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Part 4: Rear Suspension
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Now it's time to get into the the rear suspension. I have stripped all the old components, including the original cross member. Before doing this, I had leveled the frame to the desired ride height and measured the distance between the bottom of the frame rails and the top of the rear end housing, so I could build back to the old ride height that I liked.




A lot of measuring, re-measuring, cutting, and tack welding went on to get to this point, illustrated in the pic below. Note the new cross member installed. I made it out of a piece of 3"x 3" x1 /4 " tubing (overkill). I used a plasma cutter to form the way I wanted. I could have used a piece of channel, but had the tubing in the scrap pile. Note that I did partial boxing of the frame only. The manual proportioning valve will be mounted on the boxing plate. The 1/2" rod through the frame was one of the "alignment points" from which I worked to locate the front parallel arm pivots. At this point, I put the floor jack under the rear axle, removed the jack stands, and cycled the axle up and down to make sure there was no binding and travel was smooth throughout a range well beyond what the rear end would ever be subjected to in extreme conditions. The leveled frame let me use a good level to ensure the two long bars were not only parallel, but level with each other (in same plane). The short bars are also level with each other and with the long bars. This is the first of this set up that I have installed and am very happy with the design and the installation results.




Every thing is welded up, clean, and painted in the pic below. Note the slight angle on the coil overs. This is OK as long as the shock is perpendicular to the axle travel. I have since gone back and moved the top shock mount outboard to near vertical. This was to give me a little more exhaust pipe clearance. The side benefit is the handling improved slightly from the net effect of stiffening the suspension. The new 17 gallon poly fuel tank is in position. For the eagle eye, the proportioning valve is gone. It later was mounted on the boxing plate. The old emergency brake cables were replaced with Lokar parts and obviously, I installed all new brake lines.




Click here for Part 5: Front Suspension


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