Project: Nightmare

[Swar]

This is my '71 C10. Bought it in summer of 2004.

[midnight rambler]

Nice truck

[Swar]

The truck was all stock when I got it, didn't look anything like this.
It was green, 250 6 cyl, 3 spd manual on the column.
I slowly fixed it up, upgraded to a 350 and a 4 speed.
Recently decided to upgrade to air ride, that's where the nightmare began.

[Swar]

Started with the rear, by cutting out the frame for the c notch kit.

[Swar]

The purpose of this thread is to show you what you have to know and what you can run into if you plan on building an air ride suspension.

The c notch will give you a couple more inches of drop, but you have to make sure the axle hits the bump stop before the bag bottoms out.

Also, the c notch I have wasn't really designed with air bags in mind.
I had to drill two bolt holes and a 1 1/8" hole through each side including the existing frame, so the air fitting would fit up inside the frame. My frame had metal welded into it in the past, so was drilling up through an inch of steel with a hole saw, it was intense.

[Swar]

The track bar from Early Classic was hitting the frame, so I relocated it to below the trailing arm. I had to cut a little off the back of the trailing arm, but it works.

[Swar]

When I got the rear together and set it down, I realized I needed more room for the bags so they didn't bottom out. I made 1 inch lowering blocks, which just barely worked. Later on in the project, I replaced them with 2 inch aluminum blocks. Not really a fan of these, you loose some ground clearance, but it works for now.

[Swar]

The air ride kit I ordered was from EZ Air Ride. I was pretty happy with it. They sell quality parts, the only problem was the wait to get it. They were in the process of making some big changes to their selection of kits, so it was a good month or so by the time I received it.

[reaper71]

Good job! These projects never go as smooth as we hope LOL!

Mark...

[Swar]

Thanks Mark, nice job on the frame welding on Orangepeel. I would have lost my mind on that project.

[Swar]

Getting the front together wasn't quite as bad, just had to drill 4 holes on each side for the top mounts for the bags.

[Swar]

The problem I ran into for the front end was configuring the bump stops.
This picture shows the the truck down as far as the bag allows.
The stock bump stops had to go, they would've hit the bags.
The bag was being crushed without a bump stop, so I had bolted in universal stops, but they also were too close to the bags.

I learned from installing bags that air ride doesn't work well with stock control arms unless you modify the lower arms in some way. The bags need all the room they can get for travel, otherwise, your ride quality is affected and the bags get squashed, which isn't good for them.

I decided to do something drastic and upgrade to tubular control arms, designed specifically for bags.

[low&slow]

That's defiantly a one of a kind bed side you did there. Never seen that done before.

[Swar]

So after much research, trying to find the best control arms for the best price, I found the Choppin' Block control arms. I haven't heard much about them, they're fairly new on the market. I ordered them through a company in CA called BC Fabrication. It was another long wait, I'm talking over 6 weeks since I ordered them. Again, the quality was great, but the wait on these custom parts is ridiculous.

Once I got them and fit them in place, I discovered a couple more things that needed altering.

I had to fabricate bump stops. These control arms are designed to lay the front cross member on the ground. I have long tube headers, which travel below the frame rails, so I needed to keep the truck from laying down on the exhaust system. I made a web to weld into the control arm and a whole new top plate for the bag to mount on. The top plate has a small piece sticking out for the bump stop to rest on.

[Swar]

That was an idea I had back when I was re-doing the body work. The bed was rotting pretty bad, I just cut the bad parts out and added new metal and covered it in bondo.
Years later, some rust is coming back of course, but it's still holding together.

[Swar]

I filed down the edges the bags come in contact with. Make sure any surface the bags touch is smooth. As you can see, the top plates can vary depending on the company you order from. The black plate is from EZ Air Ride, the middle is from Choppin' Block, and the rusty one is my own creation.

[Swar]

Got it all together, my engineering was a success.

[Swar]

Except for the top arms. I noticed when I went to tighten down the bolts on the top control arm, it didn't seat against the bolts completely. Turns out, the brackets on the frame were interfering. So I just put a grinder to them until the arms seated.

I had to do an eyeball alignment, basically.
I figured out where I needed my ride height to be, and checked the camber.
Because of the low exhaust system, the truck has to ride higher, which puts the top of the wheel out more, so right now it looks like no shims can be used.

[Swar]

Back on the ground.

[Swar]

Found out the steering linkage was way out. Not sure what the deal was with that, apparently the new arms hold the wheels further in.

[nlped]

What's the scoop on those bedsides?

[Swar]

I made those. Heavy duty aluminum sheet metal, self tapping screws, and a lot of bondo.
It actually came out decent, and it's holding up better than the rest of the bed.

[Swar]

A funny thing happened while I was moving it around the driveway, trying to fine tune the alignment. The clutch pedal went down and had no tension. Turns out the little push rod nut that sits on the clutch fork blew apart. WTF

[reaper71]

That sucks!!! those headers hang really low..any thought of changing them out for shorter ones?

[Swar]

Originally Posted by reaper71

That sucks!!! those headers hang really low..any thought of changing them out for shorter ones?

Yea that's the plan, but I've dumped too much money into this beast already.
I'm not fixing it until it breaks. Plus, routing a new pipe around the mechanical clutch linkage is going to be a challenge.