I've been doing a lot of research as to how to make my truck ride smoother. After reading up on Airbags, looking at Jim Lane's leaf spring pads, and some other crazy ideas I had, I come to one conclusion: There is no substitution for new fresh rear leaf springs.

3 weeks ago I went to the local Suspension & Drive-line shop and ordered a new set of springs. They had 2 different offerings, and HD spring that was rated at 4000 pounds, and a non-HD rated at 3500. With ride quality in mind, I went with the 3500 pound spring with the idea of adding airbags to supliment the slight loss of load capacity. The spring PN's were 34-153 & 34-153HD and after a quick google search can be found on the web.

I installed the springs over the weekend, and I can confidently say it improved my ride well over 50%. Before I could jump up and down on the bumper of my truck, and the only give was in the tires, my leafs provided what I would say was less than 5% of cushion while I jumped. You could see that the springs were barely moving as I had the bed removed. With the new springs I have roughly 3.5 inches of travel in the back now, of course some of that still in the tires, but way better than before. My truck no longer jars on every bump in the road, and my personal test was the speed bumps in our parking lot. My truck would litterally knock my gun out of the rack if I went over about 5 or 6 MPH, and now it smoothly goes over them with no jar. I'll be posting some pics of my truck later as I also got some new paint and a new steel flatbed, but my tests were done with the bed actually off the truck. With the weight of the bed now its even better.

I just wanted to provide some real world experience so that anyone wondering what a new leaf spring would do to their truck's ride would know. Obviously I only saw such a vast improvement because my spring were worn out completely. Also, total investment was less than $400, I used the same u-bolts, and it took less than 2 hours to swap with the bed off and a 10 year old nephew helping.

 

My last D350 had some new looking springs on the rear (at least they had plenty of arch), and rode smoother than the flatter-sprung trucks I'd had in the past and since.

 

How about a shackle reversal and chevy rear springs? Would that improve the ride at all?

 

glad to hear it helped your ride out. But do yourself a major favor. Go get new rear u-bolts. 40 bucks at the most.

For me, I'm going 4 link. Bags in the rear and maybe coil over in the front. Winter project.

 

Knock your gun off the rack! Deffinitly a TX guy I know my truck has the suspension travel of a tank. I dont mind that much becuase I haul serious wieght alot! Way more than I should. My trailer empty wieghs 6800lbs. Let us know how it tows? Thanks for your info.

 

I thought about doing new springs when I put the D80 in. Each side spring pack has 10 leaves in it that were put in long before I got the truck. It also has +500lb coilovers in the back. It almost hurts to drive, but I can load the crap out it and it will not squat. Rides real nice with about 10K lbs on a trailer.

 

I second the above - go get new U-bolts and nuts. Cheap insurance vs. rear diff falling out of your ride. I used to work in a spring shop and it was company policy to have customers take new u-bolts with every spring purchase. 40 dollars is cheaper than a lawsuit anytime ...

 

Heh. My crew cab had a diamond-plate flatbed with gooseneck adapter on it when I bought it, and I swapped it for a utiline (stepside) bed, which weighs even less than a normal sweptline bed...

I drove it around bedless and the wheel hop was absolutely atrocious...

 

Funny - after I posted, I got to thinking about the gun rack reference and how some of the folks reading it might think that was crazy. Either way, no more rifle in bottom of the extended cab anymore!

I am curious how it will tow as well. I think it alone will be stable up to about 15K but I could be totally wrong. Of course alot of that has to do with how you load your trailer. I plan to haul my 32ft float and a cab tractor this weekend that will gross around 16K, so I should get a good idea and will report back. I still think a set of airbags are in my future for even greater ride and load capacity since I bought the lighter of the two options.

 

I have been wanting to add coilovers in the back. JC Whitney's site says the Gabriel coil-overs will not work with my 89 w250.

What brand coilovers did you use, and do you still have the stock exhaust or is yours custom? I only ask because when I was under my truck looking at how it would all work, it looks like the exhaust might be too close to the upper end of the passenger side rear shock.

Let me know, as I really want to do this soon

 

Here what I am trying to figure out how to stuff in mine

http://fabtechmotorsports.com/html/d...iccatalog.html

 

Another option is Alcan springs, they will do custom springs. They want to know what you have for tools in the bed, type of bumper, intended use of the truck, they also use the plastic button sliders like Jim Lane installed on his truck. They try to find the happy medium between hauling what you need and a good ride. Kinda proud of them $235 each front, $250 each rear, but the OP said he spent $400 for stock style replacement so an extra $100 for custom is not too bad and they are rapidly climbing to the top of my next project list.

 

or the other option find a Sec gen frame and bolt the 1st gen to it

 

Recently while looking for an full air bag set up for my 61 chevy truck I found a full 4link air ride kit for the rear of a 2nd gen dually. Ill find the link. Wasn't cheap but rides nice, tows a lot and slams the truck

 

http://www.suicidedoors.com/4-link-k...02-dodge-1-ton