is c-notch necessary?

[danieljpeter]

Went out last night in the refrigerator I call a shop and mounted and plumbed the bags.








I drilled a hole in that big funky bumper that I'm rockin and welded an 1/8" steel fitting through it. One side is the compression fitting with the air line, the other side is the schraeder valve. I burned all the paint off the license plate side, so I touched it up with white. Now I have this bright white spot. I should have just left the paint burned off!







I love those metal/rubber wiring clamps for airline. They hold stuff good without wearing through it.





Ran airline inside frame rail where I could.









I still need shocks. I think I will just use the "other hole" closer to the axle next to the stock upper mount. This will correct some of the messed up shock angle you get from lowering the back end. I think I will just use the stock shock tabs on the axle. The shock won't be as straight up and down as I'd like, but it should work OK. So with the axle to the frame there is 10" from the center lower hole to the upper shock hole. With it aired all the way up and the crap arched out of the leaf springs it is 14.5 from center center hole. The only shocks I could find that meet this criteria are these:

http://catalog.monroe.com/monroe/pro...catalog=MONROE

They are monroe RV shocks. I think people use them on car trailers and stuff. They are 9.625 compressed and 14.75 extended. Pretty much perfect dimension wise. I think they are around $20 a piece, too. I don't want to mess with standard lowered chevy shocks, they are probably not the right length for me and more money than I want to pay. I'm pretty sure the rv shocks will ride good enough for my tastes.











If you look close, you can tell the bottom air brackets are just tacked in place. This was a suggestion from seth @ twisted minis. Then after I do my tranny swap if I end up needing to shim the pinion angle I can reweld the bottom bag brackets if necessary. Also, the truck isn't heavy enough without the bed to compress the bags all the way! Those slams take a lot of weight to compress. When I jump on the bumper I can get the axle to smack the frame, though. I think with the bed on it will be bottomed out. Then I'll just shoot some air to it to get a nice ride height.

(continued...)

[danieljpeter]

(...resumed)

[danieljpeter]

Okay, all done with the back suspension. removed the stock shock bolt, and moved to the other hole. Found a off the shelf shock bolt that made this easy. It was pretty much like the stock one. Shaved the stock bolt so I didn't have two bolts up there!

Those rv magnum shocks fit in there nicely.

changed the rear diff fluid. It looked like ****!

Bolted the bed on with 10 new grade 8 bolts.

Took for a test drive. It rides kinda bumpy with all the air out, and pretty much like stock with some air in it.

That concludes this thread!

[lolife99]

Any plans to notch the frame?

[SIR]

great work... but one question,with the bags deflated the edge of the rear bracket clears the lip of the rim nicely,but it looks like when there full you don't have much room between the bracket and the tire.my question is if you go to a wider wheel/tire combois it going to hit?.it looks like if you have a wider rim that extends past the backing plate it's going to rub...then again I could all wrong..been there before.

[danieljpeter]

Originally Posted by lolife99

Any plans to notch the frame?

That's what I was debating in the beginning of this thread. I decided I didn't need to notch the frame because then the diff pumpkin would be hitting the bed wood if I didn't cut out the bed.

With the axle against the frame there is only a fraction of an inch between the differential and the bottom of the bed wood. So I decided not to notch it because I can go basically as low as I want to go without the notch.

I want to keep the bed intact so haul stuff around in. This thing is supposed to be mostly useful and practical. Trying to make it a little cool was a bonus.

I'm keeping my eyes out for another c10, I wouldn't mind doing one that lays out.

[danieljpeter]

Originally Posted by SIR

great work... but one question,with the bags deflated the edge of the rear bracket clears the lip of the rim nicely,but it looks like when there full you don't have much room between the bracket and the tire.my question is if you go to a wider wheel/tire combois it going to hit?.it looks like if you have a wider rim that extends past the backing plate it's going to rub...then again I could all wrong..been there before.

There's plenty of room at all ride heights with the wheels and tires I'm running now. Any of the pictures that say otherwise are probably just taken at weird angles.

But you are right, I wouldn't be able to run wider wheels. That was a choice that I made in doing this style of bag setup.

These trucks have so many options on how to mount the bags. You can put them inside the frame rails and then be able to run wider wheels. I talked to Seth at Twisted Minis about this, and he brought up a good point. For carrying weight, you are better to put the bags closer to the wheels so you aren't putting a bunch of leverage trying to bend your axle tube if the bags are close to the pumpkin.

Since I want to run stock wheels and carry a lot of weight, this was the best option for me.

This project definately makes me want to build something else that isn't practical

[spr85gmc]

been looking for this thread for a loooooong time so bump...