[the1ted]

Here are more frame pics. The first piece is the bracket I had laser cut from a drawing (thank God for high school drafting class!). Four of these were welded to the bottom of the axle tubes on the 1-ton rear end. It is a tight fit against the shock mount on the passenger side and the cast housing on the driver's side. From these mounts I measured and had heavy tubing for a four-link suspension system cut and welded to 4 eye ends that are adjustable and serviceable. All this was to locate and keep the rear axle in place. When I took this apart before this build, the U-bolts were twisted and had to be torched off. Leaves in both springs were broken, probably due to the axle wrap from acceleration. I was hard on the truck, especially during snowplowing, and pulled a few trees down along with just plain 'jackrabbit' driving!
The front of the traction arms are located on a piece of Grade 8 all-thread fed thru the front spring hangers and held in place with Grade 8 lockwashers, flats, and nuts. I tried to align the pivot point as close as possible to the front eye end of the springs. It came about an inch higher, but the 1-ton springs are so stiff I don't forsee any problems. In the third picture you can see the bottom of the crossmember where the bolts drop down from the replaced piece. Also there is a good look at the bolt method used to reattach the spring hanger.
Finally there is one photo of the front hanger (rear) that was original to the frame. Took them off and looked hard for replacements. Without success, I had the rust areas layered with wire welding and a few more welds added to stabilize them. One interesting thing is that you can see the penetration of the powdercoating while the were attached to the frame. Anyways, I looked on eBay and found a guy in Las Vegas who offered to search out any part you needed, so I decided to get a different set of hangers. The last pic shows the new install on these.