Sewlow58's '98 GMC rcsb rear suspension mods.

[sewlow]

Been meaning to post this for a while. This started out as a simple rear Upper Shock Mount relocation. We got a little carried away!
Anyway...

First, we ground off all the old brackets on the rear end housing.

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New urethane spring bushings

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New spring perches

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Custom 'C' notch. You can see the factory location of the upper shock mount in this pic, & the hole in the frame from the factory, that the U.S.M. will be moved to.

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Finished 'C' notches. Wasn't around to get pix of the process.

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U.S.M. moved to new location. You can also see what we had to cut away from it, in order to make it fit in behind the inner frame gusset.
The other side is done very similar, except that the distance it was moved, is not the same. This is because the factory locations are not equal. We set that one up so that the distance from the rear housing would be equal on both sides.

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Sway bar frame mount installed. The hole in the center of the mount is so that it fit over top of the U.S.M. bolt.
Because the frame gets narrower as you move to the front of the truck, the rear 'leg' of the U.S.M. had to be modified to fit.

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Modified shock extender from the original DJM flip kit.

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Mark, the mad fabricator doing one of the many test fits. In this pic you can see the new short spring in the leaf springs. We took the overload spring out, & had a new one made that followed the contour of the others, instead of it looking like it was upside down. This really helped to make the truck feel more solid, & connected to the ground when tossing it around in the corners. This also gave me the 7" drop that I wanted.

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Test fit.

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New sway bar & shock mounts. Painted & finished install.

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Bed notched & relocated brake line.

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Done like dinner!

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Next to be done, probably during the LS swap, is to box the frame, with dimpled lightening holes, from just in front of the rear cab mounts to the bumper brackets.

 

[dagen_1]

looks good!

bet she handles like a dream now.

 

[sewlow]

It did! We also installed a set of 3.73's. It had 3.42's. 6 weeks later, intake gaskets went south, & I didn't catch it in time. Dropped another $800.00 into it to fix that, including a complete tune-up with a new distibuter. Got a whole 30 miles out of it before the bottom end dropped!
Nothing goes right, when your underwear's tight!

 

[96twodoor]

looks great , I really like how you notched the bed above the pumpkin

 

[JMP0003]

Do you lnow your measurements for the notch, and for the upper shock mounts?

 

[sewlow]

It had a bolt-in notch before we did this. All we did was remove that, at whatever location it was at as per the instructions from the flip kit/notch (BellTech) & plated the backside with a piece of steel with a notch shape taken from the existing. We then bent another piece in a 'U' to fit in between the the original part of the frame & the new plate on the back. Make sense?
No need to do all this work to relocate the upper shock mounts. I found afterwards (DoH!) that there is an actual kit made by B/T to do the same thing.
Although, the shocks would be at different angles as the original GM design, due the relocation kit moving the the upper mounts the same amount on each side.
The way that we did it was to put the upper mounts the same distance from the axle on both sides. That's not the way the factory did it. The passenger side is more laid out in the original design. It'll be the same way with the kit.

Shop around. Most places the price is about the same, so it comes down to which offers free, or cheaper shipping.
They are available in Canada, although they run in the $95.00 range (Cdn)
This is a whole lot easier way to get those shocks back to a proper angle than the way we did it!

https://www.belltech.com/catalogsearch/result/?q=6658