With the front hangers done i had to come up with the rear shackle hangers. Seems easy enough, but this part dictates shackle angle and caster angle. Fortunately i had my 5k parts truck to use as a reference for my measurements. This part suprisingly fell into place, i used the sleeve and bushing kit from somewhere, can't recall, but it worked great. I just made sure that it was the same width as my spring so the shackle fit over both. I was able to weld them to the frame barely forward of the stock location on the parts truck, the shackle leans forward slightly and the truck rides pretty smooth for a 1 ton. I was worried that i would need to run really long shackles to make up for the drop up front, but i made up the difference by welding to the bottom of the frame as opposed to piercing the frame. Caster came out like stock and it's very solid. I threw in a pic of my help, he just made 2 and loves hanging out in the shop. As long as i'm not doing anything noisy, smelly, or bright my wife lets him stay. So, no he doesn't get to hang out as much as he'd like.

 

The front suspension is pretty much wrapped up so i moved on to steering. I've bought about 3 rams from surplus center and never had a problem except for the direction that the fitting points. No problem, you just cut the end off and rotate it 90 degrees. That way the hoses point straight up and out the way. It takes 3/4" bolts and i bought the kit from diy (i'm pretty sure) that includes the bolt on piece for the diff cover. It's the first time i've used it, in the past i just made 2 more tabs to weld to the axle, but this looks pretty clean. Only bad thing is you have to take the ram mount off to change the gear oil. And it probably puts some additional stress on the bolts so i upgraded them to grade 8'. Not like i rock crawl with this thing anyway so it hasn't given me any trouble. For the arm i've had good luck with the one from oru, but they were out when i needed mine. Everybody including 4wp couldn't get it so i called nwf for one of their billet pieces. This thing is absolutley huge, way overkill for my needs, but it's pretty neat the way it preloads the kingpin with a set screw in place of the spring. To make my draglink i bought some weld in bungs with the correct pitch and taper and id for my tubing and used dodge tre's. They're noticeably shorter than the chevy's and look nice and compact.

 

Here's what i started with on the rear, compared to the trucks today this thing was LOW. I honestly had intentions of painting the frame real nice while i had the bed off, but i use this thing. I drive it to work, take my lil boy to day care, pull people out, ride the river, bring it to big rides like trucks gone wild, etc. It just going to get nasty again. As long as i don't have any leaks i'm ok and i did paint most of the stuff i built, but i didn't want to make this thing a show truck. I know what you're thinking, it's pretty far from a show truck, but i didn't want it all pretty looking just in case. Everybody has their own method for removing rivets in the frame, but what works best for me is to trick a friend into coming over and have one guy run the torch (me) and the friend hits it with the air chisel (about as loud as resting your ear on the barrel of a gun going off). You burn the rivet til it's nice and orange and then your pal runs it on through. The holes come out perfect. I finally found a use for some old chevy drop hangers. I ordered a kit from truckin suspension about 10 or 15 years ago and they sent me two sets of rear hangers. I think it was one of those deals where it was not worth their shipping to get them back so i got to keep em. Not like it mattered, i had 2 sets and neither one lined up with the holes in my frame. Maybe i had the wrong application. But i hung onto em all these years and they worked great. I had to do some trimming, but when i was done i had a pretty trick looking set of rear front hangers. You can see the beginnings of my rear disc brake conversion, more on that disaster in a minute.

 

This very simple looking piece of plate is the beginnings of the rear of the rear hangers. Similar to the front the long piece welds to the frame and the smaller curved piece is drilled to capture the outside of the factory shackle. I gained a little lift and ride quality with a shackle flip and i think it looks clean. Just like the front i moved it forward and back until i liked the shackle angle. Once i pinned down the final location i made a brace that goes from the outer edge of the bracket back up to the frame. If you're familiar looking at the factory shackle hanger you know it is outboarded making it a little more complex than the front suspension was, i got lucky up there and it fell out right under the frame. For my rear springs i used the factory w250 rears from my 5k parts truck along with an add a leaf. I initially ran this setup in the rear with no blocks, my goal was no blocks in the rear for the look and to cut down on axle wrap. Didn't work out though, the locals accused me of transporting bricks everywhere and it rode terrible. The solution was to take out the add a leaf and replace it with a 5" block. I will either run traction bars or some quality replacement rear springs eventually.

 

I'm almost positive that this kit came from diy4x for a '99 cummins i had. I was going to disc the rear, but a guy made me an offer i couldn't pass up. I still regret selling that thing. It had around 230k, but ran like a top. Cold ac, short bed, quad cab, 24v auto, for 3k. Yeah, $3,000. I put some 35's and a 4" straight on and just drove it. The truck had a few minor flaws, but nothing major. The guy that bought it paid me around 7k, still a good deal for him, and he flew in late one night. Left 30 minutes later and drove to texas about 6 hrs away. Anyway, the kit came with these flanges that weld on to the axle tube and you bolt your caliper bracket to it. I used s10 brake lines and bent the hard line clean around everything. Seems simple enough and it all went pretty well until i went to slide that first dual wheel on there and it didn't even touch the studs before it hit the caliper. STUPID! I never even considered that. I've disc braked trucks, but not any duallys. My new game plan is to find some dually rotors with a deep top hat to get farther inboard. Not sure if i'll have to step up to 17's to clear em. That still may not be enough. For now i've been relying on the fabulous stopping power of the front axle and it's been working very well.

 

I find that i'm most motivated to work on my ride when i have a goal. This time the goal was trucks gone wild, April 15 was my 3rd time to go (counting the time i went to tx a few years ago) and it was my 3rd truck to bring. Out of them all this was the mildest, but i had the most fun. The truck was dead reliable and dependable. I was able to ride around in the ac and watch all the action and test out the winch about 20 times. Evrything worked great except the truck was running 3.54's and wide open diff's. 6 mudgrips can take you a long way, but without lockers i definitely had to be careful. Never got stuck, but i never got in anything too deep either. I trailered it since it was the maiden voyage, but i really feel that i could have drove it. My luck it would have spit the crankshaft out so i erred on the side of safety. Here's my friends truck that he brought, it's a cummins so i don't feel bad posting a few pics. It's got some huge planetary axles (20,30 ton?) and 35.5's. Truck did really good for the little money he has in it. In the end he blew an intercooler boot and dumped the clutch a few times to climb the big hill in the middle of the pit. The 3rd time he dumped it the links let go and the rear end rolled up binding the driveshaft stalling the motor. We were dead in the water on a pretty steep hill. I was in the front seat staring at the sky, pretty freakin cool. The second one is all of us tying the fuel pump solenoid shut. The truck still had a few bugs to work out, but it turned out really good. He put a newer cab on a p-pump 12v. I hated to hear the guys on 4 wheelers talk trash about it breaking down, they were the same ones that followed him from the back like flies on a turd. It's trucks like this that bring in the crowds.

 

At this point I needed a fuel system to crank it so I put the bed back on and bolted down a tank from tractor supply. Seems like it was a 40 gallon or so. It is exactly flush with the top of the bed and doesn't take up too much room. I added some tabs to screw it to the front of the bed. I'll have to post a few pics of that from my desktop, can't get em from my phone. I added a fuel sending unit from autometer but the ohm's are a little off for my factory gauge. When the tank is completely full my gauge reads 3/4. I'd like to eventually add a fuel gauge behind the factory door so I'll have a more accurate read.

 

I wanted something fairly big, but still decent on the road. The michelin xml's look cool, but i couldn't get a set when i wanted em. There had been a set of 39.5x13.5x16 Irok's on craigslist for a while and he kept dropping the price. The guy had 6 and tread looked good. Only thing, he was in Houston. That's a 5 hour drive. But i was ready for tires and he ended up agreeing to $900 so my wife and i loaded up for a road trip. Had a good time, an old high school buddy of mine has an apt there and i've been needing to get by there to visit. Here's the tank i used and the tires loaded up. Wasn't real tricky getting them mounted, but it took a 3" spacer to have enough room between the rears. My baby boy does good for scale and you can see the rear shackle flip and winch.

 

Here's a few more with the tires on. I put a 4" exhaust on the truck , but i had changed my mind several times and the one i had purchased was for a 4wd when i was not going to do the conversion. It came out ok, but i'm really not happy with the routing. It's on the list of things to change.

 

The back bumper needed to hold a few lights, license plate, tow hooks and the fairlead. My first plan was to build a ranch hand style out of some pipe, but that really doesn't offer enough flat surface for all the stuff i wanted to put on there. I'm not real sure how well it would look on the old classic box style truck either, probably fine but i still think the flat channel was easier to work with. I found some 8" channel laying around that looked like it would fit the bill and i cut the sides at an angle that kinda followed the body line. This was then tack welded to some smaller channel that i had bolted to the frame as my mounts. For the top and sides i welded a thin strip of 1/4" and then sanded it all down smooth with a flap disc so it looks seamless. The eyes for the hooks were originally going to be welded to the axle, but i figured i wouldn't be strapping the truck down a lot so they found their way to the bumper. The hooks themselves are actually from a guy that had a huge drum of military hooks, i just dug through them until i found something i thought looked cool and industrial. Ironically enough the guy that gave me the hooks owned the truck a few people ago, one of the guys that bought it but didn't go that extra mile to get it put in his name. The pop in lights are for big trucks or trailers and the holes burned out easy with a plasma cutter and a steady hand. Same goes for the fairlead cutout. After i test fit everything i unbolted it and burned everything in real good then blasted it and painted it black. My cheap harbor freight blaster worked great for this, but it needs clean sand. Which my local hardware store didn't have so i cleaned it with some window screen. No more jamming up after that. I'd like to do led's for the reverse lights, the ones i used just don't seem real bright. If anybody has any experience with the pop in led's let me know before i drop the coin on them. I know they probably aren't cheap.

 

Man that thing looks huge next to your little guy truck looks awesome.

 

Preciate it, he pitches a fit if i'm in it and he's not. I finally washed it yesterday and i tried to crank it up to move around the yard, my wife carried him outside to ride. He had the biggest smile on his face so we made a lap around the place. When i parked the truck to go in he ran to the other side of the cab so i couldn't get him.

 

That's awesome. Hope when I become a father they are the same way.

 

 

Here’s the truck now my buddy owns it. It’s getting a rebuilt currently.