Build Thread - 1-ton Chevy Swap

[JohnnyU]

Fawker never called me. What'd the loaded height end up being on those? I'm thinking about the 4" springs, I know he bought the 6" and they were pretty long, something like 25" unloaded.

And as far as the truck, it looks like my truck sitting in the garage on rims, 3" lower than before.

 

[Bray D]

haha nice

I didn't measure the free length. We ended up using Levi's lift and lifted the frame up, pulled the old coils out, took the weight jackers as high as they'd go, and put the new coils in.

We did the rear first. With the weight jackers all the way up and new coils in the rear, the truck sits perfectly level.

Then we did the front, and with the weight jackers all the way up, the front was ~1" taller than the rear.

I know that doesn't tell you much for your application, especially not knowing the orginal location of the jackers, but that's what it did to his rig.

 

[JohnnyU]

Hmm, that tells me that the springs ended up sitting about 4" taller than the old ones were... His old ones were a bit stiff, but I might try them. I cut a few turns off the EB coils I had, and it seemed to stiffen up the coils that were bound, but the bottom half is still too stiff. Then again, the 4" Superflex coils might work.... I'll have to call Adam, whens the wedding overwith?

 

[Bray D]

I'll have to call Adam, whens the wedding overwith?

No idea

 

[JohnnyU]

I moved the shackle hangers 2" forward tonight. That made for a MUCH better shackle angle, and should soften up the rear end.

The place I normally buy steel is currently out of just about everything I was looking for (2"x2" square and Ø1.75") So I'm going to call around tomorrow to try to find those two and some 4" c-channel.

I missed a season opening bog this past Saturday, but there are some other events coming up at the end of March and in early April. I'm hoping to hit up a lot of the local wheeling this summer. It's been a couple years since I've been actively involved and I'm looking forward to it.

 

[Bray D]

Awesome. I'm glad your still pluggin away on the rig. This summer should be a good time. I look forward to some good wheelin myself.

Did you go to 14th street? I went in there the other day and they didn't have jack.

 

[JohnnyU]

Did you go to 14th street? I went in there the other day and they didn't have jack.

I called them since its way over there on the way to BFE for me.... lol

I'm going to call Lucas or DuMont I guess. I hate dealing with those places because they end up trying to charge you a cutting fee worth almost as much as whatever you buy. I'm not buying the 150' of cage tubing yet, so I'm sure I wont be getting any discounts.

 

[JohnnyU]

I abandoned the steel acquisition for a little while so I could get the critical things buttoned back up. I worked on it a bit today, need to pull the bumper and drill two more mounting holes, but then that's taken care of. Started cleaning out the toolbox, what a mess.

Hoping to roll it out of the garage one day this week. I'll need to trip the rear fenders (and likely the front as well) since I dropped the truck almost 5".

 

[bradz71]

Take a pic or two--I'm kinda curious to see how it looks now.

 

[JohnnyU]

I suppose you'd call this an "Illinois Lean"?

I'll roll it out later this week and fit the front tires so I can figure out how much I'll need to trim.

 

[bradz71]

When did you take off the DC-1's off your Dodge?

 

[JohnnyU]

Last winter. Two of them developed cracks and started leaking pretty badly so I put the stock steelies on. I contacted ProComp Alloys but no dice, they wouldn't cover them. I have three "good" wheels that just need to be polished. I was thinking about finding another one to match and find some 35's to run during the summer months, but haven't seen one for a decent price.

 

[bradz71]

That sucks.If nothing else you can hope that NTW has a scratch and dent or an overstock sale and you can get just one rim for cheap.

 

[JohnnyU]

I'd rather find a set of H2 take-offs I think. Know of any?

 

[bradz71]

Ebay. They are on there all the time. Usually coming from the west coast. Otherwise try dieselplace.com, its a Duramax discussion forum, they are always selling some on there.