Blazinaire
1/2 ton status
After years on hiatus I'm back! With a baby on the way I had better hurry up and finish this thing or it could be another 3 years!
I have been struggling to find room to run a trac bar (panhard bar) on the front of my 87 K5 that is still leaf sprung. The biggest clearance issue is at the axle end (passenger side) where the bar must pass over the u-bolt plate and u-bolts/nuts. If the axle mount was tall enough to clear them, the bar would contact the frame long before I am out of up travel. I was thinking that by running upside down (square) u-bolts that I could be as little as 9/16" or so above the springs as opposed to the 2 1/4" with standard u-bolts. That should buy me ~3" more uptravel as it cycles being that the pivot point is so close to the u-bolt.
The new square u-bolts would drop down through sleeves welded to the boxed section of my axle truss , so they would not require a lower spring plate and all the hardware would be above the bottom of the housing out of harms way.
My question is: is it necessary to run the top spring plate with this setup or can I get away with the center pin only being located on the perch
? If the top plate is necessary are there any downsides to having it wrap down the sides of the spring and engage the u-bolts vertically instead of horizontally? (u-bolts would have to be wider but they could still remain against the top of the spring pack without the added height of the plate.) I know it's kinda hard to visualize but think of a deep piece of channel open side down that is longer (front to back) on the sides than it is on top. That piece would be notched on the sides to locate the u-bolts and have the center pin hole drilled in the top.
I have been struggling to find room to run a trac bar (panhard bar) on the front of my 87 K5 that is still leaf sprung. The biggest clearance issue is at the axle end (passenger side) where the bar must pass over the u-bolt plate and u-bolts/nuts. If the axle mount was tall enough to clear them, the bar would contact the frame long before I am out of up travel. I was thinking that by running upside down (square) u-bolts that I could be as little as 9/16" or so above the springs as opposed to the 2 1/4" with standard u-bolts. That should buy me ~3" more uptravel as it cycles being that the pivot point is so close to the u-bolt.
The new square u-bolts would drop down through sleeves welded to the boxed section of my axle truss , so they would not require a lower spring plate and all the hardware would be above the bottom of the housing out of harms way.
My question is: is it necessary to run the top spring plate with this setup or can I get away with the center pin only being located on the perch
? If the top plate is necessary are there any downsides to having it wrap down the sides of the spring and engage the u-bolts vertically instead of horizontally? (u-bolts would have to be wider but they could still remain against the top of the spring pack without the added height of the plate.) I know it's kinda hard to visualize but think of a deep piece of channel open side down that is longer (front to back) on the sides than it is on top. That piece would be notched on the sides to locate the u-bolts and have the center pin hole drilled in the top.
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