my Friday did not go as planned, my annual state inspection found both front axle u-joints were TOAST. of the 8 total caps only 2 had what resembled grease left. only 2 others had what resembled needles left.
easy enough, i even already had spare joints since my crawler uses the same d60.
but then, with the truck already in the shop and up on stands ... i decided it was time that i dealt with the front springs. since I've owned it, i knew the springs hit the frame. i knew this junk bottomed out way too much. super short shackles that i guess are built to factory length, coupled with the lift spring that i suspect were made longer to keep the factory short shackle angle functional. going from a stiff to infinite spring rate doesn't make for a great ride. only way to fix that is to make a larger gap.
i had some 1.5" longer shackles made, giving an effective 0.75" lift. the math said my pinion and caster would change by ~1.5deg. i already could have used more pinion angle, not less, so i used some 2.5deg shims to slightly over compensate for the change. to account for the height i pulled leaves and also benefit from the slightly lighter spring rate. after shackles, shims, and pulling the smallest leaf i ended up 3/8" taller with +0.8deg pinion angle. crap, try again, took me 48min to rebuild the leaf packs again. i put the smallest leaf back and pulled the 2nd smallest. this put me back at EXACTLY the same height as before all this started and still had the +0.8deg at the pinion. all win.
truck rides WAY better in the front end! it steers and corners better even. it must have been hitting the frame way more than i thought it was. time to re-try the adjustable shocks to see what happens now. also gets me excited to rebuild the back with the GM leaves finally too.
