Suspension update for the '63

[whateverpratt]

The front suspension on my '63 c10 (the yellow rust bucket) is in poor repair. Age and neglect (mostly neglect, sorry old friend) have taken their toll. Both upper control arms had worn through their bushings enough to allow the bushings to escape. The tie rod ends had more play in them than I've ever seen; however, the ball joints were actually in good shape.

This blessed site had given me some ideas about swapping suspension components, and somehow I came to the conclusion that a complete front suspension swap would be a good idea. An acquaintance I made through selling old engines on CL helped me locate a free 1985 C30. I picked it up and parted it out to pay or the trip. All that's left of it is the front suspension. Unfortunately, there was lots of welding done to the frame near the crossmember, so it was actually rather difficult to pull it off of the old 1 ton frame.

You might be wondering why I went for one ton suspension. I really appreciate a stiff stiff front suspension, and I wanted options for stiffer spring rates. I prefer utility and strength over comfort when it comes to my truck.

My good old 3.73 posi 12 bolt had served be well and surpassed my expectations considering what I had put it through (hauling 3,000+ pounds in the bed of the truck, sorry about that); however, I have quite an affinity for the old corporate axles (some say Eaton). I have a few H072's laying around, and I plan to swap out the 12 bolt for an H072 sporting a 4.10 third member.

The only real project complication is that I moved from Texas to Florida for work, and the truck is at my brother's place in Texas. That being said, we spent nearly a week in Texas at the end of March, and I was able to do some wrenching.

[whateverpratt]

My brother was kind enough (read: he wants it out of his driveway) that he did some minor stuff before I arrived. He unhooked the brake line to the rear axle, removed the driveshaft, unbolted the trac bar, and loosened the u bolts. Removing the rear axle was nearly child's play.

A bare H072 axle housing was placed in the venerable 12 bolt's old work space. The axle mounted up flawlessly, and the old U bolts fit it perfectly. The only thing needed for this swap (though most seem to downgrade from the 3/4 to 1/2 ton rear axles) is the 3/4 ton trac bar which I had a couple of. Take a look at the pic of the 1/2 ton and 3/4 ton trac bars together. The mounting spot on the 1/2 ton and 3/4 ton frames look to be the same.

I'm waiting till my next trip back to finish the rear axle. As it sits now, it has some hubs with a few studs each so it can have wheels and a differential cover front and rear on the housing to keep out the cats. The next trip will include activities such as installing new bearings in the hubs, installing the 14 bolt disc brake conversion, installing the third member, installing the axles, installing the 3/4 ton trac bar with new bushings, and filling it up with fluid. The only major thing that might be needed for this rear axle swap might be a shortening of my driveshaft, but we'll see.

[whateverpratt]

The goal for day 1 was the rear axle swap. It went well. The goal for day 2 was the removal of the front suspension crossmember. I didn't know how involved this would be, and one of the biggest questions I had was whether or not the engine mounts would hold the 350 up without the support of the crossmember (though I had this vague memory that I had read somewhere on here that they would be fine).

We removed the wheels, the front shocks, the old manual steering box (last year I hit up Captain Fab for his power steering box bracket as well as his hydro boost brake brackets since I kept the power hydraulics off of the C30), the idler arm, the brake lines, and then we went to town on the crossmember bolts. There are 3 bolts on each side that vertically secure the crossmember to the frame, and one bolt on each side that secures the motor mount to the crossmember (the other to bolts for the motor mount bracket mount to the top of the frame). Some of those bottom bolts took quite a while to remove since we were leaving everything in place.

Once those were removed, we had the 4 bolts on each side that horizontally secure the crossmember to the frame. The bottom two enter from the frame side and screw into the square nuts that are welded onto the crossmember, and the top two are actual nut and bolts. Lots of wd40, pb blaster, and especially wirebrushing any exposed threads that were able to be reached helped us to not break any of the bolts (all of the old bolts were grade 8, so that helped too).

Then we lowered the crossmember with a jack, and dragged it right out. It really wasn't that bad if you are patient with some of the hard to reach bolts.

[whateverpratt]

And my biggest question was answered. If you have a 350 with an aluminum intake bolted to the original 1963 motor mount brackets with the original bellhousing and bellhousing crossmember backed with an nv4500 and adapter plate, it will be fine. The motor won't come crashing down on top of the suspension crossmember. It might not be very easy to see in the pictures, but these are of the engine hanging out in there without the suspension crossmember.

[whateverpratt]

I still had some grinding to do on the '85 c30 front suspension. There was some really wonkish stuff going on with that truck. It almost looked as if the truck had been in a wreck, and they hacked off the frame just behind the front suspension cross member and welded on another one. It was wierd. Note: I am aware that it has dually hubs. These will be replaced since the brake rotors and hubs are one unit and because I'd like to start with new rotors.

[whateverpratt]

Day 3 would answer my other burning question. How many of the newer cross member holes will actually line up with the old frame holes. Answer: most.

There's a stout piece of stamped steel (the grey piece on the ground in the bottom picture) that fits on the inside of the frame rail on the squarebody trucks. It has one hole on the top for a bolt to go through the frame and the motor mount bracket, four on the side for those horizontal bolts, and two on the bottom for the vertical crossmember bolts (it doesn't cover all three because of its size). The top hole didn't match up with the '63 motor mount bracket and frame hole. Once the crossmember was installed, we just used the '63 holes as a guide and drilled through that piece since it was held inplace by the other bolts. That's one hole per side.

The other hole that didn't line up was the front (closer towards the bumper of the two) top horizontal hole on each side (hole without bolt in pic). Again, after bolting everything up, we used the front suspension crossmember as our guide for drilling through the truck frame. Once through the truck frame, the inside plate showed a hole in just the right spot (as it should have).

The happy news: the '85 cross member had correctly placed holes for the original '63 motor mount brackets, all the bottom of the frame to the top of the cross member vertical bolt holes lines up perfectly, and 3 of the four horizontal bolts lined up (full disclosure: there was a little bit of round file use on the horizontal bottom holes for ease of installation).

We finished up day three with the crossmember partially mounted up.

[whateverpratt]

Day four goal was to finish up. We drilled the 4 holes, and bolted everything up.

An interesting discovery was that the manual steering box and the '63 idler arm will work in stick locations with the stock steering components of the c30. The idler arm TRE's were the same between the two as well as the pitman arm TRE's. So the old manual box and the old idler arm went back on for the purposes of being able to steer the old yellow rust bucket. I do think I'll go with the power steering eventually, but I might keep it manual for a while since it's simple and it fits everything so well.

The front tires look goofy because of the dually hubs, and the truck is leaning to the passenger side a little. This could be because the frame is bent, the front cross member is tweaked, the used tire I put on that side is a little smaller despite being the same size, the passenger coil is a little tired, the rear doesn't have the trac bar installed yet, or who knows. I'll figure that out eventually.

The next time I return to my homeland will be a time of rear axle work, brake work, and making the truck move under it's own power again.

[aggie91]

This is kinda like a long distance love affair...

[whateverpratt]

A random 5.83 sighting in old literature

[whateverpratt]

I finished the brakes and have put a couple thousand miles on the truck since the swap. I will say that the c30 crossmember was a little overkill. I don't know if a c20 would have been better with regards to the overall lift of the front of the truck, but now I'm about to swap the body onto a k10 frame, so goodbye 2wd.