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Refreshing the rear suspension

Dannyboy

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Elite Explorer
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Joined
February 16, 2001
Messages
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City, State
43°48′48″N 91°13′59″W
Year, Model & Trim Level
91 4 do'
I've got the itch and a little free time to get the rig running even better.

If you don't know the history on my blue truck I bough it from LilMule on this site, I had no idea how impressive this rig was until months after it got here.

It's got a C5 tranny with C4 internals reversed valve bodies with an Art Carr shifter and temp gauge, 9" trusse locked rear, deavers, Autofab 18" long travel front end, 10 shocks, headers, aftermarket power steering system, prerunner bumper, chip, yada yada yada, basically a 4x4 prerunner that has proven it is bulletproof even when it has sat untouched for 5 years.

This truck can run the rocky trails and compete or open up to 60 mph on a pretty gnarly whoops section and best yet, I've gotten some serious air jumping this.

My original plans were to throw my solid axles from my 94 under this, but it's just too good as it sits. I got this truck for $2500, only to put a radiator and fan from my 94 on it (no cost), new battery, new fuel fill hose, 4 remote resivoir rancho 9000s on the rear and a stereo in, all parts I had lying around from my 94.

I was stranded in San Diego last week when my superduty was in at the dealer getting more warranty work done and I made my way to AutoFab to see what they were all about.

I left there feeling even better about what I purchased 16 months ago, John even said I got a smoking deal and the price of fabwork has only increased in the past ten years. I'm going to do a few stages of revamping this thing, here's stage one so I don't get too far ahead of myself.


1) Truck needs an alternator or something in the wiring (yay, still have a 130 amp alternator in storage from the white truck)

2) install KKM from white truck (maybe)

3) new rotors and pads on the 9" (found them for $190 for everything thanks to help from this site)

4) re-arch rear springs for about 2" of lift in the rear and rebuild passenger side pack due to destruction from Truckhaven last year

5) New u-joint on rear driveshaft

6) sand and paint springs, frame, rear axle, (any tips on getting it to look real pretty would help)

7) new brake lines for rear since my dumb ass grinded right through it

8) Line-lock on rear brakes for parking brake

9) rock lights

10) offroad lights

11) mount 4 33x12.50x15 BFG MTs I scored in San Diego last week on current wheels to replace 33x9.5s, 2 33x9.5s will still be mounted for spares.


Still not sure about what lights to run, I'd like to find a really trick fuse box to mount under the hood for front lights, CB, rear 12V plug, rock lights and future accessories.

Considering sanding and painting my old rear bumper black. It only weighs about 50 lbs and has a trick tire carrier, now I'm chaining my spare in the rear and it takes up a lot of space, plus I would gain a 2" receiver, not sure if it would take away from the prerunner style

I would also like to mount my rock sliders from the 94, I built these to be quick release on my old truck but never had to take them off, this truck is a different story as dropping 70-80lbs of sliders could help when going fast

Future plans include a cage, 4 racing seats, some type of trick rear cargo storage and stripping all of the interior trim/carpet/ maybe even a dash.


I guess I'm stuck like Paul B, why not just get it ready to run fast but still handle the rocks if I wish, also I think this truck might just find it's way into racing some local events after it is caged.

Any suggestions or tips on painting and cleaning up rust is appreciated as I'm never satisfied with my work in the past.

Also suggestions of how high/where to arch the rear springs for ideal height. You can see where the traction bar bolt has recently started rubbing the frame. This is probably from jumping the truck, especially full of tools, full size spare, cooler of beer and other substances that make me drive like a fool (just kidding, I'm sober in those pics).
 

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that is a sweet truck....
 






showoff! I wish I picked that truck up but you beat me to it

Autofab is the shiznittle
 






Now that's a rear end, it looks great, the brakes too.
 






showoff! I wish I picked that truck up but you beat me to it

Autofab is the shiznittle

Too bad you were spending all that time upgrading your truck with stuff that was stock on this thing. Stuff that WAS stock that has been replaced with even cooler ****
 






wow, I just spent the last 2 hours with the wire brush on the rear axle.

Also found this stuff called Rust Dissolver Gel at NAPA. This is amazing, it litterally was cutting down to the bare metal on most of the axle after I got through the surface rust.

I've tried lots of products and never seen anything work like this stuff. I'd be amazed at how this would work on a fairly clean truck frame.
 






making progress, it was actualy worse, that picture was a year and a half old.
 

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upgrading your truck with stuff that was stock on this thing

I wish :) Nothing on the BII is stock anymore! thats just too easy......looks great!
 






Very nice, that's hard work.
 






I have accomplished so much on this truck in the past 48 hours.

This afternoon I got my rock lights on and wired, front lights on, and am installing a killer 2nd fuse panel.

I was going to try to put something under the hood instead of a bunch of inline fuses, instead I used my experience from the boat industry and bought a marine 12 place fuse panel. No place for this under my hood so I decided to mount it.......under my passenger seat. When the seat slides forward you can access 12 fuses and relays.

I am going to run a 4 gauge wire to this and run my bumper lights, rock lights, CB, triple 12V outet strip. Hell, I've got so many open slots I can run each light on it's own fuse if I wanted to get technical.

This thing was $45 bucks and even has 12 grounding posts, it will be the best money ever spent compared to the wiring spaghetti I had in my old truck.
 

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I can't tell if I will be happy with this setup, but here is 4 lights, each is about 3 feet behind each wheel. I probably should have put them in the front firing back, but I was thinking I would blind the truck behind me.
 

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looking great so far, and an awesome truck you have there.
 






Good news is I decided to move over my bumper from my 94 that was just sitting behind my house.

That turned out great, I had to adapt it because my 94 had a 3" body lift. It sits closer to the body and about 2" in from where it was on the other truck.


The springs are massive...and beefy...about 80lbs each and currently the truck sits way high in the rear but that is coming down. I have not driven it yet, but I put a bunch of weight in the rear cargo area and it has settled since I first installed the springs.

Now the depressing part. The bushings were too wide on the springs and I tried to use my floor jack to wedge them into place. All at once my rolled the truck forward and it slid off the jack stands. MY poor remote resivoir shocks ALL got bent!!! Maybe one of them is still good, but it's not looking good. A good lesson, undo the other 2 bolts and get your $600 worth of shocks the hell out of the way.

You can see from my prior pics how I let my shocks sit while I did the rebuild.

Notice my fender gap on this in comparison to my avatar pic. Looks like I gained about 5 inches. I was shooting for 2 but it looks good and the roof is level.
 

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the secondary fuse box came out really nice as did the 3 acc switches I mounted on the shifter box.

I wired each front light seperate to the fuse panel (in the event I want to expand)
plus I wired the third switch back to the relays if I find another accessory I wish to add.

I will probably do a detailed write-up on the secondary fuse panel when I get the truck cleaned up and take some better photos.

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a little before & after here- you can see how bad the rear springs were here, and this was they day I brought it home, before any jumping/beating/breaking things I did.

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you have no idea how jealous i am
 






what's broken with the limited?
 












oh so the limited's completly gone? just when i was about to try to get some parts from it
 



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damn.....don't ever do that again......haha
 






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