Shit I completely turned that around we were talking about it bottoming out not about not having enough down travel
CK5
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89' Harsh rear ride off road
- Thread starter scoots90245
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As it sits center to center 21 1/2 inches. I think I will wait till we redo the spring perches then remeasure then try to get shocks accordingly
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I'm still reading through your thread, but I can say the whoops in Havasu bounce all my stuff around and my 77 is linked in the front and long travel out back. Are you sure you're not asking too much from the suspension to start with? I'll finish the thread, hopefully you've found a solution.
You’re absolutely right I want it to drive like a 2020 Tahoe on the streets and a trophy truck off road Haha dreaming
It definitely feels better to me when I switched the 360/80 valved shocks to the rear substantially. The reason I didn’t get the custom ORD springs right off the bat what I had a little more cash. I was worried that getting to and from trails on the freeway it would be too soft and less responsive. Does the overload spring come in to play other than adding 1000 pounds to the back? One of these days I’ll ask my buddy with his GoPro to maybe set it up underneath my truck and see what’s going on back there
It definitely feels better to me when I switched the 360/80 valved shocks to the rear substantially. The reason I didn’t get the custom ORD springs right off the bat what I had a little more cash. I was worried that getting to and from trails on the freeway it would be too soft and less responsive. Does the overload spring come in to play other than adding 1000 pounds to the back? One of these days I’ll ask my buddy with his GoPro to maybe set it up underneath my truck and see what’s going on back there
Can you upload a picture of your rig?
Are there pics of your truck on this site?
Back many years ago I fought with the front end of my K5 wanting to jump up on any bumps. It was stiff springs. They were the worst kind - Rough Country. I swapped to Tuff Country EZ-ride because they were supposed to be "the best", but there is no off-the-shelf lift spring for square Chevy that rides decent. The "EZ rides" were only about twice as bad as stock springs, where the Rough Country were about 4x as bad. Going from crappy shocks to Bilstein ("Bill Steen" makes me laugh 
). Please go ahead and search the dozens of threads here on this topic. It takes a really tight valved shock to make the ride stiff - you notice it more in the body roll, handling and rebound. A super stiff spring overwhelms a reasonable shock valving to give you the double-bounce. In the end, if you want good ride quality you will use stock springs, buy custom leaves or go to a link suspension. What I'm talking about is not being able to handle simple bumps in the road. If the main problem is in big whoops off-road, that could be a number of things. If it doesn't ride OK on the road, either something frozen/binding or the spring rate is too high.
To use stock springs in your situation, the solution is to go back to stock rear springs, with a shackle flip, which is available in a 2.5" lift version. Then your pinon angle is all wrong, or you go to a CV driveshaft.
). Please go ahead and search the dozens of threads here on this topic. It takes a really tight valved shock to make the ride stiff - you notice it more in the body roll, handling and rebound. A super stiff spring overwhelms a reasonable shock valving to give you the double-bounce. In the end, if you want good ride quality you will use stock springs, buy custom leaves or go to a link suspension. What I'm talking about is not being able to handle simple bumps in the road. If the main problem is in big whoops off-road, that could be a number of things. If it doesn't ride OK on the road, either something frozen/binding or the spring rate is too high.To use stock springs in your situation, the solution is to go back to stock rear springs, with a shackle flip, which is available in a 2.5" lift version. Then your pinon angle is all wrong, or you go to a CV driveshaft.
These are older
Now With the skyjacker soft rides and zero rate the front sits a bit higher than rear
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1: you're asking quite a bit from that spring system. Not that you can't make it as good as it can be buy anything that could be described as a "whoop" is going to be hard to handle with lift kit springs.
2: the overload spring is definitely coming into play in your suspension and making it really stiff which is exactly what it's designed to do. You can't pull it out as it is a large part of the spring capacity. Sometimes you can turn the overloads over to let the spring pack travel a little further before it starts engaging the overload. This is a case where the spring rate is just too progressive and there's not much you can do to change that without changing the springs.
3: As you've found, there's a lot of room in the shocks for harder offroad use. A good part of why the stiffer valving is helping is that when you get deeper in the rear travel, the spring rate is going up a lot and it's taking more rebound damping to control it. Getting into something that can be valved will help you change stuff to get it better but unless you or a good buddy can do the work, it's often hard to justify paying for a re-valve on a $200 shock. So, learning to take shocks apart or becoming friends with someone who does might be a good thing.
4: get a flat plate of some fashion welded on the axle tube for a strike pad for the bumpstops. When you actually use the stops and they hit on the axle tube, they tend to squirt off the front and back of the tube and it tears the stops off.
5: congratulations on using your suspension and finding it's limits.
6: The front shocks should work better when standing up more vertical, it's good that you felt it. It's not a huge difference but it's there. The best place for a shock on a solid axle is as straight up and down as possible and as close to the wheel as possible. That's not always convenient or necessary to make it good enough but when you start pushing, that's the direction to head.
All for now
2: the overload spring is definitely coming into play in your suspension and making it really stiff which is exactly what it's designed to do. You can't pull it out as it is a large part of the spring capacity. Sometimes you can turn the overloads over to let the spring pack travel a little further before it starts engaging the overload. This is a case where the spring rate is just too progressive and there's not much you can do to change that without changing the springs.
3: As you've found, there's a lot of room in the shocks for harder offroad use. A good part of why the stiffer valving is helping is that when you get deeper in the rear travel, the spring rate is going up a lot and it's taking more rebound damping to control it. Getting into something that can be valved will help you change stuff to get it better but unless you or a good buddy can do the work, it's often hard to justify paying for a re-valve on a $200 shock. So, learning to take shocks apart or becoming friends with someone who does might be a good thing.
4: get a flat plate of some fashion welded on the axle tube for a strike pad for the bumpstops. When you actually use the stops and they hit on the axle tube, they tend to squirt off the front and back of the tube and it tears the stops off.
5: congratulations on using your suspension and finding it's limits.
6: The front shocks should work better when standing up more vertical, it's good that you felt it. It's not a huge difference but it's there. The best place for a shock on a solid axle is as straight up and down as possible and as close to the wheel as possible. That's not always convenient or necessary to make it good enough but when you start pushing, that's the direction to head.
All for now
Wish he had a video series, describing and showing in action this stuff.Great info @Stephen I always learn something when you post
Great info. I am in the process of finding a fabricator/welder near by.
I would like to have a shock bracket on the lower fronts dedicated to the aux position.
Rears may need to be redone after axel tilt for Double cardan and pads as you suggested for bump stops rear.
Thanks for heads up on the rear overload spring I was about to remove it and place a zero rate in its place. It would be nice to have a
Progressive add a leaf/overload spring as opposed to the thick flat plate. The front feels pretty awesome with your
HD shackles, sway bar disconnect, HD Draglink, 2” drop pitman, steering brace and Bilstien 5125 360/80 in aux position. I don’t think there is anything else to do as far as a push pull set up
Thank you Stephen
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Does anyone sell a bracket to replace this I only use the factory longer travel aux position and would like support on both sides.
I have seen a ton of tabs but no specific replacement for this
I have seen a ton of tabs but no specific replacement for this
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