How to: Ruin a perfectly good C10

[gringoloco]

I'm back in town and have a short break in the action before work picks back up again, so I've been working on getting the Bilsteins mounted up. Since I'm mounting them in other than the stock suspension setup, they're requiring a little bit of custom work.

First, I decided I needed to raise the upper mounting points, both front and rear, to keep the shock from bottoming out and to position them closer to their center-stroke 'sweet spot' at ride height. Out back, I decided I would modify my existing mounts by re-drilling the ECE relocator. This gives me just over an inch of extra travel and only adds around 2* of lean, based on my limited geometric/trigonometric calculations--luckily my wife's an engineer They ended up at just over 15" extended at ride height, which is just about in the middle of their travel. Perfect.

After mounting them up, I took it for a drive, and WOW! I've heard good things about Bilsteins, but never experienced them first-hand. The truck feels completely different now; much softer, but more controlled feeling ride. I honestly was not expecting this much of a difference just from swapping shocks, much less the rears only. It is quieter, smoother, and and more composed. Money WELL spent. I'm anxious to see what the fronts do for the overall feel of the truck.

[gringoloco]

As for the fronts, I will be using the CPP/POL style upper relocators, which require loop style mounting instead of the frame-mounted stud. The problem with using the Bilsteins with these is that the shocks come with the upper stud permanently attached. No biggie there, as I just cut the end off and pressed them out, but had to special order bushings to fit the width of the mount.

The lower end had to be modified as well, due to the PB arms using a 5/8" stud instead of the stock arms 1/2" bolt. I originally thought I would just press the metal sleeve out of the bushing, but they were permanently bonded, so I picked up a set of Energy Suspension hourglass bushings and pressed them in their place. Worked perfectly--now I'm just waiting for the upper bushings to come in...