Why is my ride so damn rough?

Possibly your tires aren't balanced correctly?

 

Sorry. I think it's 8 including the overload.

 

Sorry, no clue.

 

Quite possible, would that affect my ride that much?

 

Yeah pretty severely. My truck rode like shit after some wheel weights fell off, it felt like I was constantly driving down a rough road even though the asphalt was pretty damn smooth.

 

Yeah I just assume they're 2.5s I might just ask fox, I need to by a spanner wrench to take down my preload

 

With how everything with this truck is going, it's probably the leafs are meant for weighted bed, my shocks are bottoming out, and fucked, need a new location welded, and tires need to be balanced

 

Only if it's a constant vibration, the rear doesn't seem like the shocks will have enough down travel before bottoming out, plus those are heavier rear leafs, and you could also check tire pressure. My first gen gurus will be awake in the am and probably chime in
Edit: it's 3am here btw

 

Got bump stops, they are just really thin so hard to see. Might as well not have any tho as they are about a foot away from the leaf pack with only about 4" of bump travel. Shock mounts need to be higher or put back in stock location.

:edit:
I was wrong, that's just a strike plate I'm seeing

 

And since we're talking about suspension, when I turn right and compress the right side, I hear a creaking noise, would that be the uniball in the uca?

 

Okay, I'll take a crack at it. I agree with the others. I think you're topping out your shocks. You also have no bump stops to prevent that. Additionally, those shocks could be too long for your application. This is going to take some work to figure out, but it can be resolved. Here's what you need to do...

First, go to Ruff Stuff and get ya a set of ubolts and top plates so you can flip your ubolts. Then you need to get a set of bump stops. The hard rubber Trail Gear ones will work. Once you have that, remove the shocks. Check their length, eye to eye when fully compressed and fully extended. This will give you the shock travel. Alternatively, if you can get the model/part number off them, you can probably find the specs on them on the interwebz.

Install the new ubolts, top plates, and bump stops. Take all the weight of the rear suspension, until it's at full droop with the tires off the ground and measure the distance between the upper and lower shock mounts, bolt hole to bolt hole. Your shocks shouldn't be shorter than this measurement when fully extended, but it's not super critical if they are. If you do a lot of jumping, high speed trail riding and whatnot where your suspension unloads hard, you might want to strap the axle to limit its down travel to prevent bottoming out the shocks, but it you drive mainly on the road, you'll be fine.

Next you need to remove the axle from the truck, and then disassemble the leaf packs until only the top leaf remains (top two if the second leaf down is military wrapped). If you want to be super exact about it, get a block of wood or a piece of square tubing roughly the thickness of the leafs you removed and bolt it to the top spring with the spring center bolt. Reinstall the axle to the spring and jack it up until it's sitting on the bump stops. Now measure the distance between the shock mounts again. Your shocks CANNOT be any longer than this measurement when fully compressed. This is critical. If it is, you either need to relocate your mounts, or get shorter shocks.

If you take the difference between the two measurements, that will give you a starting point for getting the right length shocks. That's how much travel your suspension has. You might need to compromise a little on the length if say, your suspension has 11" of travel, but the compressed measurement is shorter than the compressed length of an 11" travel shock. You would then need to go to a 10" travel shock...assuming you don't have the space to move your bump stops.

But yes, in the picture, your shock mounts are definitely not optimum. There's a lot of wasted space there (the upper mounts should be as close to the floor of the bed as you can get away with) and the /\ thing isn't all that great an idea. The suspension will move better and the shocks will work better if they are straight up and down when viewed front to back. The shocks angled toward the back of the truck will be fine.

 

Oh! So that's not a bump stop I'm seeing. Just the strike plate! Good stuff @Taco No Baka

 

OP is already stressing about funds maybe skip the u-bolt flip kit and add a cheap daystar bump to the frame, or add factory bump back in ? Or is his leafspring center pin gonna get in the way? Edit I responded without reading your whole post.... I'll shush now, let the 1st gen wizards take over here.....

 

Well, if he can find a set of factory bumps those would work too. I used the factory bumps on my set up in the pictures. But I wouldn't skip the ubolt flip. Those factory bottom plates suck pond water and the ubolts and top plates are not terribly expensive...$80.



Click the pic for the link to Ruff Stuff.

That said, if he just can't afford the ubolt flip, then a set of factory bumps would clamp right into place under the ubolts. But if he's gonna spend the cash on getting the shock mounts relocated, might as well go all in and do it right.

 

I'd like for it to be cheap, but I still want everything done the best way, money is just hard for me because I'm in high school, and I spent too much money on the truck when I bought it, considering the salvage title that I was lied to about.

 

Oh, and for those that are thinking those springs are heavy, they aren't. I'm guessing they are probably All Pros given the lack of the dual stage over-load like my Dakars have, plus the end of what appears to be the half-leaf anti-wrap spring characteristic of the AP packs. Anyway, they are very flexy. Probably as soft or softer than the factory packs. They just have thinner leafs. That would be why his ride sucks. He's constantly topping out the shocks with the soft, flexy leaf packs.

 

Yeah my I A's are allpros so it'd make sense for the leafs to be as well

 

And does that mean I should get different leafs too?

 

I called, but no idea why your awake old man lol

 

Well, if you can't afford to do anything else, then yeah, at least get a set of factory bump stops and get them in there. They just sit on top of the spring over the centering bolt and the ubolts clamp down on top of them. That's still probably not going to solve the problem. You still need to either get the correct length shocks on there, or relocate the mounts to work with the shocks you have. Those are good shocks, so if you can make them work then that would be your best option. If not, Bilstein 5125s ride pretty nice and aren't horribly expensive. Mine were like $60 apiece.

No, absolutely not. APs are good spring packs. Way better than factory. They'll work fine.