suspension advice

[Mudboy]

On my first gen (91) I'm purchasing a set of 29x10.5 TSL SXs from a buddy. I plan on swapping the rear to a disk brake out of a newer one, while at it I'll be ssure it's a 4.10 and also regear the front. Also plan on locking both front and back. I believe this will get me to a pretty capable "stock" truck. However I'm curious what I can do to the stock suspension to get some nice travel. I'm sure I'll pull the sways front and back.

 

[Anime]

Removing the sway bars helps the most in terms of travel, but a stock ride is still pretty limited, especially in the front, due to the limited distance between the TTB arms and the bump stops, and the short radius arms.

Your best bet might be simply restoring the stock height, since the springs sag over time, and especially on a '91, might be half an inch lower or more than when it was new.

You can compensate for this inexpensively with washer spacers under the front spring mount (1 3/8" ID x 3" OD washers work great) and slightly longer shackles in the rear.

If you keep the lift mild enough, you will restore stock height or maybe even get a little more lift, and have all the up and down travel you can expect from a stock suspension.

The big improvement for the front would be longer radius arms. There isn't much to do in the rear, other than making sure the bushings are in good shape if/when you do the shackles.

One thing to keep in mind with a super flexy rig, even with stock suspension, is that the stock brake lines aren't always long enough. It's a good idea to check the slack when flexed and make sure the lines aren't being stretched or worse.

 

[Mudboy]

Thanks. even though it's a 91, it only has 155000 on it, so it's not like it has 300000. You can visually see the ass squatting though. With the whooped leaf springs they should have a little more travel than a positevly arched one, correct? The longer shackles would provide back to the stock height and also allow more travel as well? Now on the bushings, old soft rubber ones should be able to "tweak" more than newer polys I believe, I will replace only if cracked bad. I may have to look into a aftermarket radius arm setup. I hacve always liked having sleepers lol. Something about a stock looking rig performing better than one on 33s I have always liked.

 

[Anime]

Worn out leaf springs might give slightly more flex than new ones, but it's at the expense of ride height without the longer shackles to make up for it. Longer shackles will lift the rear back up and restore height, and also allow more travel since the longer shackle lets the back of the spring droop farther since it's longer, and compress farther since it goes back more. The tradeoff is the spring wears out even faster, but since leaf springs only go so flat, and people don't usually replace then until they break (yikes), the accelerated wear usually isn't noticed.

You can do the usual WAR153 shackle / F-150 spacer mod if you want 1.5"-2.0" or so of lift, but you can also just use washers or smaller 1" spacers and either custom make your own 1" longer shackles (or get cheap universal ones from a parts store or call James Duff and ask to buy their 1" lift shackles). I would say max 1" of lift would be better if you want flex, as 2" seems to be rather high at the expense of droop.

Old soft rubber bushings are fine, the difference in flex is minimal compared to broken-in polys, but every little bit helps on stockish rigs.

The radius arms will help a ton, you can either buy a custom setup (James Duff, Camburg, etc. all have extended radius arms that will work with small lifts), or just modify the stock arms and crossmember, using some serious steel tube to add length, and move the radius arm bushings back just in front of the transmisson mount (or have it as part of the transmission mount like a lot of aftermarket kits do).

 

[Nedwreck]

I don't want to be against the grain (Anime's posts have helped me many times)...

If I unhook the shocks on my stock explorer, it seems to want to travel a lot farther than the shocks will allow (on the front). I never tried the rear to see what I'd get.

 

[little x]

I don't want to be against the grain (Anime's posts have helped me many times)...

If I unhook the shocks on my stock explorer, it seems to want to travel a lot farther than the shocks will allow (on the front). I never tried the rear to see what I'd get.

Then your shocks are too short.

 

[Nedwreck]

Then your shocks are too short.

Everything appears to be stock. But yes, a better shock selection (and mount) will improve things a bit.

 

[Anime]

The front sway bar acts as a limiter for the front suspension, so the stock length shocks are all that's needed for that setup.

You can definitely get more travel with the front swaybar removed, but then the limiter becomes the short stock radius arms and the bushings. Worn out rubber bushings will probably allow more droop, especially with the shocks disconnected, but the shock wouldn't get damaged unless it was forced to overextend, which shouldn't happen with the TTB because both sides are independent.

You can certainly extend the travel with slightly longer shocks, but those that are just 1-2" longer can be hard to find. A possible solution is to use even longer 4" lift shocks, and just lower the mounting point by the length difference. It's probably not worth doing with stock radius arms, but would definitely be something to consider with longer arms, especially custom ones where you would be able to choose the lower shock mount location.