'69 Short Step Lowered with discs

[Mike C]

I picked up this truck about 15 years ago from my dad's cousin. It was just too clean to let it slip away when he wanted to get rid of it. Belonged to his father in law, so I guess that makes me the third owner.

66,000 miles makes it the lowest mile vehicle I own. Not many options, power steering, gauges, full foam seat, positraction, heavy duty rear leaf spring suspension, silver with black interior.

Here's what it looked like right after I got it. I had the tires sitting around from a jeep project I'd bought and mounted them on my 15x7 Jimmy rims with the original truck hub caps.





I finally got around to getting it road worthy again about 2 years ago and ordered up an ECE disc conversion kit. In addition to the 2 1/2" spindles I put 2" drop springs on the order.

Front shocks are stock length KYB and rears are a second set of stock length fronts mounted in the position closer to the rear.

Since it was a leaf spring truck, not a whole lot of options on lowering and I decided a flip was the best way to go. At first I planned on welding new perches, but in the end bought a DJM flip kit.

I picked up a '72 leaf spring housing on Craigslist with 3.07 gears planning on swapping in my gears and posi. I needed the extra width of the later housing for my wheel tire combo. The one real surprise in the project was what I thought were 3.73 in my truck turned out to be 3.07 also. This saved me from having to setup my gears in the other housing so I just swapped in the positrac and double checked backlash.

Wheels are Summit Legend series in gunmetal. Fronts are 17x8 with 4.5" backspacing. 235 55 17 Hankook Ventus AS are mounted. The rears are 17x9 with 5" backspacing and mount the Hankooks in 275 55 17 size.

While it was all apart I put a set of Cal-Tracs on it with the future possibility of a dose of big block 427 power

Measurements are stock LF 19 1/4", RF 19 3/8, LR 20 3/8 and RR 21 1/4. Lowered measurements are LF 14 1/2", RF 14 3/4", LR 14, RR 14 1/4. Flip lowered it about 7" in the rear and tires are two inches shorter than the 31's that were on it, so 8" closer to the ground in the back. Front came down just a tick over 4 1/2" but tires are 27" which but the front 6 1//2" closer to the ground.

The result.....







All in all, it came out exactly as I envisioned it. Couldn't be happier and thankfully those damn drum brakes are gone! Plans are to add a stereo and some tinted windows, maybe even Vintage air. Front sway bar is next and is already painted. Need to install ECE drop sway bar brackets first. Paint stays as is and I hope to put some miles on it!