73-87 Suspension swap

[777ralph]

I'm swapping the suspension, power brake setup, and steering from an 82 GMC halfton to my 64 Chevy shortbox. Here's the victim:

And there goes the donor:

The front bumper is 9 inches off the ground right now, and hopefully will be about the same when I'm done (the roads here suck). The previous owner torched two and three-quarter coils off to lower the front. I'm hoping to end up in the same place with one coil cut off the donor springs, and a set of 2 1/2" dropped Belltch spindles. Sound about right? I got the spindles off Kijiji, and the six bolt discs and calipers and stuff for a smokin deal from our friends at CPP.
I read somewhere that to use the 73-87 lower A arms you had to drill out the Ubolt holes in the crossmember for the larger, newer Ubolts. Nope. Bolts right up with the 64 Ubolts, though they do look puny compared to the newer ones.

For the power steering conversion I'm going to look at grafting a bit of the 82 frame onto the 64 to mount the steering box. Anybody done it? Probably the easier option would be to call up Captainfab for one of his adapters, but I wanted to look at the grafting possibility first.
I got the A arms in today, and I'll continue this thread when I get more done during the holidays.
Ralph

[Captainfab]

I would recommend upgrading to the larger U-bolts. Yes the '73-'87 LCA's will bolt up with your original U-bolts, but the larger ones are good insurance IMO. There is likely a good reason that GM went with the larger U-bolts in the later years. I've had 2 of the original U-bolts on my '66 Suburban break on me. Luckily it was only 1 at a time and no incident as a result, but it could have been a really bad situation the one time.

[777ralph]

Captainfab, I'll take your advice and drill my crossmember for the larger Ubolts. GM's engineers are probably right! K1, I'm using the springs from the 82 GMC i scrapped.
I mounted the 82 Vacuum booster to the firewall. The stock master mounts with two bolts. there are another two bolts above and below those on each side that mount the brake pedal box. They interfere with the vacuum booster bracket. Pictures would help here, but I didn't take any. Sorry 'bout that. Captainfab makes a nice bracket that gets around that issue, but that would be the easy way out, and if there's a hard way to do something, I'll find it. I removed the offending bolts, mounted the new booster through the original holes, crawled under the dash, and centerpunched the pedal box hole locations on the booster bracket. then I drilled out those locations on the booster bracket to about an inch round with a unibit, to clear the bolt heads. Replaced the pedalbox bolts, and bolted the booster back on. The pedalbox bolt heads are really close to where the booster bracket goes perpendicular to the firewall. Maybe with small bolt heads, or Allen head bolts, you could use them to help mount the booster, but it would be tight.
More soon,
Ralph

[777ralph]

Trouble! I put the rotors and calipers on, and was able to mount the wheels. The 2 1/2" dropped spindles make the A arms interfere with the wheels! The tip of the A arm hits the rim right where the wheel weights would ride. A wheel with just a touch more offset to the outside would work, or a 16" wheel (or a 2" dropped spindle). I've decided to grind about 1/8" off the bottom of the A arm at the tip for clearance.
Nothing aftermarket ever "just bolts up"!
Ralph

[777ralph]

OK, picked up some 1/4" spacers. With those and a little grinding on the nose of the A arm, everything mounts up.

Got the calipers on, now for brake lines. The brake hoses CPP ships with the kit are pretty short. They're also for a 1/4"brake line. My front lines from the proportioning valve are 3/16".Picked up some adapter fittings locally to solve that issue, but the only way I could see using the supplied brake hoses, was to run them to the front of the crossmember, and make a new mount. Did that. Ran all new brake lines, front to back.

Remember I said I was going to try splicing a piece of the 82 GMC frame in to mount the power steering box? Well, here we go.
Note: Don't do this unless you're confident in your welding. It is your steering after all, and other people are sharing the road with you.
I made a template of the old steering box mounts, like LOSTMY65 did in his thread. Then another of the new box mounts, off the new frame. Lined 'em up and it looked like it should work. Cut the box mount out of the 82 frame, and carved my template to match the shape.

Lined the template up with marks I'd made on the 64 frame, scribed around it, and CUT A GREAT BIG FREAKIN' HOLE IN MY FRAME! YIKES! This better work!
http://67-72chevytrucks.com/vboard/a...1&d=1296764211
I put the new chunk in the hole, and tacked it at the corners. In this shot, I'd mounted the box, and realized the angle was off, so I cut some tacks and pried one end up and the other down till I had a straight shot from the box to the steering shaft. It took some fiddling and mounting/ removing the box a few times. Damn, that box is heavy!
http://67-72chevytrucks.com/vboard/a...1&d=1296764680
Then I fixed the gaps a bit, bevelled everything, and welded it up.
Here it is after a qiuck spritz of paint.
http://67-72chevytrucks.com/vboard/a...1&d=1296765144
Then I mounted the steering box, bolted on the rag joint and welded the joint to the shaft at the end, and also did four big rosette welds on the sides of the tube. Done!
http://67-72chevytrucks.com/vboard/a...1&d=1296765780
Oh yeah, gotta mount the idler arm to the ther frame rail. Level and straight, drill two holes, and bolt it up.
http://67-72chevytrucks.com/vboard/a...1&d=1296766004
In the end, it would have been way faster and easier to get Captainfab's bracket, but like I said, if there's a hard way, I'll find it!
Ralph
PS how did I get the pictures where I wanted them last time?

[61_FL_Apache]

nice work.

[777ralph]

Thanks. This thing is fighting me all the way. Last night I dropped it back on all fours, and shifted the column shifter from neutral to park. It wouldn't stay in Park! Remember I put the 82 GMC booster and master on? Well, the top of the column shift rod (from the column to the trans) hits the booster as you try for Park! I cut about 3/8" off the end of the rod, and now it shifts to Park. Lots of little stuff trying to trip me up. Wonder what'll be next?
Ralph

[CVA59]

Not sure what will be next (hopefully nothing bad) but regardless, you have a real nice truck! Keep the pics coming.

[777ralph]

Well, so far this winter I've done a 700r trans swap, complete rewire, , front suspension, power steering and power brakes. Took it out for its maiden voyage today, for gas and a wash. 0 degrees F!

So far the tach doesn't work, but it steers and stops! The steering wheel isn't straight, but I haven't had the truck aligned yet anyway. The speckles on the truck are ice from the car wash. I let it freeze, then pulled it into my shop and dried it when I got home. Oh, my "shop" is just an insulated and heated double garage. Nuthin' fancy.

[CVA59]

Nice pics!!!

[Clyde65]

777, which wire harness did you choose?

[777ralph]

Clyde65, I used a Kwik Wire kit. Pretty good kit, decent instructions.

At the top left you can see where I mounted the Maxifuse, so I can kill the whole truck if I'm nervous about where I park it. Just pocket the fuse and leave. it also has an ignition shutoff switch on the fusebox.

I hadn't finished the job when I took this shot. Tidied it up a lot, later.

[blackmopar]

stance looks good- is that with drop spindles that your donor had? or....?

[777ralph]

BlackMopar - I'm running 2.5" dropped Belltech spindles and CPP six bolt rotors (as per post#1), with 1/4 coil cut from the stock 82 GMC springs, so far. Thought I'd sneak up on where I want it, rather than cut too much right away. 235/75-15's on the front. The back is 285/70-15's with unknown dropped springs from a past owner, and 2.5" lowering blocks I made.

Hey, got the tach working! Sems I forgot to run a power wire to it. Fixed now!
Maybe today I'll straighten the steering wheel, and see if I can rig up a catch can for the rad.
Ralph

[lolife99]

Originally Posted by 777ralph

BlackMopar - I'm running 2.5" dropped Belltech spindles and CPP six bolt rotors (as per post#1), with 1/4 coil cut from the stock 82 GMC springs, so far. Thought I'd sneak up on where I want it, rather than cut too much right away. 235/75-15's on the front. The back is 285/70-15's with unknown dropped springs from a past owner, and 2.5" lowering blocks I made.

Hey, got the tach working! Sems I forgot to run a power wire to it. Fixed now!
Maybe today I'll straighten the steering wheel, and see if I can rig up a catch can for the rad.
Ralph

Your truck looks great!
You are smart to sneak up on the front spring cutting.
I usually figure 1/2 coil per 1" of drop. (estimate)

If you are using those 15" wheels I would consider a shorter drop spring for the rear and eliminating the 2.5" drop blocks.
I never use any taller than a 1.5" drop block with 15" wheels, to avoid scrubline issues.
(the lower edge of the u-bolts are really close to the ground and below the lip of the rear wheel)
A larger diameter wheel would eliminate this problem.

[SCOTI]

Originally Posted by lolife99

Your truck looks great!
You are smart to sneak up on the front spring cutting.
I usually figure 1/2 coil per 1" of drop. (estimate)

If you are using those 15" wheels I would consider a shorter drop spring for the rear and eliminating the 2.5" drop blocks.
I never use any taller than a 1.5" drop block with 15" wheels, to avoid scrubline issues.
(the lower edge of the u-bolts are really close to the ground and below the lip of the rear wheel)
A larger diameter wheel would eliminate this problem.

Or... Get some Porterbuilt trucks arms. They eliminate this issue w/even more drop.

[lolife99]

Better answer!^^^

[777ralph]

Yeah, at some point I'll pick up some different drop springs for the rear, and lose the blocks. For the moment I'm concentrating my efforts on the front of the truck. In answer to my "wonder what's next?" comment a few posts back, I went to check my trans fluid level in my new 700r4, and the dipstick fell apart in my hands! It has a plastic handle and over-center type seal at the top, and it broke through one of the holes used to mount that. Back to the parts store I go!

[63sbssbbw]

sweet ride 777
Love it
T