Dave & Dusty:
I have added my comments to three of your questions below based on my
removal of two spring leafs from each side of my 57 GMC's front springs. My
original front springs had 8 leafs in each spring assembly. Counting from the
shortest (bottom) spring, I removed spring # 3 and 6.
-----Original Message-----
From: Dave [mailto:dave@juniorbaseball.com]
Sent: Wednesday, April 10, 2002 4:38 PM
To: oletrucks@autox.team.net
Subject: [oletrucks] Lowering our '50 GMC
Hi:
Dusty and Dave here again....the '50 is almost finished! New wheels (15x7
front, 15x8 rear) and tires go on this week! We want to see how it looks
with the new rims before lowering it the couple inches Dusty wants.
Questions:
I've been advised to remove a couple of leaves from the front springs - has
anyone tried this and experienced any adverse reactions to this? (Sagging or
weakened reamining springs, bouncy ride, diminished ride quality, etc.) Any
new issues raised in doing this, such as different clamps/hardware, etc.
required?
I noticed that the ride was slightly softer.
I replaced the u-bolts because the old ones were rusted through about
10-20% of the way. New ones are available at most FLAPS. I bought
6" long ones and cut off the excess once they were installed.
I've seen the mono-leaf conversions - do these bolt straight onto the AD
truck, or are any modifications or adaptors required? How much does this
lower it? Is the ride quality compromised?
Finally, lowering the front obviously alters the suspension and steering
geometry. Has anyone experienced adverse effects in steering due to this?
How is the handling affect?
The steering geometry changes very little because you are not changing
the relationship of the axle and tires to the road. I guess camber
would change very slightly because the new "downhill" attitude of the
truck would be transferred to the axle where it bolts to the spring,
but I doubt that it would be measurable.
Regarding tires, since we have stock suspension, steering, brakes, etc., I
understand that the wider the front tires, the more it will wander, and the
handling/steering suffers. How wide should we go? We're thinking about
60-series BFG T/A radials....
Wider tires will also make it harder to steer, especially at low
speeds as in parking. I had 255/70s on my truck when I bought it.
It'll really help with upper body development.
Thanks!
Dave Destler
oletrucks is devoted to Chevy and GM trucks built between 1941 and 1959
oletrucks is devoted to Chevy and GM trucks built between 1941 and 1959
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