GMT400 frame styles

[Supercharged111]

Neither of which are official terms in GMT400-land, however, you could consider these a 1500 with the F44 heavy duty suspension (comes with 9.5" 14 bolt), and the 2500 with the 7200 lb GVWR (6 lug, comes with 9.5" 14 bolt) ...

Both have the same number of leaf springs, but the overload leaf in the 2500 is longer. You can sit the packs side by side and see an obvious difference. There's also a GVWR difference between the two packages, though it's not all due to spring.

Richard

I changed out my heavy half leaves for LD2500 leaves and the only difference apparent to me was a blue paint spray vs green on the far end of the main leaf.

 

[someotherguy]

The 1500 F44 came with a 9.5" 14 bolt? Was the the K series?

My BIL had a C1500 ECSB that he passed on to his oldest son. My nephew built it as a street/drag truck. I know he's got the 10 bolt because he had it regeared to 4.10s... IIRC, he did have a hard time trying to fit some rotors or something, until I told him to look to see if he had the F44 option. But his rpo sticker had faded by then

Yep, F44 came with the 9.5" 14 bolt, 4+1 rear leafs, and I do believe heavier rate torsion bars - yes, the examples I've seen were K1500's; dunno if F44 was available on a C1500 but sales brochures from the GM Heritage site *might* shed some light on that if you were really curious.

There's no difference in front rotor size on an extended cab C1500 vs. any C2500"LD"; they'll both be the 1.25" thick rotors, just 5 lug vs. 6 lug pattern. The confusion on C1500 rotors comes in when parts guys don't consider that from 88-90 the non-ext cab/non-HD brake trucks got thinner (1" thick) rotors, and they don't swap out, because the spindle is shorter to match. For 1991-up GM just said hell with it and gave all the C1500's the 1.25" rotors regardless of package.

I changed out my heavy half leaves for LD2500 leaves and the only difference apparent to me was a blue paint spray vs green on the far end of the main leaf.

Beats me! I don't doubt you. I had several of each to compare directly, though they were all pre-Vortec trucks; maybe later years in the model family they figured WTH have two very similar spring packs and just consolidated the parts.

Richard

 

[Supercharged111]

Yep, F44 came with the 9.5" 14 bolt, 4+1 rear leafs, and I do believe heavier rate torsion bars - yes, the examples I've seen were K1500's; dunno if F44 was available on a C1500 but sales brochures from the GM Heritage site *might* shed some light on that if you were really curious.

There's no difference in front rotor size on an extended cab C1500 vs. any C2500"LD"; they'll both be the 1.25" thick rotors, just 5 lug vs. 6 lug pattern. The confusion on C1500 rotors comes in when parts guys don't consider that from 88-90 the non-ext cab/non-HD brake trucks got thinner (1" thick) rotors, and they don't swap out, because the spindle is shorter to match. For 1991-up GM just said hell with it and gave all the C1500's the 1.25" rotors regardless of package.


Beats me! I don't doubt you. I had several of each to compare directly, though they were all pre-Vortec trucks; maybe later years in the model family they figured WTH have two very similar spring packs and just consolidated the parts.

Richard

And at this point, I don't recall which leaf packs came from Vortec or TBI trucks. It sounds to me like the 1500 ones you saw must have been 4 mains with a regular 1500 overload? Because I remember that one being noticeably smaller than the 4+1 packs I had. Now I'm all grown up with a Vortec 5+1.