube:



Installed products: (steering arm is not the same as pictured above)
Above is a readily available unit from just about any off road shop.

 

i was talking about a true histeer set up with the tierod above the spring, its hard to see in the 6th pic you can see the steering arm on the knuckle i figured the stress would be transfered to the outer most hole in the steering arm which would be the one for the draglink this would be used with or with out a full histeer correct? since it has more of a leverage effect than the innermost hole for the histeer setup that would be used for the tierod. i am not going to be wheeling this truck it will see light offroad use.

 

Looks good. One question. How did you have the budd wheels on the 44? If its a factory setup id like to buy it if you want to sell.

 

the truck was set up with duals when i picked it up, i dont know if it is a factory set up but in the front it has an adapter that looks alot like the one on my 02 superduty dually, this adapter does not look like aftermarket ones that i have seen i will try to get some pics of it for you, i dont plan on using them, as far as the rear goes i have not pulled the wheels off so i dont know if it is a wider drw or if it has spacers.

 

ok cool get some pics. Id like to have those hubs for a project ive got goin on.

 

What do you mean by u bolt flip? What's the advantage to doing this?

 

Stock u-bolts have the threads facing down where they can get hung up and scrape along.



By flipping the u-bolt and making some spring plates for the top of the spring, the u-bolts can be a smooth transition and you can gain some much needed clearance.



Even on the diff side, you can eliminate the clumsy looking bottom plate:

 

how did you lift the back?

 

looks great. if you have a chance post a pic of the spring plate up close. i need to build one before i can finish installing the front springs. cant be to hard.