Need help lowering my 1970 c10 swb

[DanielFierro]

I have been going over the forums and i cant find an answer. I want to know whats the best way to lower my 1970 c10 i have drums and coil springs all the way around and i dont really want to do the disc conversion. I want to keep my drums and my steelies. i have a set of airbags i want to see if i can use them in the front without swaping to discs.

[Duraburb]

Absolutely. If you make cups in the lower control arms and then replace the springs with bags, also in the rear you can replace the coils with the bags. No need to swap to discs

[DanielFierro]

Thanks for the response Duraburb i really want to do bags instead of a static drop. Do you know if it will messup my alignment? Any pics of how low it will go?

[Mike C]

You are nuts to keep the drums on a truck you will drive IMO. The safety factor of the discs is huge. Too huge to overlook. And you can make it much more driveable for less money once again IMO because you can do a simple well-riding static drop that could be easily reversed were you to want that course.

Air bags can be cool, but what they are not is inexpensive, maintenance free, or simple bolt-on. Usually if you have to ask lots of questions about bags, it's probably not the route you should take...

2 1/2" spindles don't change the ride of the truck. 2" springs lets you use stock shocks in the front. 5" springs and 1" block gets the back down without a notch. That's a 4 1/2"/6" drop. Keep the conversion 6 lug with parts from Early Classic Enterprises.

Maybe people are better driver's where you live, but the drum brake equipped truck was an accident waiting to happen. I came to this same conclusion 17 years ago when I converted my '70 GMC C2500.

I went 5 lug on my truck because I needed the extra width of the 70-72 housing (70 is 6 lug as you know) and the availabilty of different wheels.

2 1/2" spindles, 2" springs, Early Classics Disc conversion 5 lug. Rear is leaf so a DJM flip kit and relocated shocks using stock length fronts. 7" effective drop. Cal-Trac bars because it was apart. 17x8 fronts (4.5" bs) with 235 55 17 and 17x9 rears with 275 55 17 (5" bs).

[DanielFierro]

Thats a nice truck mike, i like the way it sits. I hear what you are saying and that it could be a safety issue, i wish i had a bigger budget to put into my truck thats why i wasnt planning on doing the disc conversion, plus some people told that i cant use my stock steelies even if i do a six lug disc conversion. Is that true?

[Mike C]

I'm not sure. I've heard the earlier wheels won't clear the rotors, but the 71-72 4x4 wheels will I know. I had my 72 Jimmy 7" stock wheels on the truck before I converted it and they cleared the 12" discs on the Dana 44 no problem.

Air bags will cost you more $ and headaches than a static drop in the end. Just the fab work will be more than the disc swap most likely. If you can't do it correctly right now, I'd wait until you could.

If you want to drop it a little, why not do a 2" spring in the front for $100? Then keep saving to do discs and get it down correctly.