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Technical Front shock conversion 39-46 Chevy truck

Discussion in 'The Hokey Ass Message Board' started by 63401nailhead, Jun 22, 2024.

  1. 63401nailhead
    Joined: Apr 4, 2008
    Posts: 260

    63401nailhead
    Member
    from DE

    Has anyone here converted their front lever arm shocks to tube type not by using a kit but rather by making brackets and sourcing off the shelf shocks?
    I want to do this for my 40 Chevy pickup since the ride is extremely harsh, thinking this might soften it up a bit. I found this picture years ago, and saved it to my computer, and just recently found it again. Has anyone done something like this and if so do you have any pictures showing how you did it? Thanks!


    front shock mount.jpeg
     
  2. Joe H
    Joined: Feb 10, 2008
    Posts: 1,721

    Joe H
    Member

    My '37 had these already welded to the frame, so I left them.
    I had Detroit Spring build me custom made leaf springs with a spring rate that matched the actual weight of the truck. Before that, I removed 3 out of the seven leafs. I started to worry about breaking the originals with only four in the stack, thats when I went to new ones. The '37s had really stiff springs, by '41 they had soften them up and added weight to the truck. Check the GM Heritage Center information packets for the Chevrolet trucks. The packets list all the spring information. You can swap springs from '37 to '46, they were all the same size but the rates vary. Mine ended up being almost half the spring rate of the stock '37 truck. The ride is much nicer! The longer the shock you use, the more options you will have, short shocks are hard to find.
    truck pictures 047.jpeg IMG_0659.jpeg truck pictures 046.jpeg IMG_0660.jpeg IMG_0665.jpeg
     
    302GMC and leon bee like this.
  3. I planed on using stock shock mounts on a 49 I’m building. Think that was the last year for knee action shocks. Or close anyway
    IMG_0100.jpeg
    there’s similarity between the 48 up and prior chassis
     

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