Lowering questions

[GMC406]

I am looking for a cheap and easy way to lower my truck a little bit. I know this question has to come up alot, but just needing to know the details. The truck is a LWB 71 GMC with rear leaf springs. If I chopped 2 inches off my coils in front and made a longer shackle in back (about4"). What are all the small details I would encounter. Like will my camber be way outta wack up front? Will I need to cut off my axel mounts and rotate the rear axel to get the pinion angle back in line? Other than drop shocks I think I can get by for free that way. Any input is greatly apriciated!

[BossHogg69]

whoa, easy there! usually a taking a coil off the front springs will net about a 2" drop. don't use a cutting torch to do this (I'm sure you probably already know this) - cut off wheel, sawzall, etc is the way to go. You will still have to get the truck aligned, regardless of what you do.

As for the 4" rear drop, no need to cut off the axle pads and move them! Just get a 2 or 4 degree pinion shim (wedge) to adjust your pinion angle, but you'll have to measure the pinion angle when you lower the truck to know exactly what shim to get. The shims usually run around $20 bucks. If the pinion angle isn't right, you might get some undue vibrations and possible accelerate wear on your carrier bearing (if you have one).

[GMC406]

Thanks for the quick response and no I was not planning on using a torch. My front end already uses 4 or 5 shims already how much more would I be adding to that? And as far as that pinion angle how do you measure that to find out what shim you need?