Best '91 Chevy Levelling Kit?

[prairie]

I've spent my whole life around light duty pickups (K10, K20, K30's) and medium duty trucks ( F550 4X4 and C60 & C70's) hauling loads, and could never understand leveling kits. They go against common sense if you really need a pickup or truck.
But I have a 1991 Chevy 2500 (light duty) that we have added leaves to the rear spring packs to bring it up to about 1 ton springs. Now it sits very raked, and I think a 1 1/2" to 2" leveling kit would be just about right to bring it back to near the original rake angle.
Any suggestions as to what leveling kit would be best, and the pro's and con's of leveling?
The pickup will be used for hauling heavy loads and trailers for short trips and general off road farm use, with and without loads. We don't intentionally go 4-wheeling to see what we can do, but do it often getting our daily jobs done. Most of what we do would be what I consider easy to moderate off roading.

Brad
Northeast Nebraska

 

[sweetk30]

all the same kits basicly.

it over cranks the t-bar's and makes it ride stiffer in the front.

and does wear front end parts faster.

search cranked torsion bars for more .

 

[prairie]

it over cranks the t-bar's and makes it ride stiffer in the front.
and does wear front end parts faster.

I thought the idea behind IFS leveling kits was to minimize or eliminate over cranking the torsion bars. Am I wrong?

 

[chevydan3]

I thought the idea behind IFS leveling kits was to minimize or eliminate over cranking the torsion bars. Am I wrong?

Most leveling kits just use a torsion bar key that is re-indexed to crank the torsion bars up. They actually make it easier to over crank because of how the bar is indexed in relationship to the adjusting bolts. The higher you go, the more downtravel you lose until you are cranked to the stops and have no downtravel. Uptravel will get harsher and the balljoints will need constant attention.

 

[chulisohombre]

The leveling kit is only a indexed tortion key like others had said. It's indexed so that it puts more pressure on the a arms to level the truck. You just need to not crank them as hard as if you were using just the stock key. So it will still have some give but be stiffer than stock to lift the front of the truck more.the only on their way is to get drop brackets and longer a arms from ranching or other companies. Some also make a raised knuckle and spindle to keep the steering stock and raise the truck. Depends on how much money you want to spend. For free you can crank the stock torsion keys and see how much it will lift and ride. Without the other drop components it will eat up your other steering and ball joints faster though.

 

[prairie]

Re-indexed torsion bar keys are what I had in mind. The manufacturers descriptions gave me the impression that they would at least minimize, if not eliminate over cranking of the torsion bars, while giving about 2" of lift.

The following is from the Tuff Country web site
http://www.tuffcountry.com/suspension/chevy-2007-k1500-silverado-leveling-kits.html

Chevy / GMC Torsion Bar Keys - 2" Leveling Kits
Tuff Country's torsion bar keys are designed as an easy solution to level trucks with factory torsion bars. These replacement torsion bars reindex the factory torsion bars which lifts the truck without cracking up the factory torsion bars. Applications include Silverado 2500HD/3500HD, Colorado / Canyon, Suburban 1500, Tahoe, Avalanche and 1988-1998 1500 Truck.

This is from the AutoAnything web site
http://www.autoanything.com/suspension-systems/superkeys

The SuperKeys leveling kit delivers up to 2” of front-end lift without increasing torsion bar preload or impacting factory handling.

Now I am confused.

Any other options?

 

[chevydan3]

They say they don't increase preload because the adjusting screws can be left alone. In reality, they are still twisting up the t-bars, just via a reindexed hole and not the screw. Same thing just 2 different methods. In all honesty, the bars are cranked a little on my truck in addition to the lift kit. The ride doesn't bother me, but I do go through a set of balljoints every 8-12 months which gets to be annoying.

 

[sweetk30]

should have just added a firestone ride rite air bag kit in the back for when you needed the extra load capacity and left it all alone up front.

 

[b454rat]

Back when I had my 97 HD I cranked the bars up. At first it was a lumber wagon, but after backing it down and some test drives, it road good and still was higher than it was before. Put almost 100k on it like that. I'd do that before I waste money on the keys...doing the same thing....

 

[6.2Blazer]

As said above the leveling keys do the same things as just cranking the stock keys with the only difference you don't have to screw the bolt in as much.

You can typically get away with a small amount of cranking without having serious issues. Getting about 1-1.5" of lift usually doesn't cause any major issues, it's when people crank them all the way for 2-3" of lift that you really start having ride and wear problems.

 

[Bowtie85]

Got my 97 cranked 2.5" from the stock 1.5" rake or so, rides like a lumberwagon. But than again it matches the overloads I got on the rear.

One thing I did was remove the front sway bar, the ride was still stiff, but noticeably better.