[dsraven]

if you have the bed wood off and a mock up bed wood in place i would suggest you use a come along or something like that to suck the suspension all the way up until it is going to bottom the rear axle on the bed wood. pin it there, then build some definate suspension limiting stops so that height will become your absolute end of upward travel for the axle. you can do this and also incorporate a snubber so the end of travel isn't metal on metal and also includes a trip to the dentist after a full bottoming while driving. figure out where the stop needs to be then add a little for a snubber rubber or urethane block. personally i lean towards the urethane snubbers that are beehive shaped and some of those are from stock gm trucks, like an S10 or an avalanche. this will allow some dampening effects before the actual end of travel occurs. you should never leave these things to chance as that is how expensive things get wrecked. if the goal is to have sheet metal touching the ground, thats fine but, the suspension needs to be modified to do that properly.