Shackle Reversal Kit on 1988 F350

[mabc926]

I'm not gonna turn this into a ******* match, I trust what he says/does, cause he has helped me with my truck a lot.

Anyways, I gave him a link to this thread, so he can defend his truck/work.

 

[oreocreaming]

ok, buying skys kit is cool, price is tons better then any other kit out there BUT you have to do a little work. you have to trim the inside plate of the front shackle and plate your frame to box it in. now, if you have a torch, drill press and a little know how then making your own kit is easy enough. i decided to go with 1/2" plate on mine, you can do the lift/conversion for very very cheap if you go 4 1/2" lift.

now, you can either get flat stock 1/2" plate OR get a piece of 1/2" plate and cut 4 strips out of it. Also wanna get some 1/4" plate to box in your frame at the horn. Place the 1/2" plate in a vice, heat with a torch and bend a Z shape in it, clamp to your frame and weld/bolt. for the rear shackle you just need a factory rear shackle from your rear axle and bolt it in. they are 4 1/2" exactly eye to eye lift. What i do is welded my front plate in at 4 1/4" to give my pinion angle a little relief then you can set the final shim point with 2 or 4 degree shims.

After that, take 1/4" plate, hold it up to the inner drop mount for the leaf and trace your frame horn, trim to fit and fill the space, weld her right in on all 4 sides and you got yourself a strong tie in. Take the 1/4" plate and make a drop bracket for the track bar and done with the lift.

Brake lines are easy, unhook the brake lines at the frame, flip the bracket and drill 2 new holes. one for the bolt, one for the hold tab. hook it back up and bleed. Front driveline will need to be extended or replaced with a new cv front driveshaft. For the steering, you can get as much as a 5.5" drop pitman arm. anything from that point on you wanna get some DOM wall tubing and have a Z bar bent out of at least .188 wall tubing. I went with 1 1/2" .250 wall dom tubing with 3/4x3/4" heim joints. had my pitman arm and lower rod ends drilled out (you will never do it, i burned though 4 bits to get 1/8" deep) and get some grade 8 3/4 bolts to bolt it up.

Thats pretty much it, i had it done start to finish in 2 days. the ride is better, as good as it can be with 46" military tires with 12 ply sidewalls. heres some pics, when i get the truck back i can take more if you need.

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here you an see the new Z bar, and you can see the difference between the old drag link ends and the new 3/4" heim joints. steering is the last part you wanna skimp on. it helps that i have hydraulic assist steering, that takes a lot of stress of my box, you may wanna go with a hi-steer kit or cross over steering. this is just what worked for me.

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and as far as the sky rear shackle flip kit, its fairly easy. i had to move my front hanger back 2" because the axle looked like crap being so far forward. the kit is easy enough, cut your old rivets off, bolt the bracket in the factory holes (thats why its not level, factory holes are offset. dont know why sky couldnt take the extra 10 seconds to set their holes to match but whatever) heres the pics on that. I also got new poly bushings on every square inch on the truck. the rubber ones were so broken down everywhere it looked terrible. its only like $200 between everything. well worth it imo.

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feel free to pm me here or find me on FTE if you have any other questions.

 

[oreocreaming]

i dont know, that guys truck sorta scares me the way some things are done.

that rear shackle angle is way off. that tall of a spring perch on front i would of boxed.

plus considering he was running blocks in the front, i wouldnt listen to one word he said. thats just dumb. dont care if they were only 1 inch tall.

the pictures are of my truck as it was being done. im no where near done yet. still boxing the perch as stated, also running a cross brace from one side to the other like skys kit. the rear shackle angle is exactly as it went on from sky before i pushed the axle back. they are under construction pics bud, not complete. and the block is a angled block, was to set the degree of my pinion. oh, its 1" in the front and solid.

 

[oreocreaming]

I read through it all I saw him say is its not illegal to run front blocks if they are welded to the axle. I don't know what the kingpin dana 60's look like but on the balljoint ones the diff is so close to the steering knuckle and it actually has the spring mount built into it which is cast not just mild steel. I think this would be a bad idea on something like this. Even if its not like the ball joint dana 60's its a bad idea to have a lift block because all the force of turning will be pushing sideways against that block.. I don't see the advantage of a 1" lift block compared to the peace of mind of doing it the right way or at least what everyone else has considered to be safe Why be a pioneer in dangerous suspension design? I looked at the spring mounts he was building for the front and I think its really under designed and not much thought given to locating the axle how it was from the factory but lower. It looks like one of the projects of get er done and make it lifted. I don't mean to insult it or anything but there are better ways of doing this and if its a money deal then wait until you can afford to do it better.

its not really for lift, its for pinion and knuckle angle. after the lift its coming off, the angle that the 4" spring put on it was junk. it was a fix until the front kit was built.

the axle is set to the exact measurements given for the sky kit. only change made was my own spring perch instead of theirs. plate is twice as thick, exact placement except 3/4" lower.
factory axle location

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after reversal lift location

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looks the same to me. measures the same too. crazy that huh? and as you can see in the pic, the kit in the rear pushes the axle forward a ton, thats right after the rear half of the kit was installed before i moved the axle back to center of the wheel well.

 

[oreocreaming]

its a shame that nobody here posts pictures of projects as they are being done. at least im guessing that nobody does because your all expecting every picture to be a completed project.

 

[typ4]

I have tons but need to start a build thread some day. Truck has been rebuilt back to front. Oh wait ,it says that in the sig.


Oreo, nice looking ride, I dont do lifted because of the camper and all but I do want to do a front reversal so it handles better.

 

[oreocreaming]

I have tons but need to start a build thread some day. Truck has been rebuilt back to front. Oh wait ,it says that in the sig.


Oreo, nice looking ride, I dont do lifted because of the camper and all but I do want to do a front reversal so it handles better.

thanks man. ya, it started 4" lift with 35's but it was too much lift for the tire, so i went 37's. was perfect until i needed new tires. they cost a fortune and i got a good deal on a set of 42's. one took a crap, replacement was 454 and it handled like crap when hauling so i went 46's and lifted it more. lol... its a bad bad chain of events. i haul 12k+ all the time, truck does great with it.

 

[Dieselcrawler]

i posted progress pics. also can i send in the steering pic u took to scary steering? get highsteer on that thing and get rid of the z bar.


http://128.83.80.200/taco/scarysteering.html

 

[oreocreaming]

you cant compare my z bar to any of those. ive got a 9" drop that is stronger steel then the frame of the truck, weld in bungs that are built for the tube i used. not to mention the hydraulic assist takes most of the grunt. high steer wouldnt work for me because my lower rod end is connected to the hydraulic assist. i could and will do a cross over for the drag link later, but that involves a new knuckle and thats not in the budget right now. it will come after the rear disc conversion and 3g alternator. and the cross over steering kit offered at my local 4wd shop still has a z bar.

 

[Dieselcrawler]

sky has crossover for the king pin 60 i belive. run a highsteer arm on the pass side knuckle( replaces the upper king pin cap) and run the draglink down to that. leave the factory tie rod for the ram then.

also where did u get ur steering box taped for the ram at? i been pricing around. would be nice to help off road.

 

[oreocreaming]

i dont wanna run just a cap replacing piece. id rather get a knuckle cast for the added stress of a crossover. so, whats your fear of my draglink? the fact that its twice as strong as the factory one? the fact that its got the same top bend as the factory, just has a bottom bend to ease the stress on the ends?

 

[Dieselcrawler]

i seen many z links bend off road. but i am gona guess urs is not for off road.

 

[88IDITurbo]

Diesel brad and Oreocreaming thanks for the info! I must state that I did not intend for this thread to be a bashing match but rather a place for all of us to learn so lets please keep it on topic.

To clarify I have already bought the Sky Manufacturing 3 Inch (Ford-FSR-003) Shackle Reversal Kit and a set of Superlift 4" (01-204) Leaf Springs for the front. I just bought the pickup you see in my Avatar which was lifted by the previous owner in the front with a 2" block and some homemade hacked up sketchy drop shackles.

This is the rebuild!

 

[94turboidi]

Diesel brad and Oreocreaming thanks for the info! I must state that I did not intend for this thread to be a bashing match but rather a place for all of us to learn so lets please keep it on topic.

To clarify I have already bought the Sky Manufacturing 3 Inch (Ford-FSR-003) Shackle Reversal Kit and a set of Superlift 4" (01-204) Leaf Springs for the front. I just bought the pickup you see in my Avatar which was lifted by the previous owner in the front with a 2" block and some homemade hacked up sketchy drop shackles.

This is the rebuild!

Agreed lets turn back towards your project at hand! Keep everyone posted because I think it comes up fairly often about how to put these on the older frames but I don't think there is many pics of it being installed.

 

[88IDITurbo]

The shackle reversal kit and the new springs will both be going up front for hopefully a total of 6" lift after suspension / spring sag. Right now the rear has blocks and track bars, I may be swapping those out as well for a set of 6" springs to hopefully reduce my wheel hop I get off the line.

Last night I started tearing into it, I got the truck up on jack stands and the leaf springs unbolted from the frame. Tonight I'll get the shocks and shock towers off as well as unbolt the leaf springs from the axle.

If anyone has a good source for buying new shock towers and lower shock mounts/ spring plates please let me know. This is another item the previous owner hacked up thinking he could make a cheap dual shock mount. I want to go back to a good quality single shock and will be ordering a set of Rancho RS9000XL shocks tomorrow since the existing shocks are pretty well shot.