I just bought a house last week and it has become painfully obvious that my Fairlane is going to have to go and a pickup will have to take it's place. I'm looking a 62-65 chevy pickups. The driveway at the new house is way too steep to get a lowered car/truck into , but I love the look of a slightly lowered pickup. Can I just heat the springs to lower the truck a few inches and then install air shocks to raise it so that I can get in the driveway? I found some on E-***, and they are only about $70. Seems like if this worked everybody would be doing it. Appreciate the help, Bryce
Short answer....No. Air shocks aren't designed to bear the load of your vehicle, they are for suspension damping just like a regular shock. Sure lots of guys rode around back in the day with the **** end of their ride jacked up by airshocks (and with that cool Hi-jackers sticker in the window). But they weren't ever intended to be used that way. Maybe you should look in to a simple airride (air bag) setup. A couple bags, valves a tank and a compressor and you'd be good to go. Or you could just install some bags and fill/deflate them through a schrader valve. That sounds like what you're wanting to do with the airshocks but the bags are actually airsprings and are designed to carry a load.
I've had air shocks with an onboard compressor for years on my wife's '58. It's about 2.5" off the ground and needs the rear shocks to come up to get over parking lot speed bumps and into our old garage. She doesn't drive around with it lifted, just keeps from getting stuck. I would cut the coils instead of heating them, though. I've had heated coils that worked just fine. But with a little extra work, you won't have to worry about 'em down the road.
I put Gabriel air shocks on my '56 just to get it level and also to put more air in them to get it on my trailer. 80# will jack it up enough to get it on the trailer and 40# will keep it level. Works just fine (so far) ..There's nothing radical about mine though.Not for constant lowering and raising and I never come close to the max pressure (200#).
I agree with the yesses on this one....If you just want to get in and out of the driveway and over some bumps run the airshocks and use the springs for the real suspension. I used a small airlift compressor with a manual valve and guage that was supposed to be for a helper bag setup......worked great for years!http://www.jcwhitney.com/autoparts/...se/s-10101/Ntk-AllTextSearchGroup?Ntt=airlift Similar to this setup....
Thanks for all of the help guys, I love this place!! So it sounds like it will work for what I need. Any idea just how far up I can take it? If the truck fits fine at stock height do you think that the shocks will lift it back up that high if I lower the truck three inches?
I want to run this on my 59. I'm still running the generator, do you think the compressor would be an issue?
The '58 has a generator and is hasn't caused any issues. She really doesn't use it too much, just to get out of our old garage and for speed bumps.
You'll need to change your search for a truck: '60-'62 Chevy and GMC pick-ups had a torsion bar front suspension. Rides great, but very expensive to rebuild or do anything with. VERY expensive. '62-'66 has coils front AND rear. '62 has the wrap-around whindshield and forward-slanted A-pillar. '63-'66 has the more standard windshield and rearward angled A-pillars. Much cheaper windshield to replace, but I like seeing the world through wrap-around gl*** myself. Heating the coils to lower them is the ****ty way to do it: you'll ruin the tensile strength of the coils, the ride quality will ****, and it's really hard to get them dropped evenly from side-to-side. You can cut the fronts, but you can't cut the backs because they're tapered/have pig tails on both ends. Lowered rear springs are pretty cheap, and they take about 20 minutes to install. -Brad
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