The Stupid Lowered Questions Thread

[ccreddell]

First of all, with a 3" spring, youre starting to get in a bad area. First of all, your shock is becoming ineffective-thats fixable. Youre also running out of suspension travel and are most likely tagging your bump stop a lot. This will eventually bend and break stuff. Third, your alignment is getting close to being impossible to bring back into spec. Theres a reason you have never seen a magazine use a 3" spring in one of their builds. Another thing youre going to run into is once go through all the acrobatics and muck things into your 3/5 drop, youre going to want a 4/6-it has happened to most of us. Your best bet is to just bite the bullet and start collecting parts for a 4/6 and save yourself time and money (and grief). Get a set of (non-BellTech) spindles or lower drop arms. Find someone who will sell you the axle cradle for a flip kit. Make your notch, get some shocks and u-bolts and do it right the first time.

 

[TerryH]

Flip kit/C notch questions on my dually. There is a bed cross member sitting on top of the frame where the C notch needs to fit over the top of the frame near the rear of the notch. Don't see any mention of it in the instructions. Are you supposed to just notch out the cross member so it fits over the notch? Also, the Belltech template has holes to align the cut but none of the holes in the fame match up with the markings on the template. There are some that are close but are they not supposed to match up perfectly?

Thanks,
Terry

 

[ccreddell]

You have to lift the bed up slightly to sneak the the notch over the frame. Have you tried swapping sides to see if things line up?

 

[TerryH]

You have to lift the bed up slightly to sneak the the notch over the frame. Have you tried swapping sides to see if things line up?

The problem I see is the crossmember sits on the frame. The notch for the one ton is 1/4" thick so I don't see how that's going to work without something being done. Tried the template every way. Couldn't get it to line up right any way it could go.

 

[ccreddell]

Do you still have the rubber pads between the bed and the bed mounts?

 

[TerryH]

Do you still have the rubber pads between the bed and the bed mounts?

The bed is sitting directly on the frame.

 

[DRAGGIN95]

I have had to notch the bed brace for bell tech notchs several times, it has never caused any issues for me.

 

[bluedevil]

First of all, with a 3" spring, youre starting to get in a bad area. First of all, your shock is becoming ineffective-thats fixable. Youre also running out of suspension travel and are most likely tagging your bump stop a lot. This will eventually bend and break stuff. Third, your alignment is getting close to being impossible to bring back into spec. Theres a reason you have never seen a magazine use a 3" spring in one of their builds. Another thing youre going to run into is once go through all the acrobatics and muck things into your 3/5 drop, youre going to want a 4/6-it has happened to most of us. Your best bet is to just bite the bullet and start collecting parts for a 4/6 and save yourself time and money (and grief). Get a set of (non-BellTech) spindles or lower drop arms. Find someone who will sell you the axle cradle for a flip kit. Make your notch, get some shocks and u-bolts and do it right the first time.

Doesn't the 5/7 drop use 3" drop springs + 2"drop spindle...though i'm not sure how much geometry is built into drop spindles, i'm sure there is some correction. Would a guy want to relocate the shock then to behind the control arm like bagged set ups? I hear ya on the 4/6 drop, i just wanted to bring it down cheap to start with, but im learning fast its not cheaper to re-do things again because its not good enough, haha.

 

[ccreddell]

Normally when you go past a 4/6 you need to start either building or buying modified arms and such. Its been done, but with diminishing returns...

 

[ccreddell]

Theres no geometry built in to spindles, although Belltech bumped the track out 3/4" per side on the GMT400 platform. The drop is achieved by just moving the axle up two inches and nothing else is changed. When you use a drop spring, your geometry is changed because the A-arms and steering linkage are now in a droop position and if you go too far it starts to effect how the truck drives.