El Taco Diablo... Mall Crawlin, now with LT for tall curbs

@Bandido fortunately, for me, my wife's truck (Silverado) has 63s. And I can tell you... those that are are all worried about 63s going negative aren't really thinking it through. 63s, stock, on a Silverado go negative for up travel. They are essentially flat at ride height.

 

They're fine to go negative to the extent that the stock overload will let them for sure. It gets muddier without the overloads, but they can certainly go negative before de-arching. For an economy spring solution they're hard to beat, but they absolutely can be beat for sure. Next time I have mine all blown apart again I'll measure bump to droop again, it's changed since my first mockup 2 years ago.

 

100% agree.

With no overload, I think as long as you have a properly set up bump limiter, you're accomplishing essentially the same thing as the over load.

 

2.5" negative sounds totally acceptable too, didn't look extreme in your pics at all, of course that always changes when you put a body back on but still the actual arch looks good, not too sharp. Actually thank you both for reminding me I can remove my bump spacers now. I originally put them in because my tires were getting into the wheel arch when I still had stock arches and 33s, now with cut arches I can get another 1.25" of uptravel.

 

SCORE!

Ya, fender and bedside cutting is in my near future... along with all of the mess and mud slinging of 12.5 inch tires, added 4 inches per side, and no fender flares.


I'll be looking at doing something outside the box for that mess, I'm sure.

 

I wish there were more options for wheel arches, the largest options are the ugly bushwhacker brodozer flares. The aussie flares look good but don't have room for wide tires like we have and the fiberglass bedsides remove all the rigidity of the bed. Damned if you do damned if you don't, Maybe something custom with sheetmetal?

 

When I get the current project more under control I'm going to buy a tubing roller. I'm going to see about rolling the arches out of 1/5 inch dom and do the arches similar to what you see with exo-skeletons. Possibly sheet metal to bridge the gap between the bar and the body (just welded to the bar)

 

Shocks are "Out for Delivery"





GX470 rotors and pads are expected tomorrow. Things are a happenin. (But now, I'm realizing I think I should have ordered LX460 pads instead of GX470 pads ) (I knew I was going to f'n do that)

 

Nice sequoia rear end

 

Sequoia's big sister with a bigger rack.

 

Brown Santa just paid me a visit.

 

Ok... I'm going to lay this out so I can figure the sequence of events on mounting these shocks.

Here's what my approach is going to look like.

- empty the nitrogen
- lift the axle flat to full (FULL) bump
- find myself a good spot (inboard/outboard) to tack the lower mounts, also find the angle that I think will work that avoids hang ups on the lower mounts
- bolt the shock to the lower mount
- with the shock at full compression find my height on my upper mount and tack the hoops at that height (if I do this it actually makes my shock full compression at the rubber bump at the bottom of the shock shaft, leaving that rubber bump as emergency bump)

My thought is I need about an inch of space between the shock body and the frame, to allow for "tilt" when I'm at full bump on one side and full droop on the other. (Maybe less).

And, of course, cycle it a million times in every direction before welding everything solid.


And, of course, I'm probably over thinking this. But is this a solid plan, or am I missing something?

 

Sounds about right to me as long as you've accounted for the thickness of your full leaf pack too, don't wanna actually have to use the shaft bumpers if you can avoid it, they're harsh

 

I believe my block is pretty much exactly the size of the leafs I have taken out. There is a possibility of me adding an additional leaf if this pack ends up too soft.

But... if I'm not under thinking this. The distance from the bump pad / bump stop would stay they same relative to the shock end / bottom of the shock body if I add a leaf... meaning it wouldn't change the way the bump stop hits the pad.


I have no idea if any of the above makes any f'n sense

 

The position of the bump stop and pad does cause it bumps on top with yours, but if you weld mounts on the axle the shock total travel length for a given spring pack height changes. My point was if your spacer was overestimating the height of the leafs or underestimating it can affect what maxes out first, the shock or the airbump.

 

Gotcha... Ya, I was really careful to make my block the same thickness as the leafs I took out. And the bump stop does not strike the top of the leafs. It strikes a pad next to the leafs.

 

Due to the shortness of the block, lack of articulation, and not having the proper tension as the full spring set, your travel #s will change once the entire spring is in place.

 

Leave yourself some room for error with your shock fully bumped out of 3/8-1/2” of shock shaft showing just in case you get more articulation or frame flexing on a hard hit. Strap it the same way on droop. Idk what numbers 63’s get so with a 14” shock you may not need limit straps if you’re only getting 12” of travel. With my 62’s I’m getting 16 3/4” so it’s totally possible you’ll need to strap it early before the shock bottoms out.

 

Ya, totally figuring on the straps. I have the adjustable clevis on order. I'll order the actual straps once I've got the shocks installed, and I can get a proper measure of where I'm at there.

Not sure I want to leave another 1/2 of uptravel on the table. I have the nitrogen out of the hydrobumps so they can go full squish. If I set the shock fully compressed to that bump, that would still leave an entire inch of emergency up travel where the rubber donut is at the bottom of the shock shaft. I'll adjust the nitrogen charge in the bumps to where they will rarely go to full actual compression. So I'd have to really hit hard to bottom out the shock.