Hi all,

I'm planning to take my truck to get painted sometime soon and I am replacing the bed with another one off a different truck, but while I have the bed off I wanted to take care of some frame rust repair/reinforcement. The front of rear spring hangers are beginning to look rotted out, and I want to replace them but I can't seem to find any anywhere. I was able to find the rear of rear ones from ATS, but not the fronts. Are these spring hangers interchangeable with any other model?

 

I found this thread. https://www.dakotaforumz.com/threads...ontinued.7503/
It doesn't have the answer but the last reply says they know of an after market maker. That name is a handle of a member here, volaredon. Might be worth it to PM volaredon and see if he responds??? I haven't seen him post in a while.

 

I checked Volaredon's page and it says he hasn't been active for 2 years, so that may be a dead end.

I did do some digging however and found a hanger drop kit for a 2wd first gen. Its from Belltech, and it had 4 hangers, 2 fronts and 2 rears, and it claims to lower the truck 4 inches while maintaining stock springs. Here is the link:
https://www.belltech.com/products/ha...ce=chatgpt.com

So I know that the 2wd and 4wd leaf springs are dimensionally identical, but the way they are setup for load handling is different, correct? My thought process is that Belltech got 4 inches from using the 2wd springs with a lower load rating, so would the drop be less with my 4wd springs? I'm going to shoot them an email to double check, but worst case scenario, I can use these hangers. I know some people don't want the drop in the rear, but I'm not against it if it's not ridiculously low. In my specific instance, I don't ever plan to run taller tires or a lift on this truck, and it will spend 95% of its life on pavement, the other 5% likely being gravel lol. I have already lowered the front 2 inches via the torsion bars to help get some rake (experimenting with aero for mpg), so leveling it won't bother me too much. There is of course the fact that lowering the rear will limit my up travel in the suspension and load handling, but I can probably cancel out most if not all of it with a good set of shocks and some air bags, and potentially a C notch.

I don't know though, I'm just spitballing right now, if anyone has any input please feel free!

 

Dont have much to offer other then Volaredon post over on forabodiesonly fairly recently.

 

Here's his public page it says recent activity is March 22, 2025 I assume that means he logged in.
https://dodgeforum.com/forum/members...volaredon.html