The back end of the frame is pretty close to the intended ride height. So it would have to be a really big bump! It won't really go any higher as you can see in this pic... There will be a 4" or so gap between the top of the tank and the bottom of the bed.

 

I woke up to 2" of snow, and it was coming down pretty good. I went to the shop to grind all of the rivet heads from the leaf spring brackets. 16 rivet heads destroyed, and looked back outside. Had to come back in as the snow level had surpassed the height of my boots. So far we are at 13" and it is still coming down like crazy. We have lived in northern Nevada for six years now, and this is the most snow we have seen. Our house sits at 4780 elev. This storm is supposed to last until late tomorrow morning. Once it's over, and I dig a path back to the shop, I will pry the brackets off the remaining rivet shafts, grind the stubs to the frame, and punch them out.

My electric space heater test - I ran just one overnight last night. This morning it was 54 degrees in the shop. So with multiple heaters I could probably see 58 - 60 degrees first thing in the morning. Or wait until Spring. Or at least to see what it does to our electricity bill next month.

 

Wow, we want pics of the snow.

Yep, we are all masochists.

 

If you look close, in the lower left of the pic, you can see a horseshoe spike that is 15" tall (per regulation). That is 14" of snow in15 hours, and it is just starting to slow down at 10 pm.

 

Our Alberta Spruce on the left, looks like a wizard hat!

 

Nice. Still light out at 10:00PM??? Darker than the inside of a politicians heart here at that time.

 

These pics were taken about 4:30 pm. The snowfall finally stopped around 10 pm.

I am happy to report all of the leaf spring mounting brackets and rivets have been completely removed from the chassis! There is one downside, though. The debris field is pretty large. Clean up on aisle 1...

 

I am currently waiting on the shim kit for the Ford 8.8 rear end, so I can start the rebuild process. Tracking says it should ship this Thursday. I am still working out a plan to keep the shop warm enough to paint. No snow in the forecast for at least another week. I am going to do more trimming of unwanted brackets and rust removal over the next few days, I am excited (but nervous) about the rear suspension. I have never installed a four link before. Measure 20 times, weld once is my plan. It is a triangulated four link. I am going to try and keep the parallel links on the inside of the frame, leaving more room for wider rear tires, If I have to tub the rear wheels I will, but I am hoping to avoid it if possible. Keeping the parallel links on the inside will help. I may need to weld in a cross tube for the inner diagonal links. The kit I bought is universal, so it can be configured multiple ways. Mock up will tell.

 

Yesterday afternoon I left two electric space heaters running overnight. It dropped to 21 degrees last night, but this morning I found the shop at 60.1 degrees inside. Good enough to shoot some primer! It will be interesting to see what these experiments do to my electricity bill next month.

 

Probably nothing you are going to like.....