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.