Well I have just completed stage 1 of the swap.
I have had these springs sitting in my garage for over a month. Recently my rear passenger pack decided to crease for no apearent reason. The truck was riding on the pass bumpstop and I was worried about the pack breaking sending my axle flying!

Look at this crap.



So I got to work fabricating the hangers and shackles. Garrett came over several times to help get this whole thing together and I can't thank him enough!!!










Look at those springs.





Chevies are LONG!








I just realized that I have no pics of the finished product sitting flat.

Only flexed.

This loading dock really maxed out my stock junk.


Now I need something bigger.


That is more like it.


Urban wheeling at it's finest.





Jeeze!


As you can see I have stock springs up front and they aren't budging!


Once the front gets some tlc I will be flexin all over the place!





When I bought the truck the bumpstops in the rear where only one inch from touching. Now with the chevies on there the bump stops sit 6.75" away from the frame! I am willing to say that I got 5.5" of lift from the chevies over my saggy stock springs. WOW.

Future work includes:
-shocks
new crossmember
weld on tabs to axle
-ubolt flip
-uhmw polyethylene in between each leaf
-spring clamps
-shims (vibrations)

I am so happy with the springs so far. The flex blows my mind.
Not bad for a 50 dollor set of springs!

 

it's too big and flexes too well. go back to stock.

 

You know, I feel like this is the first REAL mod I have done. It is just the first I have ever done to the suspension. Can't wait to finish the rear and get started on the front!!!!

 

i have the chevy spring swap too though don't know enough about how they perform. i wish i knew how to weld and cut like that, beautiful work!

 

For cutting I used about 10 cut off wheels for my harbor frieght angle grinder. Everything was from plate.

If I had to do it again I would have used square tube for the hanger. Also I would have been more careful as to what kind of metal I was getting out of the scrap bin. See drilling metal for explanation.

 

how would you have used square tube for the hanger?

 

Like this.

 

10 Man points to who ever can specifically say what these little pacman things are.

 

What, no body has any man juice tonight? Fine I won't update untill someone gets it.

 

they are shock mounts for the u-bolt plates

 

another thing to note: wtf happened to the overload leafs from your stock pack? running without them is no doubt the reason for the failure.

using 3.5"^2 X .25" wall tubing for the hangers is definitely the way to go. also, if you need new busings for your chevy springs, napa has them.

 

10 MAN POINTS FOR PETER!

That is exactly what they are. Yep the overload has been out for a while and no doubt the cause of the bent pack.

I got new poly bushings from energy suspensions. The part # is in the pirate faq.

Pics after work.

 

Ok, update.


Let me just say something about UHMW-PE(Ultra High Molecular Weight - PolyEthylene)
It is used in my pack just like the little teflon pads in normal packs. The UHMW is 30 times slicker and I think its stronger too. I heard about it from an article(posted below) and decided to give it a try. It is pretty cool tech if you ask me.

READ THE ARTICLE ABOUT IT LINK

This stuff is about 40 bucks for a 50ft roll that I can do BOTH axles with.

Ok. Back to my truck.



Bam, everything is gone.






A king on his throne.



Got the springs painted, made some antiwrap leafs out of some yj leafs(far left) and replaced the bottom leaf with another from the chevy pack with clamps.



Shot of the clamp and how I beveled each end of the leafs so they would rub smoothly on the uhmw-pe.



Beveled.



These are the brackets for the shocks. The two pacman ones are for the ubolt flip plate and the triangles fit on my crossmember I made.


Welded, cleaned, just painted.


All 1/4" thick. Beef.


Made this with my left over slider material. The triangles are also 1/4" beef.


It sits directly above the axle, welds on top of the frame. My shocks will never break the mounts.



I am waiting on the paint to dry up more before I move on. Soon, I will weld on the crossmember and swap out the plates for the ones on the truck now. Pics when it's done.

 

Is that a pro mig 135 you're using for the welds?

 

just warning you, you will probably hate the shocks angled in that far. their effective dampening will be cut in half. taking a corner at speed and nailing a pothole or a rough spot will be some scary S H I T my friend.

 

Those welds are made with my lincoln 175pro. Quite a bad ass machine if you ask me.

I am actually impressed with how much these things stiffened up the ride. I have been going to work and back(little more than a block) with no shocks now for like 4 days. With the shocks in there I am not bouncing all over the road!

But it really seemed to make bumps a bit rougher than the cushy chevies alone. Also it seemed like it limited my flex just a schmidgen. Maybe not, I didn't measure.

Pics!



These are rancho 5012's by the way.





Need to play with the ebrake cable to get it farther away from the shock.


You can see the uhmw-pe sandwitched inbetween the leafs here.


Still have plenty of flex left in the shocks. Especially drooping.


Have at least an inch of shock left to stuff, which is probably like 2 inches of wheel travel.


The ride is really good. It handles alot like any truck would. Very predictable. I went down really bumpy roads, over train tracks, down the highway at 75+, and flexed it out. I am very pleased with the work/money put in vs the results. Just love em!

 

your shocks are upside down, ranchos are supposed to be mounted can down

 

Does it really matter? I just wanted less unsprung weight.

 

when i ran ranchos, they didnt dampen as effectively upside down, something with the valve and the way the oil and gas sits in there.

 

Hmmm. Well I didn't really make the brackets to fit can down. I think the can will hit the bottom bracket.

Oh well I guess now I have to get bilsteins. I think that is right, can up for those and can down for rancho.

Wish I would have remembered that before.:pat: