front spring questions
 

Hi my name is matt i was wondeting if any one ever took the front spring on a 1995 ford f350 4x4 and made them swing in the rear and not the front? Or if it can even be done? And if so any pointers? Thans

The reason the factory put the shackle at the front is so when the spring flexes, the differential moves farther away from the transfer case. At rest, the slip yolk is a little more than halfway in. As your truck flexes, it moves out. The farther the truck flexes, the farther apart the yolk slides.

If you put the shackles on the back, you would have to allow room for the slip yolk to compress quite a bit so you didn't jam the drive shaft into the transfer case and rip the bearings out of the t-case. This means your "at rest" position on the slip yolk would be most of the way out with very little splines engaged.

The earlier trucks have rear mounted shackles, but they also have a high mounted pinion, which makes the drive shaft shorter and the distance the slip yolk has to travel a lot less. Your '95 has a standard, low pinion differential in it. The drive shaft is longer and moves more.

There's a reason the factory does what it does. Why do you want to flop the springs around, anyway?

Well my pal does. I hav a 79. He wants to swing it in the rear because he says it looks cleaner. His truck is a 1995 f350 with a hp balljoint dana 60. And a 1356 t case and zf 5 speed. I didnt know if it could be remounted to swing in back or not. Or if it would be worth the time to do

This is just me talking, but I think he needs a better reason to mess with the factory engineering other than "it would look cleaner". That's a lot of work for no practical gain.

...All that being said, it's his truck. If he thinks he knows better than the engineering team at Ford, by all means, have at it. Yes, it can be done.