Welcome Visitor! Please take a few seconds and Rustbucket350
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Jun 17, 2016
- Messages
- 140
- Vehicle Year
- 1986
- Transmission
- Manual
I think I asked a few years ago why this wasn't a sticky. Well, I probably didn't post enough info. So here we go. You got the twin I beam and you want to lift it...
So you start with this
and you buy a 4WD lift kit which obviously won't work. Unless it does.
So, you do the rear. Easy. Now to the front.
You will have this. Yes. The pucker is real. But this is when you need your tape measure to measure the amount of drop from the I beam bracket to the eye.
]
Then you weld some stuff.
Now, it sits fine but oh the radius arms don't fit and the caster is way off. So you weld and carve more brackets out of 1/4" plate.
Might work
Need to put spacers out of 1/4 inch tube.
And you end up with needing to retain the coil springs. Solution is to make an internal hold down on a lathe out of aluminum and put a leftover Cadillac body spacer in.
Still have to brace the crossmember. More welding.
And THEN, you cant steer it. because the tie rods don't fit through the radius arms. So, you put the long one in your press and you cold bend it so it doesn't snap. After you have cut away as much from the radius arms that you are comfortable doing.
End up with this.
Took it for an alignment. It was 1/4 of a degree off on both camber and caster. Toe needed a hair. I drove it 80 miles before that at 70. They say some things are impossible.
So you start with this
and you buy a 4WD lift kit which obviously won't work. Unless it does.
So, you do the rear. Easy. Now to the front.
You will have this. Yes. The pucker is real. But this is when you need your tape measure to measure the amount of drop from the I beam bracket to the eye.
]
Then you weld some stuff.
Now, it sits fine but oh the radius arms don't fit and the caster is way off. So you weld and carve more brackets out of 1/4" plate.
Might work
Need to put spacers out of 1/4 inch tube.
And you end up with needing to retain the coil springs. Solution is to make an internal hold down on a lathe out of aluminum and put a leftover Cadillac body spacer in.
Still have to brace the crossmember. More welding.
And THEN, you cant steer it. because the tie rods don't fit through the radius arms. So, you put the long one in your press and you cold bend it so it doesn't snap. After you have cut away as much from the radius arms that you are comfortable doing.
End up with this.
Took it for an alignment. It was 1/4 of a degree off on both camber and caster. Toe needed a hair. I drove it 80 miles before that at 70. They say some things are impossible.
