My truck is still in the bench racing stage, and I am in need of some ideas... I want to see some of the ways that you guys have kicked up the frames on the back of your rides.. I am most interested in anyone that has done it with parallel leaf springs, but I would like to see everything you got... I have a 33 Chevy truck, if that helps get the right kind of pictures... Thanks
The kind of kick up I am refering to is I guess what is called "Z"ing the frame... I want to get the front of the truck a bit lower to the ground, and kick up the back of the frame a few inckes so I can keep parallel leafs wirth a litl bit of load carying ability...
OK..... that is cool and all, but that is not what I plan on doing.... If you would put down the European Car magazine for just a sec..... I don't want my rear frame sitting on the ground. This is a truck, and I would like to still use it as a truck... I want to chop the frame right behind the cab, and bring it up a bit so I can still use some decent size parallel leaf springs, and still be able to carry a load(not much of one) The truck will have a shortened flat bed... The Morgan idea is cool, but not what I want to see... If I was building a T bucket, maybe. But not on a truck.... What I want is some pictures of how this can be done and still be structurally sound. I think... I know how to do it safely, but I would like to see someone that has actually done it.....
Depending on the wheel base, wouldn't the leaves end up closer to the front of the frame beyond the kick-ups? I'm contemplating cutting off the rear section of an 80's F-150 frame and graft the whole thing on if it's not too wide....Haven't checked yet
The stock leaves are supposed to end up with the front mount right under the back corner of the cab.... The stock wheelbase is supposed to be 116in... I figure I can use some later (70's to 80's) truck springs that are about 6 inches shorter. Then I might be able to keep the stock wheel base, and the front of the spring should sit right at the kick.... As it sits, the frame has been lengthened over 2 ft so they could get an 8ft flatbed on it.... As long as it ends up shorter than it is now, I am not really concerned about keeping it stock length. an inch or two longer will actually be good. I am goung to either cut this bed down to 4ft, and narow it to match the cab, or just fab up a smaller one from scratch... I am no artist, but here is what I am thinking of....
I'm setting my '34 up with a parallel leaf rear. It's a long way from being driven, but so far it seems like it will work quite nicely. The frame rails are about 6-7" off the ground. I probably could have gotten away with a little less of a Z, moved the front mount up a bit and actually had somewhat of a useable bed. At least I'll never have to worry about the axle hitting the frame. Make sure you leave enough bed room behind the rear shackles so they can extend fully. Oh yeah, flatbed, duh... nevermind. Anyhow, here's what I have so far.
Here's mine, another traverse spring set up. This is a 40 Ford passenger car front spring. The frame is kicked up 12", spring is mounted behind the axle on the centerline, and the spring is stretched to about 4" of arch when installed. Ride height of the frame right before the kickup is about 8", no to terribly low. For what it's worth, I can't imagine trying to do anything similar with parallell leaves without a LOt of rear frame length. Are coilovers something you could work with? Good quality colovers and laddder bars would be compact, adjustable, and still give you some load carrying capacity.
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