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73-87 Chevy _ GMC Trucks => Brakes, Frame, Steering & Suspension => The Highs (Raising/Lifts) => Topic started by: 84Silverado4x4 on March 28, 2015, 01:37:01 pm
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my 84 shortbox has a 6-8" full spring suspension lift in it currently and it rides extremely rough! I am wanting to keep enough lift to clear my 18x10 wheels and 35x12.50x18 tires. This is a light off roader but mostly a daily driver that I would like to ride much nicer! Any recommendations?
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High quality coil overs and maybe a polybushing overhaul all the way around
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What brand lift is currently on your truck? I run Skyjacker on all my trucks and they are the best. I have a all spring 4" on two and all spring 6" on one. Very happy with all of them.
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Skyjacker for the win.
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I'm not sure what the lift is for sure but the shocks say Rough Country Heckethorn on them. I only see a 6" lift listed for rough country and though I don't know what size lift it really is I had another 84 shortbox with a 6" superlift in it and this truck sits a couple inches taller. I was told by a local 4x4 shop that I won't get a rear spring with that much lift to ride good. They told me they just don't flex enough with a short wheelbase and the short spring and that I would be better off using stock springs with blocks. They said my other option would be Deaver springs but that they would be expensive!
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i agree with the shop about the whole block ideal but 8" blocks might be a little too much. you might want to think about 4"blocks and 4" springs or 2" blocks and 6" springs. but the more lift you have in the springs the rougher the ride.
rough country could of made the 8" lift years ago or the P.O. might have just got cheaper shocks from them
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For the rear if it is 8" you may consider a shackle flip and this will allow you to run a stock spring and a shorter block than what would be needed otherwise.
If you do a shackle flip in the rear avoid hauling heavy or towing big loads.
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With the 5.3 LS and 4l60e trans it probably won't be a big pulling machine but I wouldn't mind being able to pull an open car trailer with one of my hotrods on it now and then. My goal is to have only enough lift to clear my 35's with no issues and not trimming the fenders. I would like a decent ride and still be able to handle some lighter towing. I don't need it to ride like a cadillac but the ride I have now is rough!! I like a little lift and its fun to do some light off roading but it's mostly my daily driver and spends most of its time on black top.
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Once you go over 2" of spring lift the ride gets much worse and I don't care what brand of springs you put on it, it will still bounce like you're jumping on your bed. Those JC Whitney shocks probably aren't helping you either. 4" lift will clear 35"s without issue especially if you are not off-roading it. IFS would sure make a big difference in ride comfort but it's not a popular conversion since it's not a direct bolt in and most guys prefer the solid axle strength. Believe it or not the seat actually makes a big difference in ride comfort as well. The factory seats are like trampolines and will usually send your head into the roof over rough roads while some after market seats make you absorb every little movement of the truck. I would suggest a sodt ride 4" spring lift, good quality shocks and a nice comfy seat.
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I'm looking at 4-6 inches of lift. I think my rear sits just a bit taller than the front. Do you think my fronts are ok and it's mainly my rears giving me the bounce and roughness? What should I install for rear spring/blocks combo and what shocks should I use all around? I have front buckets and center jump seat out of an 08 Silverado installed in the truck right now and I really like the seats. The truck is set up with extended brake lines, front sway bar drop down brackets with quick release, steering arm for the lift, and a dual steering stabilizer.
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How are the rear springs setup? Factory shackles and hangers? All spring, no blocks?
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Yep factory shackles and hangers with no blocks all springs. My best guess is this is somewhere in a 6-8" lift but if it's supposed to be a 6" it's a tall 6. The top of my cab is just over 7 ft. with new 35's on it. It won't go in my 7' garage door but I had another 84 same truck but with a superlift all spring 6" lift with same size tires and that one made it in the door pretty easy.
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How many springs are in the pack?
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There are 5 springs in the front leafs and 6 springs in the rear spring pack. The bottom 6th spring on the rear is twice as thick as the other 5.
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I would go with a 4" arched spring pack in the rear with a 3" lift block. Personally, I'd rather be an inch taller in the rear than equal or lower. I don't think you really need the overload spring ("6th spring, twice as thick"). Just go with 5. You could have a spring shop build you a new main leaf, and re-arch your other leaves for around $400. I would arch the top 3 to match, but run the bottom 2 flatter by at least 1/2". It will create a two stage effect. 3 springs for the first 60% of the weight, and 5 springs for the last 40%. Something like that anyway. Maybe Four Wheeler has an article on the best shocks to use.
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Is there an amount of spring lift with a block combo that would be best for ride? Stock leaf 6 inch block? 2 inch leaf 4 inch block? or some other combo. 4 inch leaf 2 inch block?
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All things being equal (such as stiffness, metal density, etc, which they aren't) The flatter the spring, the smoother the ride. That being said, blocks over 4 inches are generally frowned upon due to structural integrity. A four inch shackle flip, with two inch blocks and stock arched springs in the back should give you the best ride (assuming good quality springs)
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Someone stated that if I planned to tow a shackle flip may not be a good idea. I don't plan to tow a lot or often but a may pull a open car trailer with a 3,500lb car once in a great while and maybe a small ATV trailer. Should I stay away from the shackle flip? Also where would be a good place to buy a quality spring in factory arch or maybe a 2-4" lift?
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the problem i see with a shackle flip is it moves the axle forward a good bit. idk if there is different brands or what but a buddy of mine did one on his truck and before i even knew how he lifted it, i noticed the rear axle was no longer centered and asked if it was a shackle flip he confirmed that it was.
heres a picture i found online a while ago
(http://i333.photobucket.com/albums/m387/rebel_cowboy_83/Mudding/DSC_01271024x681_zps0d3c8ff2.jpg)
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I haven't done any of this myself so it's all speculation, but from information I've gathered, skyjacker soft-rides are the gentlest, flatter springs are better, so if you wanted to do a 6" lift for a soft ride,get two sets of Skyjacker CR12S 2" lift rear springs, then do the 52" rear conversion to the front, and 4" blocks in the rear, that should put you at 5-6 inches, plenty to clear 35s (you can clear 35s on 4" lift but will get rubbing if you flexing the suspension much)
Irish is right on the shackle flip moving the rear axle forward, it does this because it only moves the rear of the leaf spring down while the front stays the same, thus offsetting or tilting the axle forward.
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When you say 35's, do you mean the size embossed on the side of the tire (advertised size) or the actual size as measured on a rim with no weight on it? My experience is that almost no tire is as big as the advertised size embossed on it. Tire company's round up substantially. And metric sizes are not even close. Do an eyeball measure front to back to see what the actual tire size is. A 35 will likely be about 33-34 inches in diameter. A 1" lift will cover that easy enough for just street driving, 2-4" if you go off-road. The 1" can be accomplished with a zero lift spacers in front and back with new stock sized springs (the name zero lift is a misnomer because although they do not add to the springs ability to hold up a load they do take up space between the springs and the axles creating lift like a block). And the 2-4" with new 2" front springs (and possible rears) or a 4" or 2" block with stock or 2" springs in back respectively.
Or just return the truck to stock and put a hated body lift under it. (hated because I hate body lifts...YMMV).
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yes my stated tire size is 35x12.50-18. But they measure closer to 33.5-34" in diameter. They are close to 3/4 tread and I run around 32psi in them to help save ride but they are load range E and I think they are supposed to have closer to 50psi in them or maybe 80?.
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On my 8" lifted V3500 I did the geometry for the shackleflip and found that at 8" of lift it moved the axle forward about 2"! That being said, they make offset add-a-leafs to move the axle back about 1". My final solution I think will be to have AlCan or ORD make me a custom set of springs and just move the axle center back so that it is centered!
Additionally...the shackleflip does something else too...it moves the pinion angle up about 8° so you will need shims also, or cut and re-weld the perches!
At stock ride height a shackleflip will move the axle forward about 1". At a 4" lift it will move the axle forward about 1.5" versus just a 4" block (the reason for this is that the pad actually faces backwards a few degrees, so if you just add a block it will actually move the axle backwards slightly). It will always rotate the pinion up ~8.4°
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I guess I'm not yet sure what I should do. I bought a four wheeler over the weekend and used the truck to pick it up. The ride was rough as usual on the way to get it but with the four wheeler in the back it rode like a dream :). I'm just wondering if I should do some spring/block combo in the rear to get to the 5-6" lift in the rear and maybe remove a leaf in the front?
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What and where should I get new rear springs for the rear and stock height or with some lift? How big of block?
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I'd remove a couple of te leafs from the bottom of the pack and give it a test drive
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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In order to brighten up this half dead thread I would say that the reason the axle is moved forward the amounts stated is due the fact that at full expected compression the axle will move rearwards that far. Only the rear of the springs move so the geometrics means that movement has to go somewhere. 8" lift at the halfway point means that in four inches of travel the axle needs to move 2 " rearwards. If you take the springs near to flat with that much lift you might consider having extra spring packs in the garage. No guarantees they will bend but they won't like it much if done too often. But it really depends on the type lift and number of leaves in it. I had my Trailmaster 6" lift springs bottomed so many times I couldn't count if I wanted to. But they had about ten leaves each and six inches isn't much lift anyway with that much leaf lift.
As for the load rating of a tire, that is a moot point unless you are hauling heavy loads. All that means is the tread doesn't get hot. The real issue is the air pressure. I have ten a ply rating (with three actual sidewall and four tread plies) and they say about 65 psi on the sidewall. I run them on my 3/4 ton Ram at about 30 psi and that is likely still overinflated for the truck. A quick math cipher says if the tire is capable of carrying say 3,400lbs, on ice multiply that by 4....3,400 X 4 =13,600lbs. Is that how much your truck weighs wet? Probably not. So one and quarter tires will carry the entire truck with extra capacity for your favorite cold beverages on ice. The only time a tire needs to be inflated to capacity is when the tire is carrying a maximum capacity load. My old Micky-T 39-15/15 Baja's I had were on a shorty GMC. Sidewall psi said something over 50 psi IIRC, I ran them from St. Louis to Colorada many times with 13 psi (all the time even off road actually, I hated airing back up). When I was young and had all the time in the world, I would take sidewalk chalk and go to a flat asphalt parking lot and put a good heavy stripe of chalk across the tread width. Then I would drive in figure eights slowly starting with the tire fully aired up. Of course Baja's were belted tires not radials. Anyway, this normally showed that the tire was overinflated at normal sidewall pressure. As I aired down I continued to do the figure eights driving slowly until the entire width of chalk was removed in one figure eight. That was the pressure I ran from then on out. I only did this on the rear tires though. I would just add about 2psi to the fronts because of engine weight and steering effectiveness. I've actually never tried this on a radial tire so YMMV. I just do a simple mental calculation and then guess these days. My truck weighs about 5,000 give or take, the tire rating is X divided by 4. The answer gives me the the approx. weight each tire is actually carrying. turn this into a percentage of the max inflation and that is the psi necessary for the truck equally, I give the rear slightly less and the front slightly more. But it can get more complicated than that because of the transfer case. If the truck bucks in 4-low on a hard surface (going in a straight line) the front and rear are not turning at the same speed. Then is when it needs fine tuning.
BTW- doing all this sounds like a pain in the ass, and it is. But the tradeoff is a more comfortable ride and decreased wear on the tires. If a tire wears more in the middle than along the edges, it's probably overinflated.
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And to add to Greybeards post I would like to say all these reasons are exactly why I am choosing NOT to do a shackle flip.
I would rather spend a few dollars more and get proper springs to ensure my driveline geometry doesn't get all wonky and if needed just get some heavy duty shackles and be done with it.
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I run fairly low tire pressure around 30-35 psi to help with ride and better tire wear. I am good with the overall height of the lift on the truck and I am going to try some skyjacker Hydro 7000 series shock to see how it rides with those. I think the front set-up is fine however if my ride doesn't improve much a may try a different rear spring or spring and block combo.
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I switched to the skyjacker shocks and although the truck still rides pretty rough I will say just changing the shocks to the skyjacker 7000 series from whatever the rough country shocks were made a big difference. It is much improved however I will probable need to change out at least the rear springs with something else to get it to where I like it.
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Do some research on the Tuff Country-EZ ride springs. I have 4" spring lift in rear and ORD custom springs in front for a gentler ride. I don't think the ride is as stiff as it was stock. I am running Tuff country shocks as well.
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for those with a lift kit please look at THIS (http://forum.73-87chevytrucks.com/smforum/index.php?topic=31301.msg262809#msg262809) want to put something together and need your help