1979 Hunting Truck Shackle Flip
 

I have a 1979 F-150 Super Cab. It has Leaf Springs in the front. I have read several good articles about flipping the Rear Shackles to lift but nothing at all on the front springs. I'm curious if anyone has done any sort of lift for the front.
I have read that the lift is the same for the F-250 if I was to buy one. Also read that the Springs from a 99-03 Super Duty will work with little adjustment. Anyone know what the Little Adjustment is? Toying with all sorts of ideas about how to lift this truck. 80% of its time will be around town or on the Mountain. No towing just hauling us back in the timber for hunting and back out hopefully with Elk.

<a href="http://s275.beta.photobucket.com/user/Samorkand/library/" target="_blank"><img src="http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj306/Samorkand/2012-10-20_12-51-32_289.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"/></a>


I appreciate any and all ideas and help. Thanks.

you can buy the kit for that, or do the superduty springs, keep in mind, steering and brake lines will have to be addressed.

thats a F250 not a F150, and the superduty springs will fit but you have to drill the leaf spring perches out so you can use the Super Duty size bolts. Other then that its just bolt them up and your good.

and the rear all you need to do is drill the rivits out of the rear spring perch and use Grade 8 bolts and flip the mounts so the swing is facing down, this should give you roughly four inches of rear lift. After you might need to add a shim to the spring pack to get the rear drive shaft back into specs....

if it were me id just buy new rear lifted springs, the truck is over 30 years old and I'm sure are prob ally worn out, it looks like they have good arch left but I'm sure a little weight will squat her badly. My 77 F150 had real good arch to the back but when i loaded a small amount of wood etc she squatted so bad. i finally just bought a new set of stock replacement springs and she was good as new

The reason the shackle flip works in the rear is because in the stock configuration, Ford has the rear shackle in tension, not compression. (The truck "hangs" off the springs rather than sitting on top of them). I've heard all sorts of reasons why this is the way it is, but the prevailing reason seems to be "stability while under heavy load".

The front shackle is already a compression shackle, so if you flipped the front shackle, you'd actually be lowering the truck. Plus, if you flipped the front shackles, the springs would have to use magic to go through the frame. ;)

For the front springs, you can either buy lift springs for our trucks (which seems to be expensive!!) or you can run the 99-04(?) SuperDuty springs. They apparently have a larger shackle mounting bolt, so the stock shackles and front spring hanger will need to have the holes drilled out to the appropriate size, and the bolts replaced (Grade 8 or better, PLEASE!)

In addition, when using the superduty front springs I seem to recall reading that the shackle angle won't be that great and that the shackle will bind on the frame. Someone may need to correct me on this, as I don't remember what the solution was - it may be to find a superduty shackle, and then modify the frame, or it may be to modify/lengthen/replace the stock shackles.

Someone who's done the Superduty front spring swap should chime in!
-Brad

Oh my...
 

Wrong... :-X15. All F250's of this era had 8 lug wheels all around. I see 5 lug wheels in the picture. That is an F150 not an F250 (unless someone swapped in F150 running gear underneath it).

then how does it have front leaf springs? F150 used coil springs on their 4wd?

Not exactly, that won't net much lift, you need to use a front hanger from a donor truck to pull off the flip. Additionally, you would need to lower the front hanger so the axle doesnt scoot forward.

Another option is to cut a hole in the rear hanger so the shackle can be upside down. But this will need to be braced, and the front hanger will need to be dropped.



Here is a bad picture of what I'm talking about.

http://i793.photobucket.com/albums/y...s/IMG_0093.jpg

If you go this route be sure to clearence the shackle.

Not for the supercab & crew cabs 4x4's. Regular cabs have coil sprung front ends for 4x4's.

Thats just the way Ford set up the 150 Super Cabs. Why I have no idea.

I really appreciate all the response. I posted this last night at work and was really surprised when I woke this afternoon to so many reply's.

I am kinda leaning towards using the 99 SD springs. Mostly because I have a 99 SD that I am looking for a new front end and rear end geared lower than the 3.73's I have in mine right now. Figured id grab springs with them and use on my 79.

As far as the SD spring swap youll need to take a grinder with a flap wheel to the front bushings to make them fit in the stock hanger. Also the SD uses a metric bolt. At the front what ive done is use a 3/4" step bit and drill all the way through the inner bushing sleeve and also the hanger and use a 3/4" grade 8 bolt. As far as the shackles go you need to make or buy shackles that are an inch longer. You could use 3/8"x2" flat bar stock for that. Now stock SD springs will only give you 1" of lift. 4" lift springs will give you close to 6" lift. You might consdier going with a set of spring packs off a 73-77.5 F-250. They are a 6 leaf pack and will sit you up a bit. It all depends on your budget and the availability of used parts to you.