The Stupid Lowered Questions Thread

OBSOkie said:

Yeah I was already looking at a notch and shock extenders. Im just going to go ahead and get a full 4/6 kit and redo it so I know exactly whats on it.

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Fair enough.
I would highly recommend the Belltech kit.
Comes with everything you need, including lower shock extensions, tranny spacer and the notch is nice and beefy.
I went with the Street Performer shocks as they are well reviewed and recommended. And they are only a few bucks more that the Nitro ones.

Take a boo at my build thread and see what obstacles I came across.
And definitely take your bed off if you can. Makes it a LOT easier!!!

Did some more investigating tonight and redid my measurements. So Im 16.5” in front and 15” in the rear from center of hub to lip of fenderwell. Also from looking at how the spindles look decently and my coils look stock, im curious if the drop ended up like a 2/6 lol. I dont know much about lowering kits yet but is there something I can measure on the flip kit or is a 4” drop usually done with shackles or something?

At this point I think Im going to get drop springs for the back, and shock extenders for the back.

Trying to figure out what spindles I have but I need to pull the disc off this weekend to see the outboard side. All I see on the inboard side is a casting number of 14444 and the L and R numbers.

I was looking around here to find a thread I read a little while ago, it mentioned you can get an additional drop from 4" to 4.5" or 4.75" by removing one or both of the short plates on the 5950 belltech 4" leafs. I didnt find that thread but found this one is still alive and figured i'd share what i found when installing the belltech 5950 rear leafs.



I did one side at a time to help keep things aligned when i bolted things back up.. and What i noticed was that the rear end (that was supported by jackstands so it wouldnt shift) would not line up with the bolt on the leaf. It appeared that the rear would need to shift up (on the ujoint side). I went ahead and snugged up the driver side while i removed the passenger side. Once I installed the passenger side leaf I indeed found i had to put a jack under the front of the rear and slightly raise it and both sides of the leaf bolts popped right in at the same time. I'm not sure about the "shims" and what they did but i'm guessing that Belltech as a bolt on to OEM specs somehow worked in the pinion angle on the newer leafs? Don't take my word on this, but pinion angle seems right on mine with no shims.

Hey yall!! So I’m considering lowering my front end just a 2-3” so I have a true rake and to help with the front end not be as bouncy on the highway. So could I just get shorter springs and that would lower it enough to make that happen? I’m not really interested in a full drop just something to get the front end lower in hopes of improving highway ride quality. Here’s a pic from 2:50am this morning as I had to start early today. But you can see how the front seems higher than it should be. Thanks for info. And the floor here is sloped downward at the front of my ride so it should be lower looking but as you see front seems higher than the back?

Cadillac Bob said:

Hey yall!! So I’m considering lowering my front end just a 2-3” so I have a true rake and to help with the front end not be as bouncy on the highway. So could I just get shorter springs and that would lower it enough to make that happen? I’m not really interested in a full drop just something to get the front end lower in hopes of improving highway ride quality. Here’s a pic from 2:50am this morning as I had to start early today. But you can see how the front seems higher than it should be. Thanks for info. And the floor here is sloped downward at the front of my ride so it should be lower looking but as you see front seems higher than the back?

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Front wheel openings are taller on the body than the rear so it will have that appearance regardless, and something I've seen on the mid-length SUV's (Blazer, Tahoe, Yukon, Escalade) seem to be that the rear leafs sag easily - so that's gonna add to it.

As far as a slight lowering I'll leave that question to the 4x4 guys since it's a different setup than I'm used to messing with. You don't have coil springs up front that you can simply swap out for shorter ones; you have torsion bars. Just keep in mind you have a wider track up front than the RWD guys so it's going to be a bigger concern to keep your tire out of the edge of your fender, and you won't simply be rolling a fender lip for clearance since you have the body cladding.

Richard

De crank the bars until you get the front where you want, then if you want you can lower the rear with a shackle 1-2in. You will notice GM designs a lot of there torsion bar vehicles to ride on the bump stop. This pic is of my ‘24 2500hd, my bars are cranked a little but you can see what im talking about.

I lowered my wife 01 4wd tahoe with de cranked factory keys and a 3in coil in the rear. I trimmed the factory bump stop on the front and kept all factory shocks. Night and day how it handled and the ride wasn’t bad.

Ok thanks for the info I’ll try getting to it this weekend. Now do I need a special tool to turn them or just a big wrench? Lol

Park it on level ground, no need to jack it up. Spray bolt with lube and a ratchet with a 18mm socket (7/8 will work too) loosing will lower it, tighten will raise it. Impact will work the best but you can get the job done by hand, might have to put a cheater pipe on the ratchet. Get a before and after measurement, i usually measure fender lip to ground.

95burban said:

Park it on level ground, no need to jack it up. Spray bolt with lube and a ratchet with a 18mm socket (7/8 will work too) loosing will lower it, tighten will raise it. Impact will work the best but you can get the job done by hand, might have to put a cheater pipe on the ratchet. Get a before and after measurement, i usually measure fender lip to ground.

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I have raised and lowered my 4wds a few times by cranking the torsion bars. You can get a couple inches up or down easily. I spray lubed the crank bolts and jacked one side of the truck up a little to release some of the pressure on the jacking bolt, one side at a time.

Thank you both I’m about to go do this right now ! Cheers