The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area General Truck Talk Easy Way To Lower Truck

I am days away from beginning my thrash on the bolt and getting it on the road. It is an unmolested truck which I began to wrench on a few years ago to get it road-worthy and putt around town with. On my bucket list of things to do is to drop the stance of the truck. A 3" drop in the front would be nice. 2 or 3" in the back also. I have read the various ways of accomplishing it but wanted opinions of the easiest way to do it. Question....How much can you lower the truck if you just remove some leafs from the springs both front and rear? How many should you remove to achieve the above mentioned drop? Also, if you use that strategy, do you have to modify the steering arm or the drag link and tie rods? I assume the ride of the truck will improve by removing leafs from the spring.

Issue #2 is that I want to make the truck more reliable and convert the truck to a 12 volt system. I want to use the existing Generator and have it rebuilt and converted to 12 volts. Will it be okay to do that and will it work? Also...can I use the existing headlights or do I need to change them out to 12 volt units?

Thanks for the help and advice.

Craig

Let the air outta da tires!

Low profile tires is the easiest way,

You have to change all the bulbs to 12 volt,
change the genny and regulator,get a voltage reducer for the heater fan, fuel guage, radio, the starter will run for a while on 12 volts, but there is a different ring gear between 6 and 12 volt starters...

me 2 cents....

An unmolested truck and you want to start butchering on it? Why not drive it as it was built for a while? You might find you like it that way.

from a completely modern road worthy lower is better improves stabability massively if done right you also eliminate much of the rut grabbing and bumpsteer with a lower profile remember "butchering it" to the purist was for a truck never ment for much beyond the farm

My first thought was also to let the air out of the tires...
I also recommend you drive it like it is.
A 1/2 ton trucks is pretty low to start with. I've driven my 1 ton at stock height for thousands and thousands of miles and never wished it was any shorter, it handled just fine, it would take corners faster than I personally was comfortable with, yet still kept all 4 wheels down and no skidding. If your truck is already lower than mine I can't imagine what you'd need to go even lower for, other than to make it even harder to crawl under it to work on stuff.
As for driving much beyond the farm.. I've had mine about 3,900 miles beyond the farm, still a stock (but newer) 235 and a 4 speed.

Grigg

A 6v truck can be as electrically reliable as a 12v truck. If you want to know how to make it reliable, I'll post links to previous posts.

If you want 12v in order to easily use 12v electricals, that is a different matter.

I know nothing about lowering a vehicle, but it seems to me that doing this by removing leaves from stock-style spring assembly is not a safe methodology.

What aspect of ride do you want to improve (by removing a leaf or two, or by other means)?

http://www.lmctruck.com/icatalog/ca/full.aspx?Page=34

My truck had been converted from 6v to 12v before I got it. It appears all they did was a resistor for the fuel gauge and change the regulator and most the bulbs. I changed the rest and added an ignition resistor and changed to a 12v coil.

Maybe not a huge deal, but a lot of work if you don't have a good reason for doing it.

While removing leafs will lower your truck some, by the time you remove enough to really make a difference it will have ruined the ride and handling. When you hit a bump in the road the axle will hit the bump stops causing quite a jar and you'll find an already top heavy truck swaying even more more going around corners with less resistance to leaning.

It seems everyone wants to lower their truck on the cheap. There are a couple of approaches that can accomplish that if you define cheap as around $1,000. You can buy monoleaf springs for all four corners or you can buy a dropped axle for the front and lowering blocks for the rear.

Any approach to lowering the front will change the relative location of the steering arms to the steering box. Unless you correct for the change you will have bump steer. Bump steer is at the very least annoying and can be dangerous, so you'll want to correct for it.

Any effort to lower one of these trucks should start with a careful inspection of any parts you intend to reuse and replacement of kingpins and bushings and any other wear parts that are less the perfect.

It would be hypocritical of me to join the leave it stock chorus, but I would say the better you understand what you're changing and why the more likely you are to manage changes you'll be pleased with when complete.

on my 59 i found the simplest way just to put a 79 subframe from a camero or firebird besides lowering it you get the benifit of disk brakes and power steering as well as the IFS for the earlyer models i have heard 67-69 camero is the way to go since its a full 2" narrower but i do agree with old sub those spring were put there for a reason you start randomly pulling them out your asking for troubles from bent frame to broken axles

Everyone is lowering their trucks these days, so I took the opposite route and raised my 3600 4 inches. I like the tall stance and I can still haul a load in it.

Go to the local gravel pit and have them load about a yard of sand in the bed- - - - - -instant lowering job!
Jerry

I have seen trucks that were left in the field for over 20 years. They naturally lowered. That is the cheapest way

When I first did up my 55,I took 3 leaves out of the rear springs.It lowered it very nice.Later on I bought a kit from TCI consisting of new springs ,mounts shock mounts and pads for flipping the rear end. Works much better that way.

I am keeping my 3600 stock height for now anyway.
I also have a very reliable 6 volt system with all original parts. just the harness is new.