Superduty spring swap thread

[1971ford]

I took pics but they look stupid. I'll take new pics, in daylight, tomorrow and post them up.

I think i'm going to make another set of shackles tomorrow. My 3rd set?
If i can drop it .5" with 1" shorter shackles, take the load out of the bed taking away another .5", and spring settle .5" , then that would look much better. 1.5" lower.
I can always pull the bottom leaf too.

I would basically like to get it low enough to where i can use the front driveshaft and not have to have it lengthened but i would hate to flex and yank the driveshaft too..

[CrypticRacer13]

When you get this thing down pat im gonna have to steal your set up so i can set mine up this way.

[1971ford]

Yeah, lucky you

Sometimes it sucks being the guinea pig
Once i am done with all this I will post all the snags i ran into so anyone can do the same swap and avoid all the snags and no just what to do..

[CrypticRacer13]

haha ive been the pig many times on some other fourms for my hot rod stuffing my big block into my car you ever head down south to Hollister hills?

[1971ford]

Nope I do not. Actually, i have never driven the truck out of town really

So apparently from u-bolts for our trucks are pretty rare stuff. I called EVERYONE, no one has them, nor can they even get them.
3" wide, square, 91/6 bolt, around 9" long... Must be one heck of a rare combo right there.

Gave in finally and had a custom spring company in sacramento make me these rare gems. $70 later I have some ubolts... dad's bringing them home since the place is by his work. As long as they fit then i'll be happy just to have some damn u-bolts so i can finally turn the truck around and dump the scrap out of the bed.

And i have a buddy going up to the 4x4 shop in Placerville tomorrow so i am going to have him grab me some 1" add-a-leaf deals that the guy sells, for the rear.

THen i talked to the owner of the 4x4 shop thats connected to the welding shop (he rents from us, nice guy, helps me out a lot) and he said he has a set of 16.5" 8x6.5 rims that i can HAVE... Along with his remaining 37" military take off he doesn't need.

Looks like i'm ordering 37" military take-off's now.

[CrypticRacer13]

Thats odd that you cant find any u-bolts around your parts, my buddy just did a SAS swap in his 94 GMC an had a **** ton of them in different lenghts he had ordered. did you end up doing a u-bolt flip front and rear?

[1971ford]

Yeah i hadn't thought of flipping the u-bolts until after i got the new u-bolts made by the spring shop. Not sure whats involved. I assume it's just round u-bolts instead of square (way easier to get), flipped obviously, and a spring plate on top of the leaf packs. Not sure if the drivers side would work so easy with the diff being right there though. Anyways, nope didn't flip the ubolts.
Still rocking the rock-clearance-warning-sensors. They let out a bang noise to let me know when i've got a rock right under my axle tube.

Still not done yet so no mega how-to write up yet.

But to some things up this has been a HUGE PITA. Amount of hours i have into this swap and how not-fun it has been is ridiculous, but lucky for you guys it won't be so bad.

Shackle angle looks great, i thought it was going to be way off because the springs measure 52" eye to eye and the stock superduty springs were something like 57..



Still need to trim u-bolts.


Taking the scrap out the back helped the front end come down a tad. Looks better. I think it will look amazing with 37's. I don't care what the dana 44 thinks about this decision!

Drove around a little. Lets just say i can not wait to get my driveshaft lengthened because I REALLY want to test the flex. These springs are WAY softer than the other spring packs (stock highboy and stock superduty/highboy), they actually feel like springs and not solid steel bars frame to axle.

[CrypticRacer13]

Man that looks killer, looks like mine up front. Could you do a measurement front the fender lip down?

[1971ford]

yeah i'll go grab that measurement now. I'm curious too. Woods got a measurement of his fender lip down on his stock height highboy with 35's and his springs are apparently in pretty darn good shape. I'll compare my height to his and see how much lift these springs give

[1971ford]

Ground to fender lip on my truck is 43.5", tire looks like it could use a little bit of air, so lets say 44".

Woods' truck, stock, on 35's, (his springs must be in good shape, mine stock was around 38 I think) is 40.5".

This means that the superduty 4" lift springs along with the longer shackles gives roughly 3.5" lift. Sure looks like more thats for sure!

can't wait to get the rear up higher tomorrow

[papabug71]

Truck is going to look sick with 37's under it Ryan. Very nice work. You gonna stain & poly the sideboards on the flat bed?

Going to be sweeet

[averagef250]

$70 for 4 custom U-bolts is about double price of the spring shops up here. Looks good, looks exactly the same height as 4" skyjacker highboy springs to me.

[smokey3215]

looks awsome now i need to get off my butt and get mine done

[woods]

Boy, that sure looks more than 3.5 taller than mine. Seeing it, I thought I may have messed up measuring, so I went out to the shop and did it again, same thing. I guess it just looks like more.

Ya know, I would not be too scared about lengthening the driveshaft yourself. I have done that a lot on the front with no problems. Just take your time and do a really straight job, you won't notice it being a little off. You don't do a lot of long high speed traveling in 4wd do you?

[CrypticRacer13]

Stupid me i didnt do this when i had the 37's up front but thismorning i got this with 30's up front