Well, here is an update as the deed is done.
I guess to begin, here and the 3-link arms I made all painted and done.
Got the truck in a good friend's shop, and blasted the previous axle (an 04 SD axle) out.
Here is the hanger you must remove still installed.
And here it is removed (on the other side)
A couple other odds and ends rivets need to be removed, and the original shock towers taken out
Then the rear mounting bracket gets located and you start drilling. There are three bolts in the cpture under the frame, and 4 in the face, for 7 per side. I strongly recommend a quality stepper bit for this, with a 1/2 largest size step so you can just keep ramming them home.
3 Link bars get put in place
Then the axle gets put into place after all the prep.
Then locate the coil buckets and drill them in. Some people have removed he capture on the bottom of the coil bucket, I do not recommend this at all, and they fit pretty nicely with it on anyways. I dont have any pics of this process, but once you have them put in, you can put the coil springs in. I had to jimmy-rig a shock setup because mine turned out to be too long, some replacment bilsteins are on the way.
Gets your brakes done up and hooked up. I reused my existing extended lines, but they need to be replaced with proper 05 ones. The fitting at the caliper is kinda wonky and the only reason I could reuse mine was my rims are so offset they allowed for it.
This is important, do NOT try to load the suspension or test ride height, anything until the track bar is installed. The coils are like wet noodles, and if you have your steering hooked up, it will be the only thing holding the axle under the truck. The truck will fall off one side or the other without the track bar installed.
For my track bar, I used some leftover 2" DOM from the 3 link bars, and sleeved the stock track bar (1.5 " ID, which is the OD of the stock track bar). then I had a weld in insert, along with a new gigantic 1.25 heim joint, which was then welded on the other end of the sleeve, and I reused my existed bracket on the frame that we had installed for the previous SD axle.
Get the steering hooked up and fill axle with oil
Wheels went back on,
I am looking for 05+ SD 18" wheels. Mine are heavily offset, and do better of 04 and older trucks. The wider 05 axle has stanced them out a bit too far for my liking, so will have to change rims eventually again. Anyways..
This is how the 3 links sit under load, pretty much dead on horizontal..
And thats all the pictures I have. I reamed my pitman arm out for the larger 06 tierod connection. I wanted an 05+ box but didnt happen on one soon enough. Eventually I will change it. There is a small clunk that I suspect is the shocks because they have a bolt much to small for the lower hole, so I am not even bothering to chase it down until new shocks show up.
Other than that, it rides much much better. I am not sure if my RSK was not set up perfectly or what, but driving home was noticeably smoother. The coils are much softer than the leaf springs ever were.
For a purely subjective example, the 78 going through PA from NJ, has some stretches where the right lane is so bad from trucks and abuse that I would have to change into the left just to make it bearable before. The repeated bumps and oscillations would just keep rattling the truck to the point it was almost undrivable unless you changed lanes. This scenario 100% changed with the new setup. The coils are noticeably softer and were able to soak up the continued bumps and expansion joints without gradually getting worse and worse. Very happy with how it performed, and how it looks.
*I did put upper 2.5 inch coil spacers in which I dont thing is clearly depicted. I was not willing to guess on 350$ coils and not nail the ride height I wanted, so I purchased TGC coil spacers off amazon to get me in the ballpark based on previous conversion threads, and then I can order lift coils of the exact height I want later.
I think that is all for now.
-Andrew
