How To: Ruin a Perfectly Good 4wd

[gringoloco]

Originally Posted by knomadd

Dang, a few days away and I've missed a lot of conversation. Your plan sounds great! I'll be following along.

Welcome aboard!

Originally Posted by lolife99

Funny you mention that.
I've always thought about these conversions in great depth.
For me personally,... I would move the entire crossmember forward 1" to help center the wheels on low trucks.
I know this means, moving sway bar mounts, idler arm holes, and the steering box holes,... but to me it would be worth it.
Especially if you could weld and do it yourself,... which I know you can.

I remember seeing this mod years ago on a squarebody blazer converted to 2wd.
But I can't remember which magazine it was in.

I think you could get away with moving the whole crossmember forward a bit, without interfering with the steering center link. Possibly combine that with the lower control arm “caster mod” for more centering. We will see how it pans out, but I will play with it a bit to see what works best.

If you think about it, moving the whole crossmember forward isn’t a whole lot different from using 1” forward tubular arms, as far as steering linkage geometry is concerned when related to the pitman and idler arm locations (someone please correct me if I’m under-thinking this). Stock type anti-sway bars can have the ends trimmed and linkage style bars might be able to absorb the difference (or have bushing locations redrilled, as you stated, thankfully, I’m starting from scratch there).

All that to say, it may not be too terribly complicated to gain that extra inch. 104” wheelbase is stock, so probably somewhere in the neighborhood of 105” will look “right”. I’m pretty excited to finally get to play with one (the yellow Blazer was already converted when I bought it). Let’s find out together