Holy cow, I had fun this weekend. Spent fiday night, all day saturday and from the morning to afternoon to install a new lift on my 75 K5. I got a great deal on a Rough Country 4" kit (before any start to rank on rough country, I did my homework and know thier springs are not as soft as others out there, the kit was complete with a steering arm and shocks for less than most others without shocks or an arm.) Spent Friday night tearing down the front end and dropping the carrier in the D44 to remove a pile of junk EZ Locker. I did break it on the one an only wheeling trip I made with it in there, thank goodness it did not wipe out the R&P. Saturday we buttoned up the front suspension and installed new wheel bearings since mine were in dire need of replacement.
By Saturday afternoon the front was done and we turned the truck around to work on the rear to install an Echobit shackle flip kit I got a couple of months ago. All was fine until the bolt that goes through the shackle and spring hanger was siezed up in the bushing and would not come out (on either side!). Since the bolts went in from the outside in, we did not have enough room to swing a BFH to beat it out. We ended up cutting the heads off the bolts and using the nuts on the opposite side to pull them out with the use of washers. Took at least 30 minutes per side cranking by hand since the Impact would not budge them. Got them out and called it quits for the night.
sunday morning sent me on a mission to pick up some new grade 8 bolts for the rear springs and shackles. The local farm store has awesome prices on grade 8 stuff, $2.50 a pound. 6 bolts, nuts and lockwashers ran me under 5 bucks. Finally got to work to remove the rear springs to take the home made stack of 4 zero rate type blocks (about 1/2" thick) on each side. The blocks looked like cut down overload springs but to our surprise the PO that put them in used a longer center bolt to hold them all together. We removed the 4 blocks and the last leaf next to the actual overloads. It leveled it right on the money. The echobit brackets required a little "help" to fit and line up but we managed.
Buttoned everything up and took it for a ride. I'm sold on flipped shackles. This truck rides so smooth. The front springs are stiff, but not obnoxious. Actually the fronts are way better than the stock springs we yanked out. The rear just soaks up the bumps where it used to crash and bang.
We didn't set any speed records on the installation (well maybe one, the steering arm took 10 minutes to remove and install the new one), but my buddies garage was the place to do it in. We didn't have a full lift but a huge air powered bumper lift made it easy to work without multiple floorjacks.
Here is a pic of the final product:
Here is a shot comparing the level of the front fenders to my buddies 78 K10. His is sitting on 4" of lift and 35 inch swampers compared to my 33"s.
By Saturday afternoon the front was done and we turned the truck around to work on the rear to install an Echobit shackle flip kit I got a couple of months ago. All was fine until the bolt that goes through the shackle and spring hanger was siezed up in the bushing and would not come out (on either side!). Since the bolts went in from the outside in, we did not have enough room to swing a BFH to beat it out. We ended up cutting the heads off the bolts and using the nuts on the opposite side to pull them out with the use of washers. Took at least 30 minutes per side cranking by hand since the Impact would not budge them. Got them out and called it quits for the night.
sunday morning sent me on a mission to pick up some new grade 8 bolts for the rear springs and shackles. The local farm store has awesome prices on grade 8 stuff, $2.50 a pound. 6 bolts, nuts and lockwashers ran me under 5 bucks. Finally got to work to remove the rear springs to take the home made stack of 4 zero rate type blocks (about 1/2" thick) on each side. The blocks looked like cut down overload springs but to our surprise the PO that put them in used a longer center bolt to hold them all together. We removed the 4 blocks and the last leaf next to the actual overloads. It leveled it right on the money. The echobit brackets required a little "help" to fit and line up but we managed.
Buttoned everything up and took it for a ride. I'm sold on flipped shackles. This truck rides so smooth. The front springs are stiff, but not obnoxious. Actually the fronts are way better than the stock springs we yanked out. The rear just soaks up the bumps where it used to crash and bang.
We didn't set any speed records on the installation (well maybe one, the steering arm took 10 minutes to remove and install the new one), but my buddies garage was the place to do it in. We didn't have a full lift but a huge air powered bumper lift made it easy to work without multiple floorjacks.
Here is a pic of the final product:
Here is a shot comparing the level of the front fenders to my buddies 78 K10. His is sitting on 4" of lift and 35 inch swampers compared to my 33"s.
