ahhh so no simple fix lol besides longer springs lol. i wish you could just run 52'' with stock steering setup but owell i guess lol.
There's no reason you
can't run 52"s with stock steering. The only issue with that combination is that the stock steering has atrocious roll steer, and the whole point of a flexy suspension is to increase that same roll condition.
You can totally put 52"s on a truck with stock steering and drive it around just fine...I don't personally feel the 52"s drive significantly different on the street, so I don't feel that the steering would be all that different either. But all the roll that you will gain from the 52"s will come with that much more roll steer when you're flexed out.
I don't feel that it would hinder the vehicle. You don't have to make use of the full suspension travel. I am very weary of wheeling the stock steering at all though based on my experience of pulling steering arm studs off (pretty serious rock crawling though, borderline buggy trails).
I'll put it this way. If I hadn't said f-it, I'm not fixing this again until I have crossover, I probably would have done my 52"s/64"s and one tons first, but left the sway-bar on and ran stock steering. Then I would have went to 40"s and needed hydro assist, which is when I would have done crossover. I would have left the sway-bar to limit the stress from roll steer on the stock steering, but I would have done the 52"s with the Dana 60 so that I didn't have to drop the axle more than once (god damn that thing's heavy). I wouldn't have had a problem running 52"s with stock steering, but I wouldn't have gained much in the front suspension because the stock steering is limiting it with the risk of a lot of serious breakage like knuckles, steering boxes, and it's not like the frame at the steering box is tough to begin with.
If you're planning on crossover and 52"s eventually, go ahead and put the springs in there now. Just be mindful that if you really let that driver's side droop, you'll be pulling downward on the pitman arm and upward on the steering arm. There's no reason you couldn't eliminate that worry with a cheap limiting strap though, but it might keep you from gaining much in the first place. I was breaking steering arm studs with basically a completely stock truck with the sway bar removed and a 3-4" lift spring with the same crappy shackle angle you get with any other 46" long spring. My draglink was actually a bit higher in the back due to the raised steering arm, so I had more forgiveness for droop than the stock design does. I blame removing the sway bar for my problems because that allowed just a couple inches more droop when the passenger side was stuffed.
