no suspension, now what?

[Denee007]

I love opinions! They came with 6 lugs? Mine are 5~ is that good? It has crossed my mind to "overhaul" the current hardware, put new springs, and perhaps the dropped axle like you said. Actually winds up being about the same price and maybe not as much labor, or that doesn't really matter. I have the disc brakes already(they were on there). so I'm part way there. What do I want~ ? we drive to the Nifty50ee's there and back, that will be about the extent of where the truck will go. I just want it to be safe and hold the road and not kill anyone! Need to really keep it simple! I keep being swayed cause the options look really great and tempting and challenging! I'm trying to keep the cost down for my husband sanity!

Originally Posted by LDO

Denee,
Here's my opinion.

First, it would depend on what you want from the truck. Then, take a look at the current state of your truck. Is is 6 lug? Do you already have nice 6 lug wheels that you want to keep? What's your budget? Now, overlay that on what your final vision is for your truck.

With me, it was simple, I already had 6 lug wheels that are fine for now so I didn't want to go 5 lug then have to find new front AND rear wheels (more $$). I'm GTG with the current suspension except I want the front 3" or so lower so I figure I'll just rebubuild the front end, get a dropped axle from sid and throw on a toyota power steering kit and add some disks.

Some may argue that I'll have just as much invested if I went another route but for me, this is what I want to do.

[Speedbumpauto]

I've done both Camaro and A Hiedts front clip. IMO keeping the rails whole and easy to square make it a no brainer. The M-2 would be my choice without hesitation. I also think you could do it with the fenders on. I found I needed to mock up the fenders at least twice to make sure the wheels fit correctly in the wheel wells. The stock truck has the tires too far back in the opening, IMO, and if you lower it with either kit, you need to move your crossmemer forward to make it look right. The Camaro on my current project needed to come forward 1 3/4 inches to be asthetically pleasing. Cover and mask your fenders well, tack stuff in place, use a plumb bob and a center line drawn on your floor for reference, weld a piece of tubing across the frame just in front of the firewall to maintain square while you work and you'll be fine. A beauty of using the coil over upgrade to Heidts and others is it's very easy to mock up stuff and check your work, AND, the ride height is somewhat adjustable if needed. Does cost a little extra though.