1st gen heavy duty front end parts

i ride dirt roads a lot and beat the piss out of my front end, what heavy duty parts are out there for my truck?

 

I think most of the folks here are more focused on crawling. That being said- What do you have in mind for heavy duty parts?

For the front there are aftermarket upper control arms with uniball joints... I am not aware of HD/"built" lower arms unless they are long travel. Total Chaos is probably your go to there. Long travel is a bit of work and $$$$.

I think TC or someone else also makes shock tower and spindle/knuckle reinforcements.

Other than bushings (ES or Whiteline), OEM parts are the best bet for most other items.

On the rear- there's not much. Good springs (Deavers, alcans, etc..) and a shock relocation, and frame plating are great..

A few places make HD motor mounts too .

You may want to check out a community more focused on desert / high speed action.

 

40s n tons

 

E load tires. Not sure what Camburg or Dirt King (etc) have to support a first gen.

 

What have you broken/bent so far? That will give us a sense of what you're looking for.

Nah, a lot of us are focused on "camping" and spend a lot of time on dirt. Not Prerunning, but not crawling either.

 

That's fair- the intention was lower speed stuff in general. Maybe just the way I read the OPs post about beating on the front end made me jump to higher speeds.

 

Lower ball joints are the weak-link in that front end. Solo makes upper and lower stock-length arms and a lower ball-joint to uniball conversion that eliminate the use of ball joints entirely on the front end, including tie rod ends. Very strong and rebuildable. Anonymous Fab makes a lower ball joint conversion also by machining out the ball joint of the OEM casting and fitting it with a uniball.

With the later option you do not need to replace the lower control arm and the only weak point with the OEM lowers are the bushings (unless you’re going buck wyld).

And then there’s the shocks….

This is a 4-thousand dollar job