2010 4DSB SAS build street driven rock crawler

I don't notice any axle wrap. But then again my leafs have a decent arch to them and are heavier than typical. Next phase involves larger spring pads on the axle that will help control axle wrap better when it starts. The only time I've noticed wrap is on an obstacle and a tire starts to hop that's when it starts. I quickly hault that with the brakes and re-adjust my position. A key is getting the shocks tuned. Accutune did a great job setting mine up with a basic tune I am sure I could really start fiddling with them to get them really dialed in but they seem to be right in a sweet spot for on and off-road.

The shock set up I have came from Archive Garage they get the shocks the highest on the market without having to cut up the bed.

 

Lesson number 1- Gen 1 parts don't fit a 2nd Gen. Even though we bought these parts as a "kit" for a 2nd Gen, what they really meant was "here are a bunch of parts for a SAS that you will have to completely modify to fit your truck, and oh by the way throw the instructions away and build it like you bought generic fab parts!!! Grrrrr! I would have started with builder parts. So after starting down the road of installing a "kit" we bought more parts to make the kit work and started over like we were designing the suspension from scratch using builder parts.





Driver side would be easy for the lower link but the driveshaft is going to hit the CAT, but we'll continue and address that later.



Passenger side upper link was not going to fit, so off came the mandifold and CAT so we could continue.





Trying to figure out what went with what when we realized we were missing parts and hardware



locating the frame link mounts



After drilling and sleeving the frame for the steering kit and mocking it up with the axle underneath we determined there was no way a rearward swinging pitman arm would work (no room for it to clear the panhard and not contact the tie-rod at compression because we pushed the axle so far forward to run the 37 low and not hit the body mounts in front of the doors) so we sent the steering kit plated the frame from the front back and contemplated full hydro.....more to come on that decision.





Finally getting some where. At this point we decided to stick with the kit we bought and make it work. We tacked in the frame and axle link mounts and starting massaging the shock buckets to fit the frame rail.


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I’m curious about this and how you got a 63 to flex more than a well built leaf pack. My Chevy 63 experience did not net any more amount of travel to make he amount of work worth it and if you’re running the Archive kit then you’re limited to a 14” shock.

I guess my question is what are you actually cycling with 63s?

 

Sorry finally getting around to answering this.

Am I getting more flex out of a well built leaf pack? At this point not much shocks are limiting factor.

Limited to 14" shocks with AG kit? Yes and no. I have a 1" body lift this allowed me to raise the towers up from typical mounting location. But yes in a normal position you would be limited to that length. Not sure if you could run bigger if you ran the springs I am running.

What is my cycling I have no clue haven't done the math or measured yet. It won't be a whole lot more than the 14" shocks since they are mounted ~6 inboard of the WMS

So how I was able to accomplish what I did. First off I wasn't impressed with the typical 63 leafs and how flat they were. So I looked all over to find one with more arch including looking at lift leafs. I was about to just have a custom pack made, but I stumbled across a 5+1 leaf pack for 14+ 1500HD and 2500. This had a little over 1" more arch than all others. I just removed the overload spring. Having a 1" BL and more arched springs I was able to raise the top of the shock up and the lower mount set with 5" of uptravel rotate the lower mount so the lower eyelet is ~1" above the top of the axle tube. I also have the hangers set to ~25* after everything has settled and will be down around 20* once I add the weight I accounted for. Fully drooped out I am getting 0 leaf separation and the hangers can still rotate down a few more degrees. With 16" shocks the hangers will be able to rotate down that last little bit and I can get some leaf separation to gain some more droop. This was months worth of research and searching for what I was looking for. I was about to order a custom leaf pack from Alcan or Deaver with very similar specs as to what I have now. I have seen some not so great 63 swaps, I think a lot of the appeal to them was the cheap swap parts and can source the springs used from a junk yard. At that point I think you are better off with just hammer hangers and a shock relocate with some Dakars, Deavers, etc. as those 63 swaps don't seem to have any more travel than that set up.

I do think that with a custom pack and/or SUA you could get a little more travel with hammer hangers and keep the stock length springs. There are many ways to skin a cat.

Hope all that made sense.

 

Looks good so far. Hopefully you can get the "fitment" issues sorted out. It looks like there is some major clearance issues with one of the arms and the exhaust.

 

Thanks. Yep we had to clock the CATS up to clear the driveshaft and the upper link.

 

Cutting a pie shape out to clock the CAT up and out of the way.


locating the shock and bucket



Panhard mount placement





Bump cans are in



For a day we had full hydo installed. But after looking at airbag options and discussing how much it would be street driven we decided to find another option for hydro assist. We dicided to search for an FJ60 or FJ80 box so we would have a forward swinging pitman arm.




While looking for a steering box we bolted the rear axle in and worked on coil spring calcs by measuring compression with known springs. We were stoked to see it at ride height on the axles for the first time.

 

How is the HP44 holding up? Any regrets not going with something "beefier" up front?