I got back on track with my sickness and finally got her going. We took a step back from the motor and got to the bobbing - which was the easy part.
In a nutshell, all you need is the right spring kit, a tape measure, and definitely, most definitely a mag drill. The one thing that you have to pay attention to is which axle has the ABS sensor on it!!! I sold the rear locker to a SS member a while back and of course, took it out of the rear axle. So, by default i put the front axle in the truck. Needless to say, i ended up pulling the sensor and drum off the rear axle and will be swapping it out. In the mean tie i pulled the 3A fuse under the dash and and it runs fine. I know there will be some of you reading this that will tell me that is a bad idea and I am going to crash and burn on the road. I know. It is not road worthy yet and i will have the sensor swapped out before i hit the road.
For those of you thinking of doing the spring swap, don't waste your time with using the rear spring kit like Suprman is selling. The longer smaller leaf pack rides soooooo smooth. I will be adding them to the front on one of the next phases of the job.
Setting up the rear suspension was extremely easy once all of the old stuff was out of the way. I did have some issues with clearance over the rear brakes, so I fabricated a 4" spring block out of 1/2" plate to get the clearance needed. Using a laser, i set the axle up using the front axle as the benchmark. That way, if the frame was tweaked or bent, at least the two axles were aligned with each other. Luckily, once I checked the axles, measured a few points from the back of the frame, rivets, and cross member and checked them on both sides. They turned out to be the same.
I bolted the springs, mounts, shackles, etc. on the axles and set the axle in place where i had made the marks. I used a mag-drill and drilled through the existing holes in the mounts and installed new 5/8" grade 8 bolts. On the rear mount, the holes were only 1/2", so i clamped them in place drilled them out to 5/8". Can't hurt to have too much bolt! I had some good pics of the whole deal but i accidentally deleted them. If anyone wants some pics of how it was done, i will do my best to re-create.
Once the suspension was complete, we got back on the motor. We installed a straight 5" exhaust and man does it sound good. It is surprisingly quiet inside the cab. I still have a few finishing touches, but it is pretty much complete. next comes the roll cage and seats. I'll be back....
