Boss gets a “makeunder.”

Well I’m finally giveing it a face lift. It’s done a lot over our years together with stock suspension. But I’ve recently worked my way up to 37s for trail tires, so the 3” body lift isnt enough anymore. The fenders got cut out in a big way last year in prep for OCBR, but it’s still got some clearance issues. A while back I picked up some parts fairly affordably that included 3.5 duff coils. So where I had been wanting to do 2.5 to keep it from being so y’all, I decided for the money I had in it, one more inch is nothing.

So here it is ready for OCBR last year.


I haven’t photo-documented this as well as I’d intended so far, but all I’ve done is change front and rear springs, weld on brackets for an antiwrap bar and new shock brackets, and restraighten the rear housing. So here’s some pics because WE ALL LIKE EYE CANDY!



Now here’s where the “fun” begins. I forgot to get some longer brake lines, so here’s what I did so that I could chauffeur the kids to the fireworks show tonight.



3/4” angle is my friend!

The springs I used are dealers that my dad has been running for about a year and a half. His bronco has sat too low in the rear since he’s got 5.5 springs up front, so I ordered him a pair of 5.5s to match and WH delivered them to LEBC RU this spring and my friend Shamu brought them home for me. So I’m getting springs that are already broken in! They also have some wedges attached, so here’s the drive shaft/pinion angle. (Btw, I’m running barnes4wd u-bolt eliminators on the rear housing too.)



It looks really straight but there is JUST a touch of bend at the joint.

Here’s the final product out and ready to go to town.



The plan is homemade long arms that adjust front pinion angle, grinding knuckles and adjusting caster, and I’ve got 14” travel Bilsteins for the front, using f250 shock mounts and 12” travel bilsteins for the rear using a homemade tall version of the vendors’ dual mounts. Hopefully I won’t have to cut into the body since it’s raptor liner’d inside and out in that area. I’m also considering copying Garberz’ track bar mount (mounted on the passenger knuckle rather than a track bar riser) but I have already bought a riser, also from Barnes4wd, so.... Maybe I can cut/use the riser as a drop bracket on the frame and get the track bar parallel to the ground? Then work on the drag link to make it all work together... also have a ram for ram assist that needs a mount on the housing.

Eventually I want to build a d44 pinion guard like I’ve seen on eBay for substantial amounts of moolah.

And then I’ll also need a hidden winch bumper to match the rear that I build last year after bending my old pipe bumper back at K2.

After all of that, I’ll be “done.” Oh, except for repairing the ding in the grill from the first trail at OCBR last year appropriately named “Can Opener.”. THANKS, SPAREPARTS!!!


Hopefully I can force myself to get the camcorder at to do some time lapses and stuff. But that sort of requires me to keep my shop clean and safe-lookin....


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lol can opener can be kind ruff.
won't be long now, better hurry

That poor grill make me kinda sad.

Rustytruck said:

That poor grill make me kinda sad.

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I’ve considered getting a stud welder to try to work it back out, but the fender is bent pretty good too. I’m collecting fiberglass. My BIL won a Hood last year that I wanted to trade him out of, but he declined...


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So I've been recording bits and piece of the arm project on the camcorder. Otherwise, i'd be posting pics here. And I realized this morning that I only tightened two of the axle retaining nuts on each end of the rear housing before driving to town the other night... Bought new nuts this morning to replace the rounded off nuts....

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I was hoping to cut the original brackets off the frame and move them back, but they aren’t shaped right given my transmission supports and they are also covered up by stuff on the inside of the frame. So I found some big bronco brackets out in the junk pile and am going to build some heavy duty brackets from those. Hopefully ( maybe I’m a bit too ambitious) today I’ll get around to porting my steering box for ram assist.


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looking good, how much longer are they than stock?

Skiddy said:

looking good, how much longer are they than stock?

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9-3/4”. Because of my homemade cross member frame brackets I can’t push the front axle out any more than 3/4”. Really wanted 1-1/2 or so. I cut 4” off because I thought they were too long. Should’ve left them alone.

Right now I’m fighting getting them to fit in the brackets I built because they are almost straight. After that, I can verify that the axle is located where I want it and then take it back apart and weld the brackets to the frame.

It’s kicking my butt. But I’m gonna dominate it!


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Got it bolted in at the end of the arms. Looks like I picked up an inch out on the right and an inch and a half on the left... housing is pretty close to center under the truck. Here’s three pics at rideheight.





And one more pic at more than full stuffed.



Not sure how hard I want to work to get the 1/2 out of it.


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Went under it this morning and measured a different way. From front of rear housing under springs to the bottom of front housing is pretty much the same measurement. So it appears that my original measurements had issues??? Anyway, now I guess I’m gonna build some HD coil cups because the originals are bent pretty good.


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Ol’ Blue (?) gets a “makeunder.”

I put these “new” spring cups on and stuck a spring in it. Didn’t like the curve.



So after much deliberation, I decided to stick a steel wedge shim for the leafs in it. That helped some but not much. So I then decided to grind on the top of the arm to get some “lay back” there. After just a few minutes I had gained about 5 degrees, plus the 5 degrees from the wedge.



It’s much better, but with the axle moved forward about an 1-1/4 (according to pretty precise measurement of wheelbase between housings) I decided I could drill another hole in the cup and move it toward the rear about an inch maybe, and help the spring get more vertical and look A LOT better.

So next weekend (after catching up on mowing that should’ve been done last weekend before the rain) I’ll drill the cups, grind the other arm to match, weld the rad arm brackets on the frame and build some bump stop extensions.

After that I’ll have to take it all apart to grind the knuckles loose to adjust the caster, and put it all back together. Several other things to do to finish up, but I’m gonna consider these baby steps. (Dave Ramsey talks about taking baby steps to financial freedom, but Here we’ll talk about baby steps to flexible freedom!)






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Ol’ Blue (?) gets a “makeunder.”

Final product after shaving the top of the radius arm.


To get that final look, I had to move the spring cup back. I did this by turning the cup and drilling a new hole. This pick shows the rotation. You can compare it to your stock positioning.

Here’s a shot showing the original second hole open.



I cut and turnt (I love that word!) the knuckles and got a little more stagger. When looking at these numbers, take off 1.2 degrees because the front axle is two inches higher than the rear.




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My $5 adjustable track bar. I bored it in the lathe so that the 3/4 threaded part gives me about an inch of adjustment. My initial measurements show the axle to be 1/2” to the driver side. I’ll try to get 1/4” in where I locate the track bar riser, and the rest with the adjustment.





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I had to modify the track bar riser because my track bar was too long. But I went ahead and cut an inch out of the bar and rewelded it...






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That riser looks really close to the frame, like you will not have much up-travel.

I welded my knuckles back on yesterday and put the axle back under the bronco. At ride height, I measured 5.4 degrees caster on the drivers side and 6.3 degrees on the pass side. They were supposed to have been the same, but I remembered that I had let the passenger knuckle hit the ground pretty hard when letting it down on the jack. I didn't think it would change it because I had a tough time getting it to move with my sledge hammer. (May have twisted the axle tube!! LOL.) I had so much trouble I even pulled the ol' torch out and heated the knuckle to loosen it up, but it didn't help much.

So we'll see how it drives with more caster on the right... If it's bad, I guess i'll have to start playing with camber shims and offset ball joints. Anybody want to share a link for those? I've never searched for them and haven't run into them on any website.

So how did I pick my caster numbers? Well, it was an interesting process. I started with advice that I'd picked up here from several members. I'd read you want between 5 and 9 degrees, so I decided to go with 7. Right in the middle. I'd like it to be 9 because I like to drive fast and straight. But at that setting, I can see my high dollar 35s burning off just from the turning I do in the Walmart parking lot alone--much less add in all the other stores I frequently visit. Then my dad got involved. He pointed out that straight axle trucks don't get a lot of caster or they pick up death wobble.

So I had already set the caster at about 7 with some extra numbers involved. Someone here somewhere suggested you can flip the rear C bushings and offset whatever caster adjustment they're supposed to get you. I had installed my 2 degree bushings this way so that I could adjust 2 degrees later on by flipping either the front or back. Then I asked a friend his opinion on this and he said that this would cause binding, which I had suspected would happen. (When I pulled the arms off the second time, it was obvious this idea will wear them out REALLY quick, so I wouldn't do this. The shape of the inside of the bushings doesn't fit well with the wedges because you've distorted the shape of the diamond.)

Also, the front axle was jacked up 2" higher than the rear, so this amounts to 1.2 degrees added caster. So I played with the numbers and set the knuckles so that I'd have about 6 degrees in the end, assuming that I would pick up 2 degrees by installing the c bushings as they were meant to be used. For adjustment if needed, I'll either have to order some stock rubber bushings or reuse my old but not worn out 4 degree bushings.

Before I put the arms back on, I stuck them in the pipe bender to add a little bend near the rear end to help get them started back in the frame brackets. By being so much longer than stock they come much closer together and it's a chore to get them started in the brackets. It also puts more stress on the C bushings. It's all much better now, tho I wish I had put just a touch more bend in them.

I also welded the track bar riser on after cutting the top hole off. This leaves about 6" between the riser and the frame. I have a feeling I'm gonna end up cutting another hole off and dropping the frame mounted end a little bit. I don't think I'm gonna have as much travel as I expected when I ordered shocks, but we'll confirm that after I get it back together next weekend. (I dislike working 3 hours from home!)

I also tacked on my ram mounts and quickly realized that I had done it with the ram all the way in and the knuckles straight ahead. But it was only about 256.3*F in the shop, so.... I pulled the brackets off the tie rod and cleaned them up so I can redo this quickly later. I want to wait until I have the drop pitman arm on the box to be sure I capture the true extents of turning angles. I'm also considering how much I need to put a limiting block inside the ram to keep from breaking knuckles or joints later.

That's all the updates. No pics considering how much I have to redo.

Got a little more done just now. Might be able to drop that track bar just a little more. What do you guys think?






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