Coilover/leaf advice

Well when i bought my truck the previous owner had installed fabtech coilovers and a single aal. The ride is really stiff and the truck seems to bounce around alot, i understand that lifting it will obviously make the ride worse, but my truck feels like a go-cart. I've also heard alot of bad things about fabtech and wanted to redo my suspension completely.

First off this is my daily driver and i put a good amount of miles on it for work and school. I've taken it offroad a handful of times and i've definitely caught the bug. I hope to make rausch creek trips this summer and find other places in the area to take my truck. I haul a boat around every weekend during the summer and occasionally need to haul heavy loads in the bed.

I just paid my truck off so im currently broke so i need to really start saving. Hopefully ill be able to get this all done by summer.

For the rear i was looking at a new leaf pack, extended brake line, shocks from wheelers. Which would be the best for what i need them for or would the 3 leaf progressive lift be good enough?

For the front the icon coilovers seems to be popular and much less than king/fox. I recently read that these need to be rebuilt pretty often. This is my daily driver so down time for me is a problem, the toytec's aren't rebuildable so how long would they last? Also, would these be sufficient for what i want them to do?

I also read that total chaos uca's will help correct allignment, however i read they were unessecary on first gen's. My truck wanders something crazy on the highway.

I apologize for the length, i really wanted to get as much input as possible, since this is going to be an expensive investment. Thanks in advance

 

AALs on 1st gens are bouncy... that was inevitable...

here is my vote...

King coilovers - $975 - Downsouth Motorsports
Deaver J59 leaf packs - $600 - Wheelers Offroad
Bilstein 7100 10" short body shocks - $400 - Downsouth Motorsports

The prices are estimates. Contact the vendors directly and make sure you let them know you are a TW member. They may be offering member discounts.

 

Nice thanks man, do the kings have to be rebuilt often?

 

there is a trick that a number of avid offroaders do for their alignment...

get your truck aligned first... if you can, find a spot that uses the old school plate style machines and measurements, not the laser type machines... after it's been aligned and you like how its been set, have the alignment cams tack welded into place...

if upsizing your tires, have them set your casters betweeen 1.5 to 2 degrees forward to help keep the tires from rubbing...

 

only if you are offroad racing with them... even if they do, since they are the shock of choice for most offroad race applications, almost any offroad shop can rebuild them...

you can even find a bunch of online tutorials for rebuilding them yourself... should take about 2 to 3 hours to do it yourself...

any aftermarket coilover will likely need a rebuild every 5 years or so... there are folks who do it every 2 years, but they tend to be wheeling pretty hard...

if anything, you may want to get them recharged every 2 years or so, but that can be done with the shocks on the truck...

 

I'm in NJ so unfortunatly no offroad racing, just rocks and mud. I was assuming i would have to ship them somewhere.

 

i dont think you would need to ship... if just mild wheeling, i doubt you will need to rebuild them... they will last a lot longer than what you have now...

 

Thats great news.. is there a reason why these are less expensive then icons or fox's

 

it could be based on the vendor's buy in...