Lowering Truck

[Trailnut]

What are the best ways to lower my Truck (no air system)?

Thanks

'73 Chevy (soon to be a short bed, I hope)
350 ci
350 auto
all stock

[FlatBlack77]

C10, 20 or 30?

how low do you want it and how much money are you looking to spend?

[Gagecampbell82]

My truck has been lowered quite a bit, but it IS NOT done correctly and it rides terribly, someone heated the springs up front. To the point that the springs have collapsed. And may have cut them too, and in the rear they just pulled leaf springs.

 If your looking for a slight drop I would go with 2in drop spindles up front, and drop shackles in the back. I believe the shackles can be bought at autozone.

But if you want it lower, the above plus an axle flip kit in the rear and drop coils up front, (I believe you can get 2.5 & 3in drop spindles, although I've heard good and bad about them) you could cut a small amount off them just be sure to do it evenly, and it's easier to have to pull it out and cut than to buy new springs bc you cut to much.

 I believe capt. Caos has a thread somewhere about modifying your cross member to drop it up front and gain more ground clearance for your control arms. Like flatblack77 said, it all depends on your budget. Porterbuilt has what appears to be great products to drop our trucks available static or adjustable. But that's big $ for a stance. But I'm sure its well worth it.

[78BIG-TEN]

I used the Bell-Tech 3\4 drop on my 78.Instructions said minor clearance grindng on lower control arms at ball joint
area.Wrong,it took a lot of grinding to make room for stock ralleys thereby weakening the arms.I would suggest a
2 or 2 1\2 in spindle and a 1 inch spring.As for the rear,the 4 inch drop changed the front spring hangers and had longer
 shackles out back.The longer shackles required notching the across bed support rails which I didn't want to do,so I modified
the shackles which gave up a little bit of the drop.It also changed the pinion angle a lot so that will have to be corrected as well.
I hope this helps out.
David
 

[Trailnut]

C10, 20 or 30?

how low do you want it and how much money are you looking to spend?

C10 /  1/2 ton

Spend - I'm kinda cheap , $1000 ? 

[Trailnut]

Oh, and I don't want to screw up the nice ride it has now (of course making it a SWB might change that some?).

Thanks

[Gagecampbell82]

I haven't really looked into the prices a lot but I'd say $1,000 is a good budget. Just decide how low you want it, I know spindles are kinda pricey and I'm sure a flip kit isn't to cheap either, but just remember you'll need things like drop shocks (I believe)

and I'd highly suggest replacing all related rubber bushings/bumpstops with poly ones, i can't speak from experience but many people on here say they will help the ride tons, but considering that there more resistant to oils and such I could defenatly see how they would.

If your looking for just a slight drop like a 2/4 then maybe it wouldn't hurt your ride to much, but Many other members have much more experience with this and might chime in too.

[Trailnut]

Thanks for the info.

After talking to a buddy that's going to be helping me, I think I'm going with a 2/4 .  Sounds like that might be all I need - don't want to go too crazy