[Slickriffs]

I'm looking to lower by changing to monoleafs. Although the original springs were interchangeable between 1/2 and 3/4 tons(I have a 3/4) the monoleafs are shown in catalogs only for the 1/2 ton. Any ideas why they still wouldn't be interchangeable?

[OneMoreTime]

Has to do with the rated load capacity of the springs in a truck application..That is why the monoleafs are not listed for 3/4 ton trucks..

[Slickriffs]

Hey thanks OneMoreTime..

Does that mean if it was only loaded no greater than a 1/2 ton that it would be OK? This truck will never haul anything greater than a few bags of garbage or a few planks from Home Depot!

Appreciate the comment,

Keith

[OneMoreTime]

Originally posted by Slickriffs
Hey thanks OneMoreTime..

Does that mean if it was only loaded no greater than a 1/2 ton that it would be OK? This truck will never haul anything greater than a few bags of garbage or a few planks from Home Depot!

Appreciate the comment,

Keith

Keith,

Myself I would not put any spring on that truck that was not rated for the GVW of the truck..I know from hard experience that having the proper spring is a must on any of these cars..

I would expect that a truck would be expected to perform as a truck..pull a car trailer..take a load of engine blocks to the machine shop..pick up a load of patio blocks from Home Depot..that sort of thing..

Now we do lower trucks to get the "look" but in doing so we try not to compromise the utility of the truck..

Long term I think you would be much happier with what we call a mulitleaf staged design spring..that is one that is designed to give a decent ride empty and still maintains the rated load capacity of the truck..

There should be a local spring vendor in you area that can help you get the proper springs..Springs are not real spendy and well worth the investment..

this may be a longer answer than you expected but just sharing my experience with truck springing..

Now if you get stranded on lowering that rig drop me a note and we can see if we can get that piece sorted out..

[Slickriffs]

You know the existing spring setup has a set of progressive helper springs..springs that don't get used until there's a load..can't help but wonder if they could be used with a monoleaf..There also the extended shackle deal.

Thanks for a super response..

Keith

[OneMoreTime]

Keith,

the only valid reason I could ever come up with for these monoleaf deals is that it saved the factory a bunch of money..see it is only one piece of tapered spring steel in one of those..

compared to the production cost of mulitleaf springs times 30,000 cars or so that amounts to alot of cash..and the monoleaf works fine in your Nova grocery getter..Just my opinion on the monoleaf

Now in a truck we have a bit of a different issue in that we have grossly different loads depending on what we are doing today..

just my thought is that you now have the proper springs for the truck so why change..I subscribe to the "It ain't broke don't fix it" school of thought..

My own thinking on this is to take the ones you have..take em apart and clean them up..get them re-arched at the local spring shop and put them back on the truck..Works out just fine..

Slamming a truck can be done and the utility can be maintained..just cannot negotiate the boulders of the Rubicon in a slammed truck and they look cool..

How to lower a truck is a whole special deal of its own in order to maintain the use of the truck as a truck..I would suggest tha tyou look at one of the kits we use on the late model Ford or Chev 3500 series dually trucks to get the drift of how it is done..I think Super Bell makes those for openers..

Check the knowledge base on suspension as this is one of those deals that takes some study to do right..

hope this helps to get off in a proper direction..

Sam

[Slickriffs]

Thank you Sam..I'll take a look tonight on the web about the kits.

You've put a lot of time into this today..Very much appreciated.

Keith