CK5
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2004 Silverado Crew Cab Solid Axle Swap (LLY with ZF 6 speed)
- Thread starter r3dd0g
- Start date
The front radius arms are almost the same length as the driveshaft, so there really isn't much movement as the suspension cycles.
I think you are referring to the other tcase with the slip yoke at the case. The one he has I believe runs a normal yoke and driveshaft with a slip yoke in the shaft. Like mine.
Negative, mine has a slip yoke on the front and rear outputs of the t-case.
Gotcha! I think mine might be the normal way but I better look and see.
I may be confused though I work on too many Fords during the week
Now that I have the ABS issue figured out, I can work on other stuff, I still need to extend the wires though, but I'll get to that later.
I jacked up the truck and put the front on jackstands, pulled the tires and pulled the springs off the coilovers so I could cycle the suspension. Then, I pulled the track bar so I could make it a bit curvier. I think I added 10° to each of the bends.
Before:
After:
I also moved the axle back about 1/2" so the drag link ends would clear and put everything back together so I could put it at full stuff.
Everything clears now, so that's good, but I confirmed a suspicion I had while I had it sitting on the bump stops with the coils off. I'm only getting about 6" of travel out of my 8" coilovers...
Apparently WFO really designed this kit around the 10" coilovers and just puts bump stops to limit the travel of the 8" coilovers... I'm going to fab up some new tabs for the lower coilover mounts so I get my full 8" of travel tomorrow.
I jacked up the truck and put the front on jackstands, pulled the tires and pulled the springs off the coilovers so I could cycle the suspension. Then, I pulled the track bar so I could make it a bit curvier. I think I added 10° to each of the bends.
Before:
After:
I also moved the axle back about 1/2" so the drag link ends would clear and put everything back together so I could put it at full stuff.
Everything clears now, so that's good, but I confirmed a suspicion I had while I had it sitting on the bump stops with the coils off. I'm only getting about 6" of travel out of my 8" coilovers...
Apparently WFO really designed this kit around the 10" coilovers and just puts bump stops to limit the travel of the 8" coilovers... I'm going to fab up some new tabs for the lower coilover mounts so I get my full 8" of travel tomorrow.
I forgot to mention about the heim issue on the track bar. Apparently when they shipped me the parts for the 6" lift kit track bar, they gave me the wrong misalignment spacers. The ones I got were for a 3/4" bolt, but the frame side track bar mount was a 11/16" hole and bolt. This gave me some play which caused my steering wheel to move around a bit while I was driving... I drilled that out to 3/4" and put a bigger bolt in so that's all good now.
Wow, sorry but 2 inches of travel loss is a pretty big oversight on their part..
guys spend a lot of money for an additional 2 inches of travel.. jeez
guys spend a lot of money for an additional 2 inches of travel.. jeez
I agree. Especially on an 8" travel shock, I'm losing about 25% of my travel. It's an easy fix too, they could just offer 2 different axle side mounts for the coilovers, or more difficult would be offering 2 different shock towers. You can even order the shocks with a 1" or 2" extended rod end...
At this point do you think the kit is worth it? Or would you have been better off building your own?
The majority of the issues I'm having are self inflicted. Had I done the swap myself it would have been a much longer process and my Silverado would have been parked in my driveway on jackstands for quite a bit longer. I also could have had some of the exact same issues.
The track bar and pitman arm interference issues are because I used the 6" lift trackbar/pitman arm combo instead of the 4" stuff that you're supposed to use with the 4" lift (stock Ford track bar, straight pitman arm).
The ABS issue was caused by crap parts. I wanted to use new hubs rather than used (100K+ miles) hubs, someone picked them up for me and didn't get what I would have gotten (Ford/Motorcraft) and they were crap parts. You would have run into the same problem if you installed those hubs onto a stock Ford. Unfortunately since I had them machined for the chevy pattern, I can't return them.
The only real issue is the coilover mounting for the 4" lift kit. I'm not sure why they did it this way and I will be providing them with feedback on that, including pictures of my fix.
I definitely would have done some things differently, but overall the quality of parts is very nice and the price is reasonable. If I was doing this on my own, I would have ordered some of the parts from WFO anyways (frame plates, track bar mounts, shock towers etc.) and I probably wouldn't be done yet, or possibly would just be taking it out for a shakedown run this weekend.
Things I would do different (off the top of my head):
- Retain the Chevy ABS sensors, no reason to go with ford, just extend the Chevy stuff and bolt it in.
- Beefier lower radius arms. I'm fairly certain I'll be bending these in the future. I have some aluminum rod to put in them, but it's a few thousandths too big to fit and I need to have it machined down. Hopefully I get that done before I dent/bend one of them.
- Higher clearance crossmember, it hangs pretty low and I already smashed one of the link mounts.
- Longer radius arms so I can push the axle further forward. I would also have to figure out how to make that work with the pitman arm, maybe a straight pitman arm and a lower mounting point on the axle for the track bar so they keep similar angles.
- Better shock placement, I actually would have just gotten the 10" coilovers and made them work with a low lift.
That's really it, most of that is minor and the vast majority of people that will do this swap wouldn't even notice.
The track bar and pitman arm interference issues are because I used the 6" lift trackbar/pitman arm combo instead of the 4" stuff that you're supposed to use with the 4" lift (stock Ford track bar, straight pitman arm).
The ABS issue was caused by crap parts. I wanted to use new hubs rather than used (100K+ miles) hubs, someone picked them up for me and didn't get what I would have gotten (Ford/Motorcraft) and they were crap parts. You would have run into the same problem if you installed those hubs onto a stock Ford. Unfortunately since I had them machined for the chevy pattern, I can't return them.
The only real issue is the coilover mounting for the 4" lift kit. I'm not sure why they did it this way and I will be providing them with feedback on that, including pictures of my fix.
I definitely would have done some things differently, but overall the quality of parts is very nice and the price is reasonable. If I was doing this on my own, I would have ordered some of the parts from WFO anyways (frame plates, track bar mounts, shock towers etc.) and I probably wouldn't be done yet, or possibly would just be taking it out for a shakedown run this weekend.
Things I would do different (off the top of my head):
- Retain the Chevy ABS sensors, no reason to go with ford, just extend the Chevy stuff and bolt it in.
- Beefier lower radius arms. I'm fairly certain I'll be bending these in the future. I have some aluminum rod to put in them, but it's a few thousandths too big to fit and I need to have it machined down. Hopefully I get that done before I dent/bend one of them.
- Higher clearance crossmember, it hangs pretty low and I already smashed one of the link mounts.
- Longer radius arms so I can push the axle further forward. I would also have to figure out how to make that work with the pitman arm, maybe a straight pitman arm and a lower mounting point on the axle for the track bar so they keep similar angles.
- Better shock placement, I actually would have just gotten the 10" coilovers and made them work with a low lift.
That's really it, most of that is minor and the vast majority of people that will do this swap wouldn't even notice.
I'm pretty satisfied with where the front axle sits now. I made new lower mounts that raise the shock mounting point 1.25". This allows the axle to hit the bumps on the frame for about 1/4" before it hits the bumps on the shocks. I also pushed the axle back forward about 3/16" once I knew exactly where the axle was going to stop.
I cleaned up the oil pan and got a good look at the damage. It is just a tiny 1/2" long crack that is just barely seeping oil. I have a trip planned for next weekend (3-day trip) and I'm worried that if I pull the pan I'll run into an issue that I can't resolve quickly. For now I just cleaned it real good and put some JB Weld over the crack. When I have more time I'll drop the pan and either weld it or replace it depending on what the damage looks like from the inside.
I cleaned up the oil pan and got a good look at the damage. It is just a tiny 1/2" long crack that is just barely seeping oil. I have a trip planned for next weekend (3-day trip) and I'm worried that if I pull the pan I'll run into an issue that I can't resolve quickly. For now I just cleaned it real good and put some JB Weld over the crack. When I have more time I'll drop the pan and either weld it or replace it depending on what the damage looks like from the inside.
I've read that you can get to them, it's just difficult. The job is much easier with the solid axle though.
Lookin good. Nice work on fine tuning your suspension to keep it nice and tightly packaged.
Thanks, it's nice to be able to tweak the suspension and get it just right.
Now that we got the suspension sorted out, we started working on other more minor things. I didn't like how low the stock receiver sat, so I rebuilt that.
Before:
After:
Then I ran a 2 gage power and a battery isolator for charging the trailer and we went out to the lake to bbq on the beach.
Now that we got the suspension sorted out, we started working on other more minor things. I didn't like how low the stock receiver sat, so I rebuilt that.
Before:
After:
Then I ran a 2 gage power and a battery isolator for charging the trailer and we went out to the lake to bbq on the beach.
Hitch looks much better, more tightness!
So correct me if I'm wrong, what was the reason behind making the shock mount taller? Was it limiting the amount of droop you were getting before? Uptravel would be the same with both mounts since it was hitting the bumpstop right?
Yes, it was limiting droop. By extending the lower mount I made it so the shock is hitting it's bump stop just after the axle hits the bump stop. The new mount is 1.25" taller which I get back in an extra 1.25" of droop allowing me to use the full travel of my coilovers.
