Resently this summer i bought and installed a downey economony lift kit, it was supose to come with 2" lift springs and i opted to switch them out for thier 3" units. After the truck settled i was around 37.5 inches from the floor to the bottom center of hte rear wheel wheel well. The front was set to around 37". Now after drving around for a bit, my rear sits at 36" and the truck has 1" negative scoot to it. I would love to bring it up to like 38" to make it look like a lifter truck.

Two options i have considered
lift blocks (accually bough them from autozone for 15 bucks), 4 new u bolts a nd 2 2" alum blocks with a hole for the leaf springs tit to si in

Shackles.

Now lifted trucks arent my speciaty, im more in to car, so what would u guys suggest to get my truck to sit 2" higher in the rear?

thanks

 

A few options.

Lift blocks will work but tend to increase the tendency for axle wrap.
Longer shackles will give lift, so 2" you'll need 3"-4" longer than stock shackles:
- http://www.4crawler.com/4x4/ForSale/Shackles.shtml#FAQ4
Longer shackles will change the pinion angle if you have a u-joint (single-cardan) rear driveshaft, shims may be needed:
- http://www.4crawler.com/4x4/ForSale/Shackles.shtml#FAQ4

An add-a-leaf, especially a long thin leaf like the Ranch Soft-Ride AAL kit, will give lift and also help support the existing springs. Likely they have sagged because more wieght is being applied to them than they were really designed for. Downey springs are notorious for this.

Best option is AAL then make up the rest of the lift with a shackle.

 

I need to fix the sagging rear on my truck. I thought seriously about going with Downey springs. But, then I started to read about problems like this. I read about AALs and shackles. Assuming that Alcan springs are in the budget is there any reason why you'd want to go with AALs or shackles instead?

I realize that Chemist probably doesn't want to trash his new springs.

 

A new, custom built spring pack would be the best answer. For Alcan's, get the rear axle of the truck weighed and call them up with the lift and load requirements to get the best working springs built.

 

By "rear axle weighed" do you mean driving the rear axle onto a truck scale? I sure hope so!

 

Correct, you need to measure the weight on the rear axle in order to be able to tell the spring builder how much stiffness to build into the spring pack. Getting the whole vehicle weight will not tell you the front/rear split.

 

I've rebuilt a few downey packs from abuse and sagging... did you use the lowest two leafs from your original pack on the downey pack (overload and bottom leaf)? I was never informed of that with my several packs, and it sounds like it may help. I eventually just went chevy 63's, and getting ready to add some blocks on top of that.

 

i just used the helper spring or that bottom most leaf like the instructions said.