With the tubs mostly done, there were only a few things left to finish up before I could put the suspension and bed back together for good. One thing I did that I did not take a picture of was flip my truck arm mounts on the crossmember. This helps gain back some pinion angle that you lose by dropping the rear so much. I also tested adding a 1/2" spacer between the mount and crossmember to counteract the problem of the rear moving forward as it drops, but 1/2" was too much. In the end, I did not add a spacer because the rear looks fairly centered when you look at the rear wheel straight on. I'm not sure why some trucks look like the rear end is moved too far forward, but on both of my trucks the rear looked just fine even with a big drop. Another thing to note for those who want to flip these brackets is I lost about 1/2" of my total drop because the truck arm pivots around the spring, so when the front mounting point goes up the rearend has to go down. Ultimately this doesnt matter for me because I'm dropping it less than 2" more and this can be accomplished with blocks.
The other thing that needed to be addressed was the bumper mounting location. Since the bed floor is raised 5" I had to drop the bumper mounting points by an equal amount. This put the holes below the frame, so I had to make extension brackets. These were boxed and welded to the frame and relocate the bumper perfectly.
With the brackets done and all other component modifications complete, it was time to reassemble the bed. I used the bed bolt kits from Classic Parts. Everything bolted back up like stock and the bed floor even bolted to the exact same position on the mounts as it was before any modifications!
You can see here that the bed basically looks stock, just shallower. For my intended purposes it will not be a hindrance to have reduced bed volume. Eventually I may paint the bed scars, but for now I will leave them. The one on the front panel has been exposed sitting in the garage for two months now and still looks clean, so I'm not too worried about these rusting any time soon.
Outside, you can get a better idea of what the truck will look like when complete. This is close to the final ride height. Once I add the drivetrain and blocks it will drop roughly one more inch. This will still leave me 5" of crossmember clearance, plenty for our relatively nice roads here in NC. Even Muttley loves it and is looking forward to riding in it one day, I think.
After reassembly, I noticed that I do have a few filler panels to make. One is at the rear to fill in between the bottom of the bed floor and the tailgate. The other is in the rear wheel wells. With the bed floor raised so much, and the original rear wheel well filler piece obsolete for this application, it leaves an awkward open space behind the wheel. I will eventually make some piece and paint it black to hide this and make it look more solid.
At this point, the truck is basically just yard art until I get going on the engine. I am currently following several leads on an engine for a 5.3 swap, but have not picked anything up yet. Until then, I will just have to enjoy looking at the truck for now.
