[PatJ]

Because I had done so much research on the front end and had a donor crossmember to work on this part went really smooth with no real surprises.

Once the front was done I knew that starting the rear was going to be the serious step because the truck was going to come off the road and be in the garage for some unknown amount of time. I was confident but also a little worried I would get in over my head. At this point in the build I was planning to keep it pretty low budget. The plan was try to keep as many original parts as I could and modify them if needed to keep the budget down. I planned on keeping the original trailing arms and only doing a mild step notch, again to save as much usable bed as I could. I never plan on running huge wheels so I thought this seemed reasonable.

Needless to say the rear is when things got really difficult and the plan started to change. It was a really tough decision on where to pull the trigger on the depth. Ive always wanted it slammed but I was torn on how low to go. Its really hard to find any mid sizes step notches out there, most people go C notch or all the way. This is also the decision that made it difficult to source a kit or parts that would work since all the nice rear half kits are a deep notch.