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Time to build a suspension... (looking for input on springs)

campfire said:
I'm not going to ream you, but I think coilovers are a bad idea for a few reasons. First is cost. I'm not putting thousands of dollars into this suspension at this time. If I could link my front axle for $700 (approximate cost of custom leaves) I would probably do it. But as it is links are a whole lot more expensive than custom leaf springs. Second is time. I'm impressed with your kit, but it's not something that I can install in 3 or 4 hours like I can redo the front leafs. Even the shackle flip is a fairly minor mod comparatively. I love links in theory, but this is neither the time nor the right truck for that conversion. Maybe when I have an actual shop with a FLOOR and crawling under the truck to weld brackets is funner. Right now this truck already needs a bunch of underbody work, I don't have much motivation to add a bunch more.

It comes down to driving style. This truck sees road miles, articulation is something that it has never had, and also something that it has never needed. Links are serious overkill for a roadtrip/expedition rig. IMO, at least. Thanks for the input, though. You made a good pitch, and I'll add it to the list of considered ideas. :thinking:
Click to expand...

So there a hidden costs you may not be taking into consideration, leafs that are custom will stress every other area just as much as 52s would, so driveline, brake lines, steering, you need good shocks, u bolts. Etc.. While I wont disagree on the cost front because you are correct, but leafs that are custom are not a bolt in and forget it affair, if you are just after a better performing truck and would like to expend the least amount of effort than those ideas have been expressed, tuff country or superlift or skyjacker all make a decent riding leaf spring that bolts in, should provide 7-9 inches of vertical travel. All sell steering solutions for push pull. Heck that's what's on Ethel, she rides dang nice, still like a truck but not bad considering.
I find the push pull with the lifted arm to be ok at best because when flexed out on the driver side I can't turn right very far. It's a pain and I drive around that but it still sucks.
 
Ethan,

My dads k5 has 33's and the tuff country ez ride 3" kit. With fox 2.0 shocks all around it rides very well even with no sway bar. We did the install in 4 hrs on a weekend. I think he spent 500 on shocks and 350 for the lift shipped from sd spring.

You can run the blocks in the rear till you get a flip.

image.jpeg
 
Campy,
My truck is a good example of a basic lift and tire combo. It has a 4" Tuff Country EZ ride lift springs front and rear, stock steering with only a raised steering arm, stock drive shafts front and rear, no sway bar, removed rear overloads, and Bilstein 5100 shocks. It rides pretty good with that combo although since my truck is very light it tends to rebound out of potholes pretty hard. Your Sub is a different story though.


My thoughts for you:
- Stick with the 10 bolt front. It's ludicrous for people to suggest that you need a D60. I have probably double the power of a stock 6.2, a very heavy right foot, a locker, and 35"s and my only 2 failures were due to bad u-joints.

- Stick with stock push pull steering. I've been running the stock push pull setup for years off road and have rarely run into any situations where I couldn't steer. It's not ideal and the geometry of cross over is superior but like you said the cost/benefit factor.

- Ditch the sway bar. For years I had been all about keeping it for fear of having to make quick lane changes on the highway to avoid something. Well I finally experimented and unbolted it from the spring plates and tied it up out of the way. What an improvement in my ride quality! The slight increase in body roll is easy to manage and I drove to and from Dunefest this year with even thinking about it. I know the wife is adamant about keeping it but here's an idea: Build the truck with sway bar, drive truck around for a few days and see how it feels, then just unbolt and tie the sway bar up, if it rides better and you think the body roll is manageable then ditch it, if not then actually spend the money and get the ORD disconnects. (PS. I see them used for sale on here all the time)

- Stick with a lower lift. Think 2-3". It will be easier to get in and out of the truck, get gear in and out, and not to mention BABY in and out. 2-3" is plenty to clear 33"s. Also shaft angles will be better and u-joints will last longer.

- SHOCKS. Bilstein 5100s are a minimum. They give you the best bang for buck. I've run them on several different trucks and they improved the ride considerably on all.
 
Chevy305 said:
Campy,
My truck is a good example of a basic lift and tire combo. It has a 4" Tuff Country EZ ride lift springs front and rear, stock steering with only a raised steering arm, stock drive shafts front and rear, no sway bar, removed rear overloads, and Bilstein 5100 shocks. It rides pretty good with that combo although since my truck is very light it tends to rebound out of potholes pretty hard. Your Sub is a different story though.


My thoughts for you:
- Stick with the 10 bolt front. It's ludicrous for people to suggest that you need a D60. I have probably double the power of a stock 6.2, a very heavy right foot, a locker, and 35"s and my only 2 failures were due to bad u-joints.

- Stick with stock push pull steering. I've been running the stock push pull setup for years off road and have rarely run into any situations where I couldn't steer. It's not ideal and the geometry of cross over is superior but like you said the cost/benefit factor.

- Ditch the sway bar. For years I had been all about keeping it for fear of having to make quick lane changes on the highway to avoid something. Well I finally experimented and unbolted it from the spring plates and tied it up out of the way. What an improvement in my ride quality! The slight increase in body roll is easy to manage and I drove to and from Dunefest this year with even thinking about it. I know the wife is adamant about keeping it but here's an idea: Build the truck with sway bar, drive truck around for a few days and see how it feels, then just unbolt and tie the sway bar up, if it rides better and you think the body roll is manageable then ditch it, if not then actually spend the money and get the ORD disconnects. (PS. I see them used for sale on here all the time)

- Stick with a lower lift. Think 2-3". It will be easier to get in and out of the truck, get gear in and out, and not to mention BABY in and out. 2-3" is plenty to clear 33"s. Also shaft angles will be better and u-joints will last longer.

- SHOCKS. Bilstein 5100s are a minimum. They give you the best bang for buck. I've run them on several different trucks and they improved the ride considerably on all.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the input. I already have TWO properly-geared 8-lug 10-bolts (one of which is already bolted to the truck!) and also a D44 lying around. And a couple of rear axles. I have no desire to add a D60 to the pile of unused axles.

I'm willing to run the truck without sway bar, but I'm not making any final decisions until I have some road time (like you suggested).

Total ride height needs to be kid-friendly and parent-friendly and also easy to load gear. On saggy 31s I can easily get stuff in and out. Crawling into the Iron Maiden with 6" on 39.5s is downright painful for me, and completely unworkable for a toddler. Luke's rig and Wade's rig are more manageable, but also on the tall side. If I jack the truck up I'm just gonna hafta add running boards. And what's the point in that? :doah: Your rig *looked* fine, but I never got in it, nor did I try loading up a baby in it. Again, I sure wish I had spent more time grabbing ideas from dunefest.

How much spline engagement do you have on your front driveshaft? I was thinking that 4" was about the limit for the stock shafts. :thinking:
 
Mines 5 inches up on the diesel and using the stock shaft.
There are two versions but all the 3r stuff I've seen is 4 inch slip.
 
sreidmx said:
So there a hidden costs you may not be taking into consideration, leafs that are custom will stress every other area just as much as 52s would, so driveline, brake lines, steering, you need good shocks, u bolts. Etc.. While I wont disagree on the cost front because you are correct, but leafs that are custom are not a bolt in and forget it affair, if you are just after a better performing truck and would like to expend the least amount of effort than those ideas have been expressed, tuff country or superlift or skyjacker all make a decent riding leaf spring that bolts in, should provide 7-9 inches of vertical travel. All sell steering solutions for push pull. Heck that's what's on Ethel, she rides dang nice, still like a truck but not bad considering.
I find the push pull with the lifted arm to be ok at best because when flexed out on the driver side I can't turn right very far. It's a pain and I drive around that but it still sucks.
Click to expand...

Brake lines are a function of height, regardless of spring type. Shocks are going to be purchased either way. Steering mods will depend on what I try to do with it (height of lift/crossover/hydro/etc.). Lots of choices there for how much I want to bite off. But I'm pretty sure that links will force me way further down the M.A.W. spectrum than I want to be.

As I said before, I love the theory behind link suspension. If I built one from scratch that is what I would do. But I have a bunch of parts already here that don't HAVE to be chucked out just for the sake of starting over. I'd rather mod what I have than to throw it all out.

At this point I'm pretty sure that I'm looking at a simple spring swap in the front with either a dropped pitman arm or no steering mods at all (depending on how tall it gets). I might try the new springs + a homebrew flip in the rear (or just buy ORD's 2.5" flip). Or it might be easier/cheaper to keep the tension shackles and simply get matching lift springs. But it's not going to be fancy either way.
 
I totally can appreciate the sentiment.. Trust me leafs are on Ethel.. They work well and it's hard to beat them for simplicity. I'll see if I can dig up more pics of the under body, I had this on the lift without the springs and with the springs so we can compare if that helps?
 
jekquistk5 said:
Ethan,

My dads k5 has 33's and the tuff country ez ride 3" kit. With fox 2.0 shocks all around it rides very well even with no sway bar. We did the install in 4 hrs on a weekend. I think he spent 500 on shocks and 350 for the lift shipped from sd spring.

You can run the blocks in the rear till you get a flip.

View attachment 215773
Click to expand...

I like this, and I remember that truck. :thinking:

I do need to research shocks, though. I couldn't tell you the difference between a Fox 2.0 and a 5100. At least, not yet. I do think that the Suburban on fresh Rancho shocks is a happier ride than the K10 on old (front) Monroe shocks. But there's a lot more than just shock choice going on there. :thinking:
 
sreidmx said:
View attachment 215778
You might be able to see how much slip is in this pic.
Click to expand...

Well, I know it's hard to get perspective from just a picture. I'd guess you have a 3" gap there between the two outer pieces? Maybe 2". I'm not really sure.

sreidmx said:
I totally can appreciate the sentiment.. Trust me leafs are on Ethel.. They work well and it's hard to beat them for simplicity. I'll see if I can dig up more pics of the under body, I had this on the lift without the springs and with the springs so we can compare if that helps?
Click to expand...

Cool. Pics are good, especially since I'll probably never make it out to California to look at it in person. :wink1:
 
I'll see what I can dig up. I know I have bone stock underbody. And the springs I have are superlift with the lowest spring removed mainly because I lost it but I am sure that attributes to the lower height.
I don't have a sway bar connected either and I drive like an idiot sometimes just to see if it has detectable body roll. It drives great, but it's not a burb either. Ord sells those disconnects which are worth their weight in gold. And shocks I have are f250 4 inch lift mx6 adjustable and I run them on the softest setting.
 
I agree that you don't need a sway bar with lift kit springs.
 
Good grief so much to say but for now just this.

Quit putting your truck in a class

Just quit it.

You lose out on great ideas that when you classify your truck you end up not doing cause that's for crawlers or that's for expo guys or that's for mud guys.

You want a good driving all around simple truck, that is more capable than stock.

More on my somewhat questionable opinions later tonight
 
blazinzuk said:
Good grief so much to say but for now just this.

Quit putting your truck in a class

Just quit it.

You lose out on great ideas that when you classify your truck you end up not doing cause that's for crawlers or that's for expo guys or that's for mud guys.

You want a good driving all around simple truck, that is more capable than stock.

More on my somewhat questionable opinions later tonight
Click to expand...

I'm curious to hear what you have to say. I'm not billing this truck as being in any particular class. My words yesterday were:

campfire said:
I don't want to build the standard CK5 truck, I want to build exactly a 1/2-ton that is slightly taller and much cushier offroad.
Click to expand...

Sounds pretty close to what you wrote. At least, it does to me. I was trying to highlight the cross-functional nature of the beast, it doesn't fit into any one standard category, nor is it going to. :dunno:
 
I will admit to being overwhelmed and bombarded with responses. In the last 24 hours this thread has picked up 97 responses. That's probably more technical traffic than I've had throughout my 3+ years on this forum all combined. :eek1:

At least, it feels that way. :dunno:

:popcorn:
 
Okay my opinion.

Links are best. On the road they are even better than off road.

But I realize that's a huge investment and really no desire to do links. I completely understand this.

The caveat is the simple fact that links work better everywhere.....wait properly designed links with correct spring rates.

Push pull steering vs crossover. Crossover is better. I have switched several rigs and that being the only mod the crossover felt better everywhere. 2 of those trucks had nearly brand new everything. The crossover still felt better.
Now push pull will work fine for now. But it's a fallacy that crossover is only for off road trucks. It improves the truck on road.

Oh the lift question. One thing it seems like no one ever mentions is up travel. Stock springs have very little. A 2" spring has more a 4" spring has more than a 2" spring. Now 6" springs that's a different story. Some do some don't. It depends on the brand. In addition shock travel must be matched to the spring. That involves custom shock mounts which in fact are very simple to do and very beneficial.

You said previously something about a larger lift being pointless if you have to build steps. See above. Compression rules.

So in all reality my opinion is a 4" lift build steps ( beefy rocksliderish steps) limit rebound if you need to maintain an inexpensive driveshaft.

Figure out the best shocks you can afford. Buy the one just above that level.

Timbren bumpstops to help the rapid deceleration that occurs when the linear travel of the semi elliptical spring is interrupted by the insufficient area of the compression stroke of the semi elliptical spring.

Eventually purchase a crossover steering kit. Do a Cherokee steering shaft.

New bushings all the way around .

Oh another weird thing I like though it adds cost is to retain the rear tension style shackle and use aftermarket springs there too.

Blocks would be fine for now though.

None of what I have suggested can be attached to any specific type of rig. It's just a plan to achieve a slightly better than stock ride. While allowing larger tires. All of which would greatly benefit your vehicle.

Buuutttttttttt.......

Link it
 
Especially buy one level better than the shock you want to afford. Never heard it phrased that way, but it's spot on
 
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