There is an old trick where you take an extra pair of front shackle mounts and put them on the rear to get about 2" of drop without lowering blocks. You will still need some angle shims as the driveline angle gets changed.
(Caveat: I don't know exactly how much drop this is, it might be more than 2", that's just a ballpark guess. Should be easy to measure before you do it. I haven't done this myself, but I've seen it done.)
You can do this in two steps. First you can unrivet the "tall" rear shackle mount, drill new mounting holes and bolt in (with grade 8 bolts!) the slightly shorter mount from the front. The new mounting holes are very close to the old rivet holes, so you might want to weld up the old holes to prevent possible cracking. That could get an inch of drop, but will throw the axle angle way off.
Then if you look at the frontmost shackle mount, it's actually in the frame and not bolted to the bottom like the rearmost moujnt. You can unrivet the rearmost mount, drill mounting holes and cut a big hole in the side of the frame for the frontmost mount to fit in, then notch the frame to fit the shackle since the frame is wider in the rear.
Obviously it is going to weaken the frame a bit but unless you're hauling more than butt, no prob.
I *may* even have an extra set of shackle mounts sitting around, but it might take some time to find them. The garage is in the middle of a paint job, can't get into any of the cabinets. Yours free plus the cost of shipping!
Hope this helps...
-Boyo
