Dropping the front of a 1940 Chevy pickup

Looking for advice on dropping the front of my 40 chev pickup, the truck has tight steering and newer brakes incl hoses etc and drive/handles fine for the type of steering and brakes these are, so I'd like to know some good safe drop options with the factory setup?

I have read posts about flipping the axle on top of the springs and how to modify including bending up the steering arms a minor amount to clear the axle and a dropped axle with dropped leafs or leafs removed. Wondering if anyone can share their "low down" experiences with one of these trucks and how much drop I could expect?

Thanks for any advice

 

btt

 

Putting the axle on top of the leafs will give bump steer, unless you drop the steering arm back down to near where it was. It could also cause oil pan to axle or axle to frame interference. A drop axle is really the best way, and you could remove a couple leafs as well. Still have the bump steer issue with the location of the steering arm in a drop axle.

 

You can lower it a few inches or more with stock springs by removing every other leaf starting with the smallest. Leave the two top ones in place. My '37 dropped 3 inches this way. You will need to add some caster back and adjust the drag link to keep the steering box centered. I made a adjustable drag link out of tie-rod ends and a threaded shaft. You can also use a shortened center link from a similar truck.

Installing axle on top is risky due to the uneven axle casting. They didn't make the axle mounting pads wide just for looks! Mono-leaf springs will drop it quite a bit.

Joe

 

I had sid drop my stock axel 4 inches.Converted to 1954 car drum brakes and changed the tie rod ends to the ford units.Its about as low as you can go and not have scrub line issues.I also had st Louis spring make me a new set of reversed eye springs.It actually rides and stops really well even though it has manual drum brakes all around.If you go on sids web site he has a lot of info and pictures to show some good examples.

 

Thanks Guys for the input, burl with the reverse eye springs and the dropped axle how much was the drop?

 

I've got one of Sid's 3" axles under my '53, plus I pulled 3 leafs from the spring pack. Total drop is about 6" from where I started.