i just took the front sway bar off, felxs more but still, i want more. any one ever use rear shakles? to help on the down travel? will it make the truck sit unlevel goin down the road?

 

doesnt it already have rear shackles? it has to have shackles of some sort

 

well one side goes to the frame. and the other end (rear). i want to know what would happen if i was to put a standerd rear shackle on the front, and put a longer one on the rear. just to see if i can get that bit more twist out of it

 

dont do that, you need a solid mount on either the front or the rear. if you were to mount a shackle on both ends there would be nothing to keep the rear axle centered. everytime you accelerated or hit the brakes one side or the other would move forward or back, this would most definately send you into the ditch, it would feel incredibly loose and unpredictable even at slow speeds.

 

if you want more articulation, you need to find your limiting factor. are you maxing out on the shock length? are the springs too stiff? tires hitting the body? figure these out and you'll know what needs to be changed. I have heard of guys using old wornout bushings in the springs to let them twist in the mounts better, but this would be bad for daily driving. there are lots of tricks if you know what needs to be done

 

well i am stupid. now that i look and read up alittle. you are 100% right. i should just keep the front mounted but the rear. on mine is a shackle but mounted going up. the picture i saw was going down. how could i flop that? and the leafs right now are the limiting factor for me. then the shocks. i plan on the rough country shocks soon, but ntil then i want to put a little bit more into the leafs. keeping the same up travel i have, just adding alittle down.

 

BDS sells a shackle flip for our trucks, but it is very difficult to find on there site. It will help get a little more flex out of the rear, but it also lifts the rear of the truck approximately 4-5" by the time you install a zero rate block. If you didn't want to gain this much lift you could take the factory block out.

 

Heres the link to the flip kit only (it comes with some of there full suspension kits). You can see a picture of it as well as the instalation instructions. You may have to type the part number in (which is 012509) and hit ADD.

http://www.bds-suspension.com/php/Order_by_pn.php

 

ok yea, i could do that... and put the longer springs up front, and then take the blocks out. shoudl be kind of level... if not i can fix it fairly easy. just get some blocks from autozone that are a litle smaller then stock but would probably do the job. i know it is probebly not a good idea but still woundering. would it be possible to do something like this for myself, or just cut off and rebolt the stock one upside down with new hardware? or am i just better doing it this way with the kit?

 

If you know how to weld/fabricate than it would be a fairly straight forward deal to make your own. Its just some plates of metal and a few braces welded together.

As far as making the stock ones work... that would be more work than making complete new ones, and they still wouldn't be as strong. If you look at the way they are made you will see there just isn't a way to really "flip" them.

Keep in mind you will have to install a zero rate block to re-center the axle, which I don't think comes with the kit (I would verify that with BDS). When the rear of the spring is lifted in the rear only (technically lowered), it actually moves the axle forward about 1 1/2" or so. The zero rate will re-center it by moving the axle rearward on the springs.