I just bought a 51 F1 and found out the the rear end was trashed. I did some research and found out that the ford explorer is a close fit. I imagine that I'll have to do some modifications but I'm more concerned with getting the rear down a bit. I chose the explorer rear due to the 4.5 bolt pattern. I'm using the Jag IFS up front that has the same bolt pattern. I would like to hear what people have done to get the rear lowered. I have seen where one of the hamb members reversed the eye one on the main spring and then removed every other one for a total of five left. Then he reversed the mounting shackles and got real low. I'd like to know what others have done. I have been told that an S-10 spring might work. But I'd like to hear from those that have actually done it with success. I look forward to hearing your success stories. Thanks.
Best/easiest way to lower the rear on a pickup is to "flip" the rear on top of the springs. It'll drop the rear by an amount equal to the diameter of your axle shaft housing, plus the thickness of the springs. If you need to go lower from there, you just notch the frame & add lowering blocks.
If you want to flip the rear on an F-1, you will run into clearance problems with the frame. Notching the frame wont work either, unless you want to raise the floor of your bed. (no easy task) I got mine pretty low in the back by using a 5 inch drop mono-leaf sping and raising the area where the spring hanger mounts to the frame in the rear about an inch or so. Leaving just enough clearance with the underside of the bed.
Or you can go extreme: I guess the MAIN issue seems to be, to get that ideal 4-6 inches drive height, the diff will hit the stock frame, to get lower than about 8 inches and drive COMFORTABLY, you may need to make some kind of chassis mod (Cnotch/kick up etc) and raise the bed floor a few inches to compensate........nothing too drastic though!
31aBoy- Did you raise the hanger mount to avoid having to c-notch? I'm confused what that did for you? Are you saying it got you lower or gave you more clearance between the frame and axle?
I never post, but since this topic is near and dear to me - Flipped rear over stock springs, c-notch and new shocks...dumped the rear pretty damn low, I scrape on the driveway (any driveway) and the ride is kinda stiff - but I like it. Just my 2cents.
What did you do to the floor of the bed Andy? Shellback.. You dont see it in the picture, but I just welded a heavy chunk of angle iron to the top of the frame there for the Top 2 bolts on each side. It got me about 1.5 inches closer to the ground in the back. Thats all I needed to give me the look I wanted. (along with the mono-leaf) I didn't have to do any mods to the frame or bed. Its pretty low..but i think Andy Truck (above) is sitting 1-2 inches lower.
"What did you do to the floor of the bed Andy?" Oops, forgot that important part - the truck actually had a sheet of diamond plate dropped into it for a bed when I found it - I just left it in there and cut out a small square to give clearance for the top of the pumpkin, otherwise on a hard "slam" (caused by a pothole, or pavement imperfection) it would slap. Not perfect (and I'm sure some would say not pretty), but it works for me. I'm sure that sometime down the road I would like to have a shallow tunnel running crossways to cover this up, but that's what these long-term projects are for, right? Yeah, it's low - Funny thing, when you look at the enlarged pic you can see how my tailpipes are flattening out from dragging on my driveway when backing out.
I used an 8" out of a Fairlane flipped on top of the springs and removed a few springs and did a little C notch. I have a plywood bed in it right now so I just welded in a few pieces of 2" angle iron 2" inches above where the old bed would be and put in 2X2 tubing under the 2 stock bed supports and layed the plywood right on top. Works good, as I have hauled motors, scrap iron and wood ect. with this old beater.
Both have TCI total cost involved MII front ends and are both chopped 4 and 4.5 inches. OldBeets black one has 390 FE with tri-power & all the goodies and my green Merc has 289.
Thats some good inspiration. Mine has a 351M I wanna can. Too heavy and too slow for me. Not to mention it is hard as hell finding goodies for that thing. Hell, it took me forever just to get the right damn thermostat!
I bought a kit from chassis engineering inc but I don't have everything fully put together yet. For one. The springs mounts are underneath the frame now instead of on the side, so it's possible to put a bigger tire in (I have to do a couple inch tub for clearance in my case). The mount on the side make it different to lower it. With the axle on top of the springs it's still pretty high. I think I'm going to try some lowering blocks and see how it looks. For reference my rear tires are 285/70/15 (so 31 inches high and 12.1 across) and the rear end is a Ford 9 inch. The box was from a friend and in pretty rough shape, so I'm not sure how off anything is. I plan on dropping the rear end 3 inches from where it is now, and the front end should drop 1-2 inches with motor and real springs.
Hey guys. I gotta quick question. Is it ok to use 1/8" square 2x4 for a step notch or should i use 3/16? Thanks
I did nothing more then remove most of the leafs, otherwise the rear end is stock. Upside is the truck rides really nice and has a nice rake, downside is you can't haul more then a couple hundred pounds without bottoming out. Edit: Just noticed this thread is nearly 5 years old. I suppose the OP has figured it out by now. Oops! Iwana: 1/8" will be fine, the frames are only made from 8 ga (0.1644") which is less then 3/16" anyways and is an open section to boot.
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