The Stovebolt Site Forums The Parking Lot Tons 'o Fun Rear suspension

Took the old truck out for a Sunday drive this evening. It is a stock 1953 GMC 250 pickup. Has no rear shocks or any sway bars, and skinny bias-ply tires 31" total diameter. It bobs and weaves on every bend and you have to steer the old truck every inch of the road - no surprise there. Friends tell me to make the wheel swap and get radials on it, which I might start saving up for. I'm also thinking about shocks and a heavy sway bar. Has anyone ever put shocks or sway bars on the rear? Good idea or bad thinking?

I have all three .... shocks , sway bar and radials .

Important improvement IMHOP.

Are your spring pins and bushings in good shape, nice and tight? Same goes for front suspension, King pins and tie rod ends.

Never had rear shocks or a sway bar and my truck drove just fine, even ran bias tires, did rebuild suspension though.

I have a '49 FC253 with dual rear wheels and 2" leaf springs. What did you guys do for the leafs? Mine are looking a little flat, with one broken piece in the middle. Doesn't look like there is much out there for the 2" wide 1 Ton stock springs. There are a couple places near by that do leaf re-arching/refurb.
For rear shocks I added tube shocks with a fabbed upper mount which was just angle iron welded to the frame. My axle has lugs on it which look to be for shocks (they certainly work well for them in my case). I have not driven it yet though, still finishing that up. I know it won't handle much better, but I'm hoping the seat belt won't have to work as hard to keep me on the seat when I hit bumps!
Thanks,
Greg

My springs themselves are ok. My steering drag link was totally shot and I'm building a new custom adjustable link now. I have no rear shocks at all and will have to get brackets to mount them.

Does anyone have recommendations on a spec and location for modern rear shocks? I ordered some generic weld-on brackets.

Question 1 - Where should we attach the top and bottom of the shocks?

Question 2 - What would be a good rear shock?

I have an original shop manual that said that the one ton did not have rear shocks but shocks could be put on, so I scraped the dust and grease off the rear end and found a collar on each side that could accommodate shocks. A parts house found that they could order the original type shock. I took a 2' channel and cut it about 12" long and lined it up with the holes in the frame and drilled two holes and bolted that to the frame and ran a piece of "U" channel stock across and bolted it in and drilled holes for the shocks to bolt to, using about a 15 degree angle.

Don't waste time and $ re-arching
springs. New ones aren't cheap, but you will only have to do it once. Detroit Eaton Spring comes to mind.

Ed.

I ended up getting new springs made. Super Spring in Hartford CT was able to make me a set of rear springs. I think their supplier had to make a set of leafs. It took about month and was $700 for the pair, which isn't bad since all I could find online was 3/4 ton springs (same size but fewer leaves) for about $200 each plus shipping. They use an American manufacturer and take pride in not using offshore junk, which I was very happy to hear.
Chad M -
The rear shocks I ended up using are GABRIEL 81270 Guardian Shock.
Here is a pic of my rear shock mount hack that doubles as an exhaust hanger:
https://goo.gl/photos/NKuVyLtFZJpD1xBc7