The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area General Truck Talk Important Question...

Well we finished the front conversion last night minus the booster and all that stuff. When we dropped the truck back down we noticed that the cab looks twisted to the side.

The drivers side A-arm midpoint is lower to the ground than the pass side.

The bumper is level to the ground.

The drivers side of the body is about a 1/4" lower to the ground than the pass side.

The pass side wheel sticks out 1/2 to 3/4" past the fender more than the drivers side.

My husband thinks we should replace the cab mounts and try and realign the cab.

Has anyone had to deal with this before? Not sure there is an adjustment in the lower A-arm. Any suggestions??? I put a pic of the problem in my webshots. In the one with my husband under the truck its pretty clear.

Hy Lori's 66, I see by one of your pics. that one spring was mangled, which side was it on? Did your control arms look okay and the same as each other? You showed a picture before the swap and it looked fairly level, was it? Did it have some kind of spring spacer on that mangled spring? I know I'm going to sound like the voice of doom here but springs don't mangle like that without doing other damage as well, control arms, their mounts, and frame rails are all possibilities. You said that the tires do not sit in the same position side to side, I think it's time to do some measuring of the frame for damage. Sorry to be so negative, I just want you to check everything so you and yours will be safe going down the road, hope that helps.

Hi 3B, thanks for the response. Now that I think about it that mangled spring was on the passenger side. I will run all of your suggestions by Jeff when he gets home. He had to run to Sears because he broke a few tools last night! Love those Craftsman warrenties. Hoping that its not too bad of a situation, but you never know what people do to vehicles before you get them sometimes. You should have seen the wiring mess...lol. Lets just say it involved scotch tape!

Nice truck Lori! 1/4" difference between the A-arms sounds pretty close to me. I'll bet most new cars aren't much better. I think your husband has the right idea. I don't know how you would "mangle" a spring like that and not have some major damage to the truck. It looks to me like someone put some heat on it, maybe a cheap and dirty leveling solution. So, I would measure the frame rail to the ground on both sides - what does that look like? If that's good, it's definitely a body mount problem. Also, in photo #12, if you look carefully, the bumper is higher on the drivers side so it probably needs to be tweeked too. I'll bet those little guys are excited about momma's truck and daddy's hot rod!!

Hey Waldo thanks for the response. Nice truck you have there! As soon as the rear is done and we drop it down we are going to measure the frame and see whats up with the height. Jeff thought the same thing about the coils and the heat "solution".

Hy Lori and guys, my point this morning was if the truck sat level before the conversion how did they achieve that with two obviously different length springs? PLEASE check this out very carefully.

Well it turns out that the passenger side A-arm is bent. Looks like they bottomed out on something really hard and bent it. So I need to get a new one of those. There were a few guys on here parting out a few trucks so I am going to try that. When we looked back on the before pics it turns out we didnt notice that it was like this before. Its just alot more noticeable now that its lower to the ground. Jeff is going to go through it very thoroughly now and make sure everything is where it should be. Thanks for all of the advice guys. I knew I could get some good stuff here!

Hy Lori's 66, Hy I didn't think this was appropriate for your weekend updates posting, so I'm puting it here. I noticed that you said you were going to convert the rear axle to disc brakes, and that you were also going to change your master cylinder. You may realize this already , but just in case, the master cylinder for disc brakes is different from one for drum brakes, the disc master has no provision for residual pressure, required for drum brakes. So if your going to change the master make sure you get the appropriate master for the brakes your using, hope that helps.

3B ... thanks for the info... I will ask my husband about it in the morning.

Lori's 66, I have straightened lots of frames,
and pulled many unitized bodies when I was in the
bump shop business (25 yrs ago) but its perfectly
normal to quote frame specs. Plus or minus 1/4 inch.
That plus or minus adds up to a 1/2 inch, so if
Your measurements are close, I would say You are fine...Now, You can get alot of adjustment through
the core support, but it would be necessary to align
all Your front sheet metal...If the frame were bent
it would show up in the sheetmetal alighnments too..
If You are happy with the fender and hood fits,
I would fix the spring height problem...Bill B

3B... Jeff mentioned that the kit we got has a residual pressure valve? This is so hard learning all of this stuff...lol.

Bill B... once we get the new control arm we are thinking that will fix the tire problem. It seems with the measurements we took that the bend in it is straightening it out taking out the natural curve and pushing the tire away from the truck. As soon as that is fixed we will tackle the rest of it. Thanks for the advice!!

Hy Lori's 66, At the risk of being a pain in the butt, your truck originally had a single system master cylinder, and now your going to convert it to a dual master cylinder presumably with a booster, and eventually upgrade it to disc brakes all around, have I got that right? The reason I ask is that if you do only part of the job at a time, you have to use some different components. If you do the dual master/booster while you still have rear drum brakes, then you will have to add a pressure compensating valve to allow the rear brakes to operate with less pressure than the front brakes,[disc brakes require higher pressure than drum brakes to stop the wheels], otherwise your rear brakes will lock up on each stop. You could order a full disc master cylinder and put a residual pressure valve in the rear brake line, but you would still need the compensating valve. I'm not trying to be a pain, I just want you guys to be safe, hope that helps.