Coil spring rear suspension?

[smbrouss70]

Originally Posted by SCOTI

I believe the measurement is 34".

I just measured my ECE crossmember that I got for Christmas (and is still in the living room ) and it is 33" wide. I know, not a huge difference, but figured I'd point that out.

[crazy longhorn]

Originally Posted by smbrouss70

I just measured my ECE crossmember that I got for Christmas (and is still in the living room ) and it is 33" wide. I know, not a huge difference, but figured I'd point that out.

The rails do measure 34" out side to outside on the 67-72's......IIRC, the 73 up trucks are just a fraction more(1/8" or so). The crossmember needs to be just a tad shorter, to twist it in crazyL

[nico]

Wow... An uncle (who is working on his '67) and I were just talking about doing this swap to my 84 C10...

I have access to several 67-72 crossmembers and rear suspension setups through friends and local salvage yards... How similar are the frame thicknesses? Trimming the length of the crossmember would be no problem, but trimming the height to fit inside the 73-87 rails seems like it could cause strength problems...

Will the early crossmember bolt into the later frame (after drilling new holes)?

[Bagged Nissan]

The reason why triangulated 4 links dont work too well on c10's is for the sheer fact that the frames are super narrow, not allowing you have the min of 35* of angle on the upper bars to eliminate most lateral movement, if not all. That is why the vast majority of guys with fullsizes, run parallel 4 links. With that you need a panhard. The kits out there make the panhards pretty short and in any kind of leverage setup (be it true canti, bag on upper bars in a parallel, lift bars for a 6 link setup) is the panhard pulls the rear end to 1 side, some more so then others, it depends how long you make your panhard bar.

The 'trailing arm' conversion, which isnt really a ladder bar setup, as ladder bars have both upper and lower mounting points that join into the same link later on. trailing arms like on the old trucks work fine for a non-adjustable setup. When you start bagging them, in stock locations, you might not see much of a problem, not sure as to not many ppl i know, want to go from a 1:1 over axle to like a 1.2:1 b/c the bar isnt far up on the bar in a trailing arm setup. But when you start moving the bag, you run into severe pinion problems, in a 2:1 you can easily have a change of 8-12 degrees throughout the motion.

If you are staying coil as your title suggest, then a trailing arm will work fine for you, if you plan to bag, there are far better options out there.

Good luck with the truck.

[ChiefRocka]

The 63-72 style trailing arm style suspension will work great. Although, it should be combined with a Watts link instead of a track bar.

[Scott68-93-97]

Build your own look at my 97 build, I used the stock leaf spring mount gusseted and a bushing end on a 2x2 1/4" wall tubing with a leaf spring center pin in it and bolted it to the axle just like your leaf sping (after a flip kit) you can run a panhard or a watts link but I made an upper wishbone link that has a driveline slip built in so it keeps my axle centered and doesn't bind up with the solid trailing arms total cost was $40 thats building it yourself very easy a square and home made jig is the best way to set the bushings on the bars correctly and the setup works great and since I have a two peice driveline so the bars are almost as long as the rear section of driveline so my pinion angle stays good throughout the whole range of motion, the upper wishbone cost me $45 cause I had to buy 2 bushings and a superflex joint, I'll get some pics of the wishbone on the 97 build soon

[87Wrangler454]

Frame rails on my 87 are as stated above 34", I believe the channel is 6" on 1/2 ton and 8" on my 1 ton, have to check for sure.

[Tony@AirRideTech]

N2 ...... no problem man..... one of the other problems we ran into was not the width of the frame but the rise or the kick in the frame.... the trailing arms want to hit the frame rails before the truck gets down.....