Trying to determine lift on this 79, i need some advice. ;-) i scored a good deal on this, and previous owner don't know ****. And want to begin from ground up on restoration. It has 3"blocks in rear. Riding on 37x13.00 x15. But im having a hard time finding out how high front is lifted?
i was trying to order new shocks. But have to determine correct lift. I know it's usually a 2" difference from back to rear. But not totally sure. Any help would be awesome. Thanks

 

Oh, and there is no body lift on this..

 

welcome to FTE.
kinda hard to say by just looking at pictures. but if i was forced to guess, i would guess at 6 inches.

 

If what you are trying to do is just buy shocks for a certain amount of lift for your year truck, I would advise against it. If you leave it the way it sets I would make sure to have bump stops on the axles to prevent the tires from getting into the body. I would check the current shocks and find out what ends they have. In case the mounting points have been altered from stock. Then I would take my tape measure and do some measuring. First I would jack up the truck and remove the shock and tire. Then place a jack stand under the frame and let that one corner extend all the way down. Then measure the distance between the upper and lower shock mounts. Then put the tire back on and use a come a long or ratchet strap to compress the spring till the tire hits the bump stop. If the bump stops are too short then compress until the tire gets close to the body. Make sure you stop before you get to the body as the bump stop will compress a bit. The amount depends on the type of bump stop you are using. Then measure the distance between the mounting points again. Write these numbers down and do all four corners. The numbers will very a bite from right to left. After you have that info what you are looking for is a shock that is shorter than the shortest compressed length. A shock should never be used to control compression. If it does it will damage the shock. Again that is the bump stops job. The shock can control extension. Once you have determined the compressed length and the extended length and mounting end types you can start looking for the shocks for your truck. Most shock companies have a spec listing online that give the compressed and extended lengths along with the types of mounting ends. Most times the right and left will very slightly, but if they very a great deal you may need to consider a different shock for the right than the left or move the mounting point.


If it were my truck that's what I would do. But others may do it differently. Good luck and that's a great looking truck.

 

Ok, I think I got that post edited to say what I wanted. One more thing though. Since this is a new to you truck and you don't have a lot of info on it, you might want to disconnect one end of the drive shafts when you check for shock length. That way you can check to make sure the drive shaft length is acceptable. Again bad things happen if it's too long. And if it's too short as it can pull apart or have so few splines making contact as to fail.


You may luck out and find shocks listed for a certain lift that will work well.

 

i would never use a shock to limit axle travel, that is a very easy way to ruin the shock.
shocks should always be long enough to still have a bit of travel left on both extension and compression so they do not get ripped out of the mount at full extension, or bent at full compression.

 

Thanks guys. I'll look more into this using your advice when i get home from work later. Thanks again