Expediton rear leaf springs installation

On the metal sleeves inside the bushings on the leaf spring, do I have to remove those in order to drill them??

 

Excellent!

 

Little advice. Use an angle grinder to chop off most the rivet head, then a punch to chisel off what's left. Then a drill to drill it out and a giant hammer. Prepare for sweat and blood and alot of yelling

 

If your springs are already installed then yeah you'll have to remove them to drill the hole. If you still have new leafs and bushings then drill the hole first

 

I was asking cause I still got them outside. Did I need to get the bushings out of the leaf springs? What size drill bit did you used?

 

Perfect just take the bushings out real quick. Take a socket and place up against the metal sleeve inside the bushings and tap it out to make life easier. Once out, youll see the sleeve is not a solid tube. It was once a flat pieceof metal that was rolled to shape. So there is a seem on it. I drilled the hold opposite of the seem to preserve its integrity. 1 single hole on the center worked great. The hole can be tiny, like id say 1/8th is too big still. Maybe just a tad smaller, like the size of a ball point pen tip, or the "O" on your phones keyboard. Enough for grease to penetrate

 

Like this! See the hole circled in red. That. Slightly larger than the hole on the bolt. And no, when you assemble it, the hole on the sleeve ans bolt do not need to line up at all. Grease will find its way through

 

Gotcha!! Good to know that they don't need to be ligned up with each other. I'll be using a 1/16" drill bit from this nice Cobalt Drill Bit Set from Craftsman that I found on Amazon pared with some Forney cutting fluid at a nice price.
Did you find out the exact size for the zerked bolts for our trucks yet??

 

I looked through every email i have and cant find the bolt size. Im almost positive its 9/16ths but email Eric at Archive Garage he knows what size they are. Hes actually the one who helped me find the right ones to begin with

 

You're right, just find out. The right ones for our trucks are 9/16ths. Cool, now I'm on my way.

Just finished drilling all four metal sleeves for both springs, used 1/16th drill bit

 

Not sure if you already installed or not, but id make this holes a bit bigger. Maybe 3/16th. The size of the hole on a zerk fitting

 

Haven't install them yet. Put the project on a quick pause for a couple of weeks due to school. But I see what you are saying, make more sense to match the hole size with the one in the zerk fitting.
Also, while the proyect is paused, I'm going to tackle minor things, like painting my rear chrome bumper and brake drums to blk, and relocate the rear differential breather.

 

I know this is an old thread but I came cross this informative gold mine when I searched for the new rear shocks I'm about to purchase, Icon CB2036's. Just wanted to say I saw @ProForce build thread and it is now my favorite rig to base my build on especially with it being a 2wd. Sweet build, man!