Daily driver to overlander

That's common. You'd need to make your strike pads a lot taller than that red square though. The way I'd do it is discharge the nitrogen from the Air bumps. Compress them till you have the thickness of the rubber band and about 1/8 inch of the shaft showing. Build your strike towers to contact your bumps at the top of your travel.

The thickness of the rubber band and 1/8 inch is your " oh shit I just slammed a way bigger whoop than I thought' insurance.

Those strike towers better be beef though. I mean 1/4 wall tube and welded really well. From how tall they look like they'll be, it looks like they'll want to tip over on you. A LOT of weight is going to be slamming those.

Do you know where your true top of travel is (or where you want it)? That's hard to determine without breaking your pack down to 1 leaf.

With a full pack you can't get your leafs to flex to top of travel by jacking it up. It'll just lift your truck up... unless you have the frame strapped to an eye bolt in the floor.

@Dalandser and @Bandido know more about this than I do though.

 

I like my limit straps as close to in the same line from front to back of the truck as they can be with the shock.

Because if you're inboard or outboard from the shock too far your limiting at a different point of the lever (leverage = axle)

 

I'd probably do both.

 

Thinking about this again...

If you're just using your shock travel to determine your up travel, and not setting up leaf travel (custom leafs and custom leaf mounts, etc).

You're just setting bump stops to keep your shocks from exploding... I'd put the truck on jack stands in the back (FRAME on the stands). Take the leafs off. Jack the axle up to where you have about 1/4 to 1/2 inch of shock shaft left showing. Then do a combination of lowering your air bumps and building strike towers to get the bumps to have no shaft showing.

 

The goal is to weld the lower shock mounts. The position is unknown for now and can be moved. Other variables are constant: position of the bump stop, upper shock mount and leaf pack. I don't want to change the leaf pack. And I want to utilize the maximum of up travel.

 

Do you have the upper mounts in?

 

If your leafs are set where they are going to stay.

And you're keeping that leaf pack.

And you have an upper shock mount in, where it's going to stay.

And your bump pad is going to be on your axle.

You need to determine where your lower shock mount will be, before you set your air bumps, because your lower mounts are going to determine where the axle will be at the top of your travel.

 

Upper mounts welded and finished.

 

Ok, so if your upper mounts are in. That means the length of the body of the shock and the location of your lower shock mount is what determines where your bump stop has to go.

Your up travel has already been determined by where your upper mount is and the length of the shock body. (The only way you would be able to travel any higher is to get a shorter body shock, which would limit your down travel, because it would be a shorter shock).

Looking back at some of the other posts, I see where your shock towers are in, and they aren't moving up. So your up travel is what it is with the shocks you have.

Now it's a matter of placing your lower mounts. Without knowing all of the factors (clearances between the axle and other stuff under the truck) I would try and set the lower mount as high on the axle tube as possible so you get maximum wheel drop.

Your at a point though where you have to figure out the shock mounting and go from there with your bumps and straps. You can't determine your bump without knowing where the axle will be at full bump, because your bump pad is on the axle.

 

My truck set up was different. I determined how negative I wanted to flex my leaf, then set my bump, then determined the hight of my upper mount, that put the bottom of my shock body where I wanted it in relation to the bump stop.

But I didn't have anything in my way, and could put my upper mount however high it needed to go.

 

Actually... let's me be more specific on the lower mount. You can play with the up/down travel a little bit.

The higher the lower mount will mean less up travel more down travel.

The lower the lower mount will give you a little more up travel and less down travel.

So at ride height you could attach your shock to the mount, if you have your shock discharged of nitrogen you can decide where you want it. The shaft of the shock is going to tell you how much up travel you have relative to where the mount is. You can subtract your up travel from your shock length and that will be how much down travel you have.

I set mine up for 6 inch up travel and 8 inch down travel. (14 inch shocks and way flexier leafs... and my leafs go negative, but they are 63s, so they're supposed to lol).

 

To do it right you need to break down your leaf pack and cycle the suspension with only the main leaf with a wood or steel block accouting for the height of the rest of the leaf pack and set the bump height to where the leaf is flat or just going negavite arch. You remove the nitrogen in the bump and set the bump pad where it bottoms out the bump.

Your strike pad should never hit your bump when lifting the truck from the rear axle - the axle needs momentum from driving faster over bumps to compress the leaf springs.

If your upper shock mounts are already permanent, then you bump when whichever happens before the other:

a. leafs go into negative arch

or

b. 1/4-3/8" of shock shaft is left on your shocks before fully compressing the shocks.

I know this truck already has some chosen placements for things like the upper shock mount and the bolt on bump stop mount that you’re working with and it probably won’t bump out enough to wear out the delrin inserts at the ends. But if you were building a suspension from scratch for something that will bump out all the time in whoops and jumping, this is one of the best videos explaining the setup around 8:00 min. If applying the info in it to leaf springs, just imagine it’s a main spring of a leaf pack and a shock off of the rear axle instead of a 4 link setup. The 1/4-3/8” inch of shock shaft I mentioned would be to account for the delrin insert getting shorter over time and frame flex. Unless going for something that will get hammered on all the time, you don’t have to remove the delrin like they did, it’s just two approaches to two vehicle build purposes.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=b0yVs6iO5KM

 

for the particular deaver stage 3 full leaf pack, can we say that the flat main leaf is the maximum? I don't see how this pack can do negative. But maybe I'm wrong about it.

 

Basically yeah - you wouldn't want to go very much past flat anyway. Anything is possible with enough force, but that's much more likely with a prerunner style build made to go fast over big bumps / g-outs.

 

Thanks, now it's clear to me that my previous view point was wrong. I was solving the equation based on known/permanent variables, but for the suspension it's not the right approach. Bump stops/limit straps should go last.

 

called Deaver for a replacement for leaf spring insulators

 

Installed wheels and shocks to check the ride height. The distance between strike plate and the bump stop is 2 inches, shock shaft 4.75.

 

Cleaning leaf springs and replacing plastic pads

 

Installed one main leaf spring and cycled suspensions to check all calculations and take measurements. My previous mocking for the lower shock mount was good. As a result I need to make and install strike plate spacer and keep the position of the bump stop.

 

Checked with the wheel, all clear