My 99 K2500 Suburban

[Jman95]

Finished installing the knuckles.

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Then the hubs, brakes and cv axles..

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Still waiting on my torsion bar relocators to come in from Realift. Torsion bars and crossmember away from putting front tires on this sucka..

 

[Jman95]

Meanwhile, when I dropped the springs, I spread my spring center pins away from each other.

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I just cut the stock perches off and will weld some new ones on, I have to correct the pinion angle anyway.

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[Jman95]

After I cut off the perches and ground the tubes smooth, I mocked it up.

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After some careful measuring I will tack the perches and then remove the axle to finish welding it. Want to make sure I’m centered side to side, and then square with the front.

That is all caught up now, waiting for my disc brake kit to come in so I can replace the bearings in the hubs and mount them up so I have accurate measuring points.

After the brakes will be the injectors and fuel pump. so I can finish sealing up the engine. In the meantime, I need to paint the fuel tank, run my brake lines and fuel lines.

More updates coming soon.

 

[SlowJoe]

Great work and attention to detail!

 

[Jman95]

Good morning guys, I have still been full speed on this dude.. I ran into some issues that needed sorted out with the rear disc conversion, as well as the springs spreading with the custom mounts and some other issues.. As the walls come up, I have been knocking em down..

Let’s get y’all up to speed!

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I attempted to install the crank pulley, found out that the threads were pulled out for the center bolt on the crank..

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Got a Helicoil kit from the bolt shop and fixed it up.

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Got some more updates il be posting today. It might seem like I’m posting small stuff here and there as well.. I just want it documented so anyone who’s looking forward to doing something like this, can see the small wins as well as the big ones.. All the small hurdles that get worked through, the type of stuff that they don’t show on those TV shows lol.

 

[Jman95]

I was able to get a set of torsion bar relocators from Realift, had to move some crossmembers as well as spacing the trans crossmember down to clear the bars themselves.

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I used 3/4” aluminum spacers to drop the trans crossmember under the frame. It effectively dropped a total of 1-1/4”..

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I used a piece of solid aluminum bar, 1-1/4” thick X 2” wide for the trans mount spacer. Measured the trans output angle before and after and it is the same.

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Side shot. Moved the torsion bar crossmember rearward to the point I had to relocate the frame crossmember back. It was fun removing those top rivets of that crossmember with the cab installed. I was able to cut through most of the rivet head with a sawzall, and then broke the rest off with a chisel.. The bottom rivets were removed with the grinder.

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My makeshift jig to drill the new holes for the frame crossmember. This would have been cake had the body still been off the frame, but it wasn’t too bad all in all.

 

[GrimsterGMC]

I was able to get a set of torsion bar relocators from Realift, had to move some crossmembers as well as spacing the trans crossmember down to clear the bars themselves.

You must be registered for see images attach

I used 3/4” aluminum spacers to drop the trans crossmember under the frame. It effectively dropped a total of 1-1/4”..

You must be registered for see images attach

I used a piece of solid aluminum bar, 1-1/4” thick X 2” wide for the trans mount spacer. Measured the trans output angle before and after and it is the same.

You must be registered for see images attach

You must be registered for see images attach

Side shot. Moved the torsion bar crossmember rearward to the point I had to relocate the frame crossmember back. It was fun removing those top rivets of that crossmember with the cab installed. I was able to cut through most of the rivet head with a sawzall, and then broke the rest off with a chisel.. The bottom rivets were removed with the grinder.

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My makeshift jig to drill the new holes for the frame crossmember. This would have been cake had the body still been off the frame, but it wasn’t too bad all in all.

I like your jig, I will have to remember that for future use.

 

[Jman95]

I like your jig, I will have to remember that for future use.

I stared up there in a daze for about 45minutes before that light bulb went off lol..

 

[Jman95]

On to the rear brakes..

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I was trying to find a good solution for a parking brake, I liked the idea of having a separate caliper and found a company that made a bracket for a brake caliper as well as a parking brake caliper.. ended up not working with the rotors that they were supposed to work with, it was kind of a fiasco that turned me off too the whole thing.

I then realized I had accidentally scrapped my drum backing plates.. Especially after finding out how hard they are to find.

Ended up getting a kit from Lugnut4x4.com with the heavy duty parking brake calipers.

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Painted the brackets after test fitting them and then rebuilt the hubs.

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Looks good, the bracket is solid. The rotors are from an 01 K2500 Suburban with the 4.83” hub hole, that is for “slide on drum” axles. I know people have mixed opinions on the rear brake conversions for these, we will see how it all works out. I won’t say that I had horrible brakes on this truck, before I tore it apart I had replaced the whole rear drum system and this truck stopped like a dream. It had the big 13” x 2.5” drums on it stock.

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After getting everything mounted, I was able to mount a wheel on the back. I realized that the tire is too close to the spring. More on that in a bit..

 

[Laredo]

Enjoying the progress. It appears that, without prior intent, I copied you by finishing my calipers in gold. BTW, your outboard brake pads should technically be switched so that the wear indicator is at the leading edge of the pad during a front wheel rotation (i.e., down).