Garage Projects

The Lone Ranger – 60/14 Bolt swap – Rear Add a leaf to boost the GM pack

After putting a few miles on the truck, I was running into two problems

1)The rear settled down more than I liked
2)I had a “Death Sway” issue going on when I had any weight in the truck.

While I liked how the Chevy leafs rode and flexed, they were just too soft for me. Since I don’t know the history of these leafs, its very possible that I managed to get an ‘extra broke in’ set of leafs.

The end result is that the rear leaf pack needed some fine tuning, of which I had a couple of options in which to do it with. In the end, I took the easy route and slapped a Tuff Country Add A Leaf in the pack (PN 81250, Summit Racing had the best price at the time of this post). I figured if nothing else it would give me a good base in which to start with.

Generally I don’t care for AAL’s as they tend to make the ride a bit harsh, and often wind up sagging after time anyway. With these leaf’s’ I’m not so worried about them sagging as they’re pretty dang beefy:
Sara L.: Build and Misc &emdash;

Stuck next to a ranger main leaf I cut down to possibly use:
Sara L.: Build and Misc &emdash;

While I had things apart, I went ahead and added my axle shims as well (I goofed when I set up my rear end and was off a few degrees):
Sara L.: Build and Misc &emdash;

I didn’t managed to take any photos of the install process, but this leaf just sits at the very bottom of the pack (like an overload). So the installation is extremely simple.

Starting height:
Sara L.: Build and Misc &emdash;

Ending height (Its settled to 45″ at this time):
Sara L.: Build and Misc &emdash;

The end result is that the truck sits much better, and still rides awesome. I do worry about the extra forces being put on the main leaf from the AAL, but if I wind up killing this pack, I can always go get another from the Junk Yard, or just buy a full replacement pack. I’ll cross that bridge if I ever get there.

Unfortunately, this was not a complete cure for my death sway issue. It did greatly reduce the problem, and help point out another main contributor of the problem. That being a lack of a track bar up front (Long shackles up front are giving the axle too much side to side movement at speed on the road). So I’ll get that issue resolved soon.

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