Completed some work on my daily driver!

[72BlckButy]

Nice work, that thing looks amazing!

[monte0185]

Looks good. I love to see a LWB dropped. Go somewhere and get that camber straightened out. Its gonna eat tires alive like that. Those 50 series tires arent exactly cheap.

[orange72c10]

Looks nice

[kcjones]

You guys are great, thanks for all the compliments and comments. Bagged/Dragging/20's is next. I just have to finish contract negotiations with the Devil this week for the 10+K I need. Or work harder, not sure which is best. I'll keep you updated!

Did I mention I have bunch of top-end engine stuff to turn my little mouse into an angry mouse? It's my next project (probably Feb), so the bags'll have to wait til after that.

I do love the PhotoChop of it, though (thanks 75silverstep)!

[kcjones]

Just wanted to throw up a few pics of the work I did, and throw out some warnings to all those C20 guys out there:

1) There is a plate inside the frame, same thickness of the frame, running all the way from before the coil support pad to past where the rear end is - this makes getting the c-notches in a little more difficult. It also makes getting all the rivets out a HUGE PITA. Each head you cut off doesn't just punch out after that....I had to drill out about 18 rivets through 2 pieces of 3/16 steel (frame and frame stiffener) - not fun.

2) The trailing arms on 3/4 ton have stiffeners on the top and bottom of the arms, attched with rivets and plug welds. Although they're great for strength, it really sucks when you want to put in a custom panhard bar bracket (from CPP, I think the ECE unit is different) - the bracket goes around the arm (in a C shape), and the stiffeners make the arm to big. You have to cut and air-hammer parts of the stiffener plates off to get the panhard bracket on.

3) The original panhard bracket on the frame is angled differently than on 1/2 tons - I had the Eaton HO52 rear end, and instead of the panhard attaching to the pumpkin part of the rearend, it attached to a large bracket (see circled area of pic below) welded to the tube. This meant that to get the custom panhard bar in, I had to provide some 'motivation' for the bar and hardware to get it. It's never coming out!

Here's some 'before' pics, starting with the pic of the panhard bracket:

[kcjones]

Some more pics:

Out with the big C20 rear spring, in with the new 1/2 ton 5" drop spring:



Out with the old Eaton HO52:



In with the "new" 1/2 12 bolt:



Here's that trailing arm stiffener (circled), this isn't on a 1/2 ton arm:



Last one, C-Notch cut, not installed yet:

[kcjones]

Some more. First one shows that I had to cut my relatively new exhaust off, the old routing had it running right between the frame and rearend, so it had to go Guess I'll have to get my shorty headers and 'fully tucked' exhaust pretty soon!



Here's the C-Notch installed, forgot to get a decent pic, so this is just a cellpic.



New ride height:



new front end stuff: By this time, my wife was so tired of me being in the garage, I had to hurry, and didn't take pics of replacing a-arms, springs, shocks, ball joints, inner/outer tie rod ends, adding an ECE sway bar, or installing the new booster/mc/proporting valve.

[kcjones]

And, lastly, a couple 'after' photos.

[weasel29gm]

Very sharp!!! Theres a SWB with a 454 around here that close to your color. Great combo!!!