Bouncy Burb

[swissarmychainsaw]

I have a 73 Suburban and I would like to sort out the ride.
It's not *terrible* but there are some bumps on the highway where the thing feels like it's getting too much altitude!

Shopping for springs and shocks, and so far "off road designs" seems to have replacements. But I'm not sure what I'm looking for as I'm new to "4 Leafs".

I'm eyeing Bilstein 5125 (from memory).

Can y'all make some recommendations on springs/shock combos you like?

It's a family camping rig with some light off-roading.

Tuff Country and ORD seem like a no-brainer: http://offroaddesign.com/catalog/2inchliftsystem.htm

Thanks!

[Bigdav160]

I'm not sure I can help since I have a '72 with shorter springs. My experience is once you deviate from stock, the ride gets stiff and bouncy.

I have a two inch Tuff Country lift with premium shocks and it's great on smooth roads but is very harsh on bumps at speed.

[swissarmychainsaw]

So I guess my question really is this: How do you know when your leaf springs need replacing?

Then, once you figure that out, how do you know what springs you currently have?
(Mine has a lift on it, there are blocks in the rear)

[Ziegelsteinfaust]

Bouncy sounds like shocks to be. Were as stiff or soft would be springs.

[Warrens69GMC]

Try this first - Add some weight to the front and rear (secured sand bag) and see if that sorts it out. if it does, add a winch to the front, and a high lift jack to the rear or something else that would give you a little weight.

[swissarmychainsaw]

Actually, I did. More or less.

I went camping and put a bunch of gear in it and a motorcycle on a hitch carrier and it rode pretty good like that.

However there is still an....oscillation in the front that needs addressing.
Mostly I can look over and see the passenger fender rapidly going up and down.
Also the brake pedal tends to shake back and forth and makes a noise.

I make it sound like it's coming apart! But these are relatively minor annoyances, but need addressing.

I'm going to rebuild the front end, and put some shocks on it and see where that takes me. Might take a little time, but when I rebuilt the front end on my RWD square the difference was amazing!

thanks for the replies!
--Nick

[1tuff71]

Alcan spring or Deaver can make your springs up for you. Remember more thinner leaves will give you a better ride.

[Mr. 250r]

ORD now makes custom springs like deaver and alcan basically they all take thinner springs which flex more but stack more of them on there so you keep the same tow capacity or you could get some ez rides i hear good things about them, give ord a call they will set you up with what you want there good guys

[kwmech]

The square body suburbans had this problem for quite a while. GM in the later years put an additional shock in the front. I had the quad shocks on my 1990, it rode really nice.

[swissarmychainsaw]

By the way, this turned out to be bad tires.

Seems stupid now, that I did not try this right away, but I put the fronts on the rear and the problem nearly completely went away.

I also had it aligned after, just in case that was what was causing the tires to wear badly.
My theory is that it was just bad tires b/c it did this when they were brand new.
No more Internet Tires for me!