3/4 Ton Long to Short & Static Drop Square One

[kitsbeach]

Here are a few pictures of the flip kit and shock extenders being installed.

The one problem I encountered was that the leaf spring plate came very close to the shock mounts. It was impossible to get a nut on the bolt for the shock extenders.

In the end I just welded the end of the bolt, and will have to grind if off if I ever want to take this apart.

By the way in my case I could have re-used the OEM leaf spring plate by flipping them upside down. That would have created more room. But I had already bolted on the flip kit before I tried to install the shock extenders.

The OEM leaf spring plates have a bump for a pin on 3/4 ton springs, but I used 1/2 ton springs that have no pin.


Flip kit installed right side:


another pic of right side:


Next three shots show how close shock mount is to leaf spring plate (not much room for shock extenders):

[kitsbeach]

Here are what the shock extenders look like:


Here they are installed (you can't see the back where I welded the bolt in but there was no room for the nut):


Here is the truck rolling again waiting for Western Chassis drop spindles that never did arrive:

[kitsbeach]

Another problem with the Switch Suspension flip kit is that the Belltech rear drop shocks do not come with mounts.

Very frustrating.

That turned a 15 minute shock install job into a two week job while I found some mounts that were similar, had them shipped to Canada, and then had them machined to the right size.

I ended up using a set of front upper mounts and machined them to the correct diameter to match the Belltech shocks.

Switch suggested using the original mounts and lightly reaming out the shocks themselves but the original mounts are over 40 years old and were not coming off the original shocks in one piece.

Here are some pics of them installed.

Top mount:


Shocks are very close to the leaf spring plate (this could be improved by Switch by making the plates the same size as the OEM plates):


Bottom mount:


Moral of the story is do not buy Belltech rear shocks until they start offering shock mounts with them. The Switch guys were very helpful but the shocks are a bad product.



I'm curious if others have had this problem and what they did about it?

[kitsbeach]

PS on my '67 I wanted a certain brand of shocks and hunted around and did the math until I found an OEM fitment that matched my truck (Toyota shocks I believe). That might be an alternative if Switch/Belltech insist on selling rear shocks with no mounts.

There are no mounts anywhere on the internet that I could find that fit the Belltech rear shocks.