Interesting find!

[Moody]

After solving my front end dilemma (see front shackle question thread) I was looking for an economical way to increase the lift in the back of the truck and get good flex. My front now sits with about 6" inches of lift due to the 2nd gen springs and 1" longer shackles. This is about an inch or so more than I had anticipated, so the the rear with 56's, zero rate and ORD shackle flip is about 1 to 2 inches lower than the front. A 2" 56 inch spring would be ideal to put me level with the front but they are expensive! Skyjacker is the only I know that makes a 2" lifted 56 and it was more that I wanted to pay. A 4" 56 was more common but it would have given me more lift than I wanted and the "stinkbug" look as I will not be using a hardtop. So I started exploring other options. I looked at F#%d 57's, but that seemed to be a minor improvement over 56's and I heard the 57's were almost too flexible, even to the point of bending the main
leaf! 63's seemed overkill to me and more work than I wanted to do. So I happend to be looking a web site that sells F#%d replacement springs and found that 97-98 F-150's came with an 58 1/2 inch spring with a center pin placement of 26 1/2 and 32. 56's are 26/30 so I'm assuming it would be easy to center the axle with a zero rate. These also came in a 2.5 width, in either four or five leaf packs which I understand are more desireable than three pack (too flexible). So I'm thinking if I can find some of these springs cheap I can try them with my ORD flip and some extendend shackles in the back. It might be an exercise in futility if the springs are too flexible and just flattens my shackle angle. I'm hoping with the springs, a zero rate and longer shackles I just might be able to get around 6-7 inches of lift with good flexibilty? What do you guys think?

 

[bigblock72]

Should work just fine, I won't tell if you don't. You'll want to remove the overload to get the most flex. You'll likely need to move the axle back around an inch or so to get tire clearance

Be careful with longer springs especially if you have much power or weight. I ruined a set of 5 leaf and 7 leaf 56" springs from axlewrap and also letting them flex too far. I ended up with 9 leaf (fairly thin leaves, still rides good) and limiting my uptravel to around 5 inches. These leaves have held up good with little axle wrap. Make sure your axle isn't twisting much or you will bend the front half of your main leaf and limit your uptravel to reasonable levels. The number of leaves you'll need just depends on the thickness of the leaves and your weight and power level. It will be a matter of trial and error

 

[Moody]

Thanks for the heads up. I'm running a fairly healthy 406 so I'll definately need to keep an eye on the axle wrap. That's one of the reasons I have been avoiding blocks. I have to look at modifying my bump stops. I'm running 35's that really only measure 34.5 so I'm hoping I'll have good clearance.

 

[Moody]

Well my rear leaf springs showed up today from Walt and Vern's. Here's the scoop. They measure 58 1/2 inches eye to eye, 2.5 inches wide, 26 1/2" from the front to the pin and 32 to the rear. They are off a 2001 F-150 4X4. I got them for 60 bucks a piece and they shipped UPS one day to my work. I'm going to try and do a seperate thread on the installation. This weekend I'll try to clean them up and paint them and take a couple of pics comparing them to the 56" Chevy's that are on there now. I'm waiting for my 6 inch shackles from DIY and then we'll see how they look!