SUSPENSION OPTIONS FOR 72-93 DODGE TRUCKS


Four wheel drive Dodge trucks use leaf springs
front and rear to locate the axles and provide
suspension travel. The stock springs come in a myriad of leaf packs, the payload rating and the
options/engines your truck has determines the number od springs per pack. Most front springs are
negative arc and have minimal travel, while rear are
positive arc with a factory overload and rear block.
Dodge never seemed to be able to make up its mind
with the spring bushing bolt size, they are all over the place and even similar w-150's can have different size bolts. The same goes with u-bolts.
Some Dodges have sway bars while others don't. Generally the higher payload trucks, w-200's,250s and w-350's lack the front sway bar. Some half tons also came with out sway bars but most half tons and
ramchargers have them. When switching to a Dana 60 axle, the sway bar bracket has to be added to the
right hand side spring plate, on the left side the
dana 44 spring plate cna be used on the 60.
With stock steering stabilizers, again its a hit and miss affair, some trucks got them some didn't.
The stock piece is kinda weak and should be replaced anyway.
Sometime in 1979, Dodge changed the steering box
design and the steering shaft coupler. Personally
I felt the earlier design was better and accomodates
a body lift better. The steering shaft from 80 up
is a piece of garbage and should be one of the
first things done when modifying the truck. Flaming river and Borgeson both make replacement shafts,
the Flaming river looks ok, I have seen borgeson shafts destruct by pulling apart. I use neither
of these designs and opted to modify a mid 80's
Gmc van shaft with doulbe u joints and slip joint.
It was only 25 bucks and works great. Access to a
metal lathe makes the job much easier, I will post some pics shortly on this.

How big truck dreams come true and big truck nightmares begin. THE LIFT KIT..
You buy your favourite 4x4 magazine, on the cover is a big gnarly beast with big todius meats mounted
on awesome 5 spoke wheels, drool is making the ink run on the page, you look out the window at your
truck and think, "yah that would be pretty cool".
You read the article for info on the lift hieght and the powdercoated shackles, flip to the ad section of the mag, and then pick up the phone, the lift kit is ordered.
While all this stuff looks pretty truck, mags never tell you what its really like to own/drive a lifted truck. If you go all out with the lift kit accesories chances are the truck will be liveable, if you cheap out and go the minimal route, life gets hard and the truck becomes a nightmare.
I have used the Rancho 4" suspension kit for 5 years now, I feel this experience gives me the
right to express my opinion on it.
First the Rancho system uses blocks and add a leafs
in the rear, while the blocks havent shifted or anything like that, the axle wrap is horrid and
quickly ends the life of stock driveshafts and u-joints. The front springs are excessively stiff,
it rides like an empty cement truck, headlight and
battery life is greatly shortened. The kit really only lifted the truck 3" inches even when it was
small block equipped. I was somewhat disappointed
by the lift from the start. The addition of a raised
steering arm made the bump steer worse.
I could have solved the axle wrap by using the Rancho kicker shocks, I had installed a set on
a friends truck and noticed that the kickers wore
out quickly, and axle wrap returned. The steering problem came about because the lift arm was to big
for what the lift actually was( 3" vs.4"). The lack
of front spring movement was a DESIGN problem and most likely is caused by the non tapered spring design. Nothing was included in the kit or its instructions about the rear brake cable bracket becoming redundent, nor was there anyting to deal with the dana 60 axle tube thickness. The rancho front u bolts do not fit the Dana 60, it takes serious work to make them fit.
TO sum up, I dont recommened the Rancho kit.
I installed a Superlift easy ride kit on a 89 short box power ram. The lift was 5.5 inches and included
rear springs. The lift installed very easily and
included all hardware except again the rear brake cable bracket. The cables have to be pulled out of the bracket and left to hang. Extended brake hoses are not included. Front driveshaft yoke was bottoming on installation , a die grinder was employed to remove the stops in the CV joint and radius the yokes, spline engagement was adequate, the same cant be said for the rear shaft, it was extended 1.5 inches, geometry was ok, since degree shims were used an were pretty much right on. The results are as follows:
The truck rides better than stock, actual lift was
around 7". The steering correction used was the arm
, which maintained stock feel. All CAD connections to the front axle had to be extended since the they
ended up tighter than an E string. Handling is ok, truck leans more through corners.
Everything was fine with the kit and it ended up being just about as big as my truck that has 4" and 3" body lift, until the 413 RB was added and the winch was installed. The front end started to droop
and it sat way lower than the rear of the truck.
After contemplating a few ideas, we chose to try
adding a couple of leafs to the front pack. We
aquired some gm 1 ton add-a-leafs cut them in staggered lengths and installed them. I checked the
shackle for overcenter, it was ok, the front was now
even with the back again, and suprisingly, it rode just as good as before, which was due the 700 pound engine and the 450 pound winch/bumper combination.
I have just purchased a skyjacker 6" system and it
is awaiting installation, which I could be doing but I am typing this instead.

Superlift DODGE suspension page

Body Lifts
Body lifts seem like such an easy modification, in reality though, there is alot of work involved to get it to work correctly and survive trail abuse. There are a number of aftermarket kits available to lift the body, a home made kit can be biult, but only if your fabrication skills are above par. If square or round steel is uses, it must be closed at the ends to provide strength and should never exceed 3" of hieght. The use of Hockey pucks is not recommended, they have no lateral strength and they tend to crack in half and fall out when cold. When replacing body bolts, use grade 5 fasteners, grade 3 are to soft and can shear, while grade 8 are to hard and can crack off. The stock steering shaft will need attention after the lift as it tends to pull apart, lengthening the shaft via welding is illegal almost anywhere, so look into an aftermarket shaft if you lack the tools/skill to make a shaft without welding. On most trucks the wiring, fuel tank hose and brake lines from the mastercyllinder will give enough to accomodate the lift. The radiator will need to be dropped the same amount as the lift went up, dont just cut the shroud or remove, the truck will develop chronic overheating problems if you do. The bumpers need to be lifted to make the truck look right again, move the bottom bracket bolts on the frame up to the top bolts, straighten the bumper angle and redrill the other holes. The addition of a body lift makes the bellhousing bolts far more accessible and also makes room for a big block engine on trucks equipped with the large brake booster. On all trucks with automatics the linkage from the steering column to the transmission will need lengthing slightly and a little bend added. On manual transmission trucks that do not have hydraulic clutch, the linkage will need to be modified, at first glance lengthing the lower arm of the pivot and the rod from the pedal to the upper arm seems like enough, but if this is the only thing done the clutch will not fully disengage and the mechanism will have to preloaded to disengage the clutch, both arms have to be lengthend along with the rod, the each arm should be lengthend exactly half the amount of the body lift and the rod lengthened accordingly. On trucks that have the outboard pivot mounted to the bracket on the cab floor, I suggest changing to 70's style outboard pivot that was mounted on the frame, since when off roading, the body moves alot more in relation to the bellhousing than the frame does, resulting in the pulling apart of the linkage. If you have lots of time you can pull the hydraulic setup out of a 89 or newer dodge, you must get the bellhousing(small block only). If you have lots of money and time you can use the Hydraulic release bearing offered by aftermarket companies such as Mcleod...

SKYJACKERS DODGE SUSPENSION PAGE