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REAR SUSPENSION (LAYOUT & MODS)

Although I plan to keep the look of this truck fairly plain (somewhat stock) on the exterior, I also want a really low truck. So updating the suspension was acceptable to me and seemed to be the easiest route to get to this endpoint. Traditionalist proceed with caution.

I keep a notebook of info on all my projects when I start them so I can refer to things later. When I first got the truck, I took a bunch of suspension dimensions to give me a starting point or baseline from which to work. I used this to figure out how much I needed to lower it to get the correct ride height and to take it to the ground and to see what needed to be modified to clear the new suspension travel. After studying it, I decided the ride height should be around 4 - 4.5” from the ground (at the lowest points). To do this, it was obvious that I would have to step notch the rear frame because a simple c-notch was not enough.

I ordered a suspension book from Amazon (I think) and set out educating myself on various systems. After reading up on it and looking at several options and pre-fab kits online....coilovers, triangulated 4 link, 4 link w/panhard, leaf springs.... I finally decided that a 4 link with a panhard bar and air bags would be the best fit for what I wanted. I then looked at several kits online but nothing seemed to fit what I was looking for or they would have to be highly modified to make them work. So fabbing (mostly) from scratch was the plan.

The first step in the process was to clear out the rear suspension area so I would have a blank canvas to start with. Once I had an idea in my head how it should look then I bought a large project panel (foam core posterboard) so I could layout the rear suspension at full scale. I took the poster board and slid it next to the existing frame and traced the outline on the board so I could locate and size the step notch. I then ordered a 6” step notch kit online (Ebay?) and four each 24”long U-weld 4 link rods so I could layout the basic components of the rear suspension.