Update!
I decided to tackle the rear end. Some background, decided to go with a Speedway motors bolt in triangulated 4-link. I wanted to have this done last week but as everyone knows, life gets in the way.
My peach tree and tomatoes decided to explode and i'm the chief canner so...i can proudly sayI have 46 quarts and 12 half gallons of canned peaches and 18 quarts of BBQ sauce w/ 3 gallons of tomato paste to be processed later, not to mention school starts this week, but I digress...
So when I did get to work on the truck, I decided to tackle the rear end.
I went together pretty straight forward. Actually I'm positively surprised. This kit is designed to be mounted to Speedway's aftermarket frame. Not really researching their frame I wasn't sure how much it mimics the OG frame. The instructions are a bit vague and I was thinking, " great, I'm going to have to do this the old fashion way by winging and eyeballing, and drill out the holes for the kit..."
So as I'm starting to mock up the kit, I realize that it uses existing holes in the frame, or previous rivet holes....sweet! I only needed to "massage" the front lower 4 link arm bracket so it would fit in between the rear bracket of the running board and existing bracket for the parking brake. (at this time I'm going to try to use them with existing 8.8 rear and incorporate an Exploder E-brake). I also had to trim the axle brackets as their for a 3" axle and the 8.8 is 3.25", again no big whoop.
So like I've said, i'm a bit surprised by the utility of the Speedway kit. Everything goes where its supposed to and the upper and lower arms line up the axle in the original location, plus their adjustable. I have the pinion set at 4 degrees currently but can tweak if needed.
Now the bad...if you can call it that. Whoever packs for Speedway messed up and mis-id'd the upper brackets. I got sent 2 right side brackets but one was mis-packed so when it was scanned it came up correct. I've reached out to their customer services and provided pics to help explain the issue. we'll see what they say, i'm not to worried as I've had good experiences with them in the past.
So...next steps. I need to drill the brackets for the upper brackets ( hence the drill on the frame,
) I need to order coil overs for the rear and place the bracket. When the upper brackets arrive they need to get tacked in. When everything looks good, all brackets need to be final welded. Then the rear will be done
Then on to the motor....
Stay tuned...