[justcuz]

Hey Roger,

If all you want is 3 inches of lift to be able to run 32 or 33 in tires, find as set of big block crew cab dually front coils. The old Chevy part number is 328101.
Here in the west for off road use we left the trailing arms in the truck (they act like big traction bars, thats why Nascar uses them) and had springs wound for the rear. But today you could find a set of H2 rear springs and bolt them in back. The coil pockets are about the same as the pigtails on the stock springs and may work.

The reason most old pre-runners (and race trucks) had a nose up attitude was twofold, 1. it transfrred weight to the back of the tradionally light rear end of the pickup so when you were driving down dirt roads it kept the rear planted a little better and 2. Coil springs after taking a 500 or 1000 mile beating off road lost their tension and sagged an inch or more and you ended up with a level truck. I had a 61 Chevy with torsion bars that held up to the beating way better than coil springs. It was a 1/2 ton shortbed stepside that I swapped 3/4 ton torsion bars into. Another advantage to the torsion bar front ends was the ball joints were bigger than the coil sprung ones and lasted longer. Back then almost everyone was running Fords with twin I beam, so us rare Chevy guys were on our own for suspension developement. Later of course the Chevys became more common starting with Mickey Thompsons Big Red and the Parnelli Jones/Walker Evans yellow shortbed. The red shortbed pictured is one that was built by us here is So Cal.

When you were driving these trucks you could tell when the springs were giving up because the front would start banging the bump stops and the rear end would start fishtailing more in corners.

Lastly you can convert these old trucks to leaf springs easily. It was an option available from the factory, I would bet the frame holes are pre-drilled for the mounts. If I was going to the trouble to convert to leaf springs though I would go with the 1988 and up 64" rear springs for a much better ride than the old 52" or 56" stock springs.