Project Long-Range Clunker Suspension Install

Project Long Range Clunker Bed Full Of Parts

We tried to avoid it, we swore to ourselves when we got this truck that we were going to leave it alone. But “inch-itis” reared its ugly head. When the time came to replace the 285/75R16 Goodyear Silent Armor tires that we originally put on our ’94 Dodge Ram, we decided we wanted something a bit more aggressive, and why not put a slightly bigger tire on it while we were at it? After some careful measuring of the old tires, we decided that we could likely fit a set of 315/75R16s on the factory rims. We wanted more aggressive, though, so Goodyear MT/Rs got the nod.

Once we had them on the truck, the rear fit fine, and the driver-side front was okay if a little tight. However, the side of the truck that was crashed into the guardrail before we got it didn’t fit well at all. We measured the driver side; we should have measured the previously smashed passenger side. Thanks to some tweaked control arms and really worn rubber bushings, it turned out that the axle was pushed back almost a full inch on the passenger side.

We never really liked the stinkbug look of the truck, and wanted to put a leveling kit of some kind on it, but we just couldn’t justify the expense. Well, after having that money tied up in the bigger meats, and finding that the control arms were more tweaked than we originally thought, it was time to replace some bent parts, get better tire clearance, and make the truck sit level all in one shot.

When you lift a truck with a solid axle and five-link/coil suspension, the tires end up closer to the rear of the wheelwell. It was already rubbing, so we went looking for a small leveling kit that came with new, longer control arms. While we didn’t find a leveling kit, we ended up getting a Rough Country 3-inch lift kit for the truck. The kit comes with new front springs, four new shocks, a sway bar lowering kit, new sway bar end link bushings (which we really needed), and rear lift blocks. It also comes with heavy-duty tubular control arms. The longer lower arm is shown here against one of the factory lower arms. We didn’t end up using the rear lift blocks but rather left the rear suspension stock. The Rough Country shocks fit out back even though they were intended to work with the lift.

Unless you’ve got the luck of the Irish, you will need to move the axle around to get the control arm’s bushing holes to line up with the holes in the axle or the frame. Even by replacing only the lower arms or the upper arms at a time, we aren’t that lucky, so we use ratchet straps to get the axle where it needs to be. We replace only two arms at once so that the other two arms mostly hold the axle in place.
Unless you’ve got the luck of the Irish, you will need to move the axle around to get the
The instructions state to lower the axle in order to fit the new springs and shocks in their new homes. We had no problem getting enough droop to fit the springs. However, the vent line for the front axle and the vacuum fittings for the CAD fork didn’t have enough droop. Once we got the truck back on the floor, we were able to get the very end of the factory breather back in the frame bracket with enough slack, but we had to add about six inches of vacuum tubing to get the front axle shift fork hooked back up again. The truck sits very near level with the front, maybe a fraction of an inch higher. We are hoping the new springs will settle a bit over time and level the truck back out.
The instructions state to lower the axle in order to fit the new springs and shocks in the
The fifth link that we spoke of earlier is the track bar, which centers the axle under the truck. When you move the axle further from the frame, the factory track bar pulls it towards the driver side. While adding a longer track bar would be easy, no two trucks are the same weight with the same weight distribution, so a fixed-length track bar will almost always be at least a little bit off. We also dislike the ball-joint-style track bars. We find that with bigger tires and heavier use, that ball joint dies quicker than we like. We found what we wanted from BD Diesel Performance. This kit replaces the ball-joint-style mount at the frame side with a ¼-inch-thick mount that ties into the frame in five places. The track bar itself is made from 13⁄8-inch diameter, 0.313-inch-wall tubing, houses heavy-duty polyurethane bushings, and is adjustable while installed.
The fifth link that we spoke of earlier is the track bar, which centers the axle under the

The new frame bracket ties into the original track bar frame mount thanks to a tapered sleeve and a Grade-8 bolt. If you have an early ’94 truck, you will need a tapered reamer to hog the hole out with. The early trucks used a smaller ball joint at the frame side, which lead to a higher failure rate. Holes need to be drilled for a ½-inch-diameter bolt that goes through the frame from the driver side and for the two 5⁄16-inch-diameter bolts that attach through the crossmember. We’ve put a lot of parts in a lot of projects over the years, and the instructions for this track bar kit might be the best we’ve ever seen. A bill of materials with pictures, clear and concise descriptions, and pictures of the install that are actually recognizable made this kit a breeze to install.
The new frame bracket ties into the original track bar frame mount thanks to a tapered sle
Our ½-ton truck has relatively soft springs in the rear. To keep the rearend under control when towing or hauling a heavier load, we went to Summit Racing for a Hellwig antisway bar kit. The front sway bar is fairly large from the factory and does a decent job, but the Clunker needed some help in the rear. Hellwig is famous for heavy-duty sway bars and has been making retrofit kits for over 60 years. The kit is well designed and does its job well. However, there are a ton of parts, and the directions aren’t very helpful.
Our ½-ton truck has relatively soft springs in the rear. To keep the rearend under control
Calling on years of wrenching, we came up with this solution. The instructions told us to mount the bar to the bottom of the shock mounts, but that was about as far as they took us. Which brackets to use, which bolts to use, etc., was left to us. We tried to set it up for a minimal loss of ground clearance. The bar is lowest behind the rear differential cover (but doesn’t hang below the pumpkin) and goes uphill towards the ends. The shock mounts are angled, which minimized the loss of ground clearance, and with the larger tires we broke about even.
Calling on years of wrenching, we came up with this solution. The instructions told us to

We were happy with how well the Silent Armor tires worked, and we decided to stay with the Goodyear camp. This set of 315/75R16 MT/Rs fits fine thanks to the 3-inch lift up front. The tires do come close to rubbing on the inside of the rear inner fenders, but so far, even on the factory rims, we’ve had no rubbing problems. While we’ve lost siping in the tires, we know from experience that the dual tread pattern of the MT/R lends itself well to on-road use in addition to being great off-road.
We were happy with how well the Silent Armor tires worked, and we decided to stay with the
As it turns out however, a 315/75R16 won’t fit up under the bed because the factory exhaust is in the way. We didn’t want anything in the bed that would get in the way of using it as a bed. So we hacked the factory exhaust off, and with it out of the way, the tire fits. We then went looking for a side-exit exhaust and came up with this Gibson kit. The muffler is fully welded and will take a beating. (The Clunker failed smog the last time we took it, and we’ve been running on a temporary operating permit ever since.) While we were messing with the exhaust, we decided to put this high-flow Catco kit on as well. We freed up some horsepower and got the truck running clean again all in one shot. We got both kits shipped to our door from Summit Racing.
As it turns out however, a 315/75R16 won’t fit up under the bed because the factory exhaus
We decided to add an Auto Meter wideband O2 gauge to see what was really going on with the engine. The Catco kit has a provision for an after-cat O2 sensor, but the instructions for the gauge state that it should be as close as possible to the header collector for most accurate measurements. While we don’t have headers on the truck, we got the idea and drilled a hole about six inches from the driver-side collector. We then welded the bung included with the wideband gauge into the tube with our trusty Lincoln Electric MIG welder. The gauge instructions suggest using a TIG machine, but we’ve had no problem putting the bungs in with MIG over the years.
We decided to add an Auto Meter wideband O2 gauge to see what was really going on with the

We decided to mount the gauge in an Auto Meter A-pillar gauge pod. Auto Meter only builds its pods out of black ABS plastic, and we wanted it to match our gray interior. We shot the pillar cover with gray Colorbond that we got from LMC Truck. When we first used this stuff, we read the claims on the can that it actually soaks into the plastic and sort of laughed. Here we are a year later, with no scratches in anything we painted that revealed the color underneath. In fact, we scratched the A-pillar with the power screwdriver accidentally while we were mounting it, and we can see the scratch—it isn’t black.
We decided to mount the gauge in an Auto Meter A-pillar gauge pod. Auto Meter only builds
For a gas engine, 14.7:1 is the mixture of air to fuel that we always strive for. The O2 gauges use O2 sensors that were originally manufactured to make your fuel injection system work. The non-wideband gauges are based on some of the earliest O2 sensors available. The early O2 sensors came from early fuel-injected cars and basically told the computer if it was running rich or lean, and the computer adjusted the other way to compensate. As fuel injection systems became more complicated and the computers faster and more powerful, engineers were able to come up with a more sensitive sensor that actually fed more than just “lean” or “rich” back to the computer for much finer control of the air/fuel ratio. In gauge-speak, the later O2 sensors and gauges such as this Auto Meter 6178 are considered wideband units and are much more reliable for tracking how an engine is running than the non-wideband gauges.
For a gas engine, 14.7:1 is the mixture of air to fuel that we always strive for. The O2 g
With the bigger tires all bolted up, our speedometer was now off. We recently came across this little plug-and-play speedometer recalibration unit. Speedo Healer is a new player to the recalibration game, but the unit is waterproof and is super-easy to setup. Just plug it in line with your factory sending unit; it interrupts the signal, adjusts it, and sends it on the way to the computer or speedometer. You figure out how far off your speedometer is using a GPS or a stopwatch, and using the chart in the instructions, press the button until you’ve got that value on the LCD screen. It can be mounted out of the way under the hood. We just used a couple of zip-ties to hold it down.
With the bigger tires all bolted up, our speedometer was now off. We recently came across

SOURCES
Auto Meter 413 W. Elm Street Sycamore IL 60178 866-248-6356 www.autometer.com	BD Diesel Performance PO Box 231 Sumas WA 98295 800-887-5030 www.dieselperformance.com
Summit Racing 800-230-3030 http://www.summitracing.com	Rough Country Suspension Systems 1400 Morgan Road Dyersburg TN 38024 800-222-7023 www.roughcountry.com
LMC Truck 15450 W. 108th Street Lenexa KS 66219 800-562-8782 www.lmctruck.com	Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co 1144 East Market Street Akron OH 44316 330-796-2121 www.goodyeartires.com
Hellwig Products Company, Inc. 16237 Avenue 296 Visalia CA 93292 559-734-7451 www.hellwigproducts.com	Gibson Performance Exhaust 1270 Webb Circle Corona CA 92879 707-996-4591 www.gibsonperformance.com