[meenaggie]

I will give you my experience and what I did . . . as well as some options I considered. First, my truck is a 1968 Chevy C10 SWB. The previous owner had lowered the truck and installed a ECE (Early Classic Enterprises) trailing arm cross member. I replaced the front and rear suspension with a No Limit Wide Ride IFS and trailing arm setup. At the same time I installed the No Limit rear notch kit.

I think you already understand but allow me to go into the details for others who may read this post. The No Limit trailing arm setup is designed to use the stock trailing arm cross member. The stock trailing arm cross member has angled sections where the trailing attaches that create the angle between the front and rear mounting points. This means the brackets provided by No Limit for the front mount of the trailing arms are STRAIGHT. Most of the aftermarket trailing arm cross members are completely straight across and create the angle in the front mount bracket itself. Meaning the aftermarket brackets are angled and not straight. This becomes an issue as the heavy duty front joint of the No Limit trailing arms is slightly narrower in width and uses a smaller diameter through bolt than stock. Hence you cannot simply bolt the bracket provided by No Limit to your ECE cross member. Nor can you simply bolt the No Limit trailing arm front joint to the ECE bracket.

To solve this issue and retain the ECE cross member I decided to have some bushings machined to account for the differences. (I did not have a stock cross member available and did not want to go source one as I planned on running the exhaust through the cross member.) I have attached several pictures showing how they install and dimensions. I used oiled bronze for the bushing as I was able to start with some flanged bushing from Lowe’s rather than a piece of bar stock. I had a friend do me a favor to get the machining done and do not have personal access to a lathe. So unfortunately I cannot make these for other folks.

If you don’t want to go that route here are some other solutions I considered.

1. Source an OEM trailing cross member and replace the ECE cross member I already had installed. The No Limit brackets will bolt right on (after you remove a bunch of rivets.)

2. Make new brackets the same width and hole size as No Limit but with the angle needed. Basically this is creating a hybrid of the ECE and No Limit bracket. You need some mild fabrication skills including access to a welder and drill (or drill press).

3. Weld the No Limit brackets at an angle to the ECE cross member. You will need to make a wedge and spacer on one side to make this work.
I hope that info helps.