lowered 86

[Keith Seymore]

Originally Posted by radar1

All seemed to be great, until I was coming home from a local show. I went over a set of train tracks and caught the leading edge of the A-arms on the concrete in between the tracks, at about 10 mph. The truck stopped right now, killed the motor, and my buddy's glasses ended up under my feet. I limped the truck to the side of the side of the road, and had my wife come to rescue us. Picked truck up next day on rollback. I have since replaced the lower control arms and springs, this time I only cut a 1/2 coil. It raised the truck up near 1 inch. However the crossmember must have been twisted in the accident. The A-arm on the passenger side is touching the header. I am now awaiting the verdict from the body shop, on what it will take on the frame machine to straiten it out.
Pictures are from before I left for the show, and the train tracks that got me. All I can say is be careful with that much drop. It has really sucked this week. I have a build thread going with what I've done to the truck, look for Radar's 85 gmc.

We run a product assurance test looking for this type of condition. The specific test is called "the Dayton Railroad Crossing", named as a result of an incident that occured 50 or 60 years ago.

Many passenger cars will have a "skid" as part of the front engine crossmember in an attempt to keep the chassis from hooking on the railroad tracks. My '74 Chevelle did.

K

[obrut]

Originally Posted by Keith Seymore

We run a product assurance test looking for this type of condition. The specific test is called "the Dayton Railroad Crossing", named as a result of an incident that occured 50 or 60 years ago.

Many passenger cars will have a "skid" as part of the front engine crossmember in an attempt to keep the chassis from hooking on the railroad tracks. My '74 Chevelle did.

K

How would you conduct the test? What was the incident - i can guess as to what happened but what were the details.

[Keith Seymore]

The Milford Proving Grounds has "the world's shortest railroad" (ie, two railroad crossings with tracks that extend just a few feet either side of the road) as part of the Ride & Handling loop.

The subject vehicle is run repeatedly a set of predetermined speeds to see if the Dayton incident can be duplicated.

I don't recall any details about the original incident beyond that it happened and created this test procedure.

K

[obrut]

Keith thats cool, I love hearing about the different testing and inside stuff from back in the day that GM would do.

I've been driving my truck everyday and have not had one problem except the front is too high. I really think I need to pull the springs and cut half a coil to get the front end down a little. I'll let another week or two go by and see where its at.

radar1 any news on your truck?