New guy with questions about chevy suspension

[HeavyCheby]

Hello, I am pretty new to this site, and the whole "Prerunner/desert truck" scene. And I am wanting my new to me truck to have a little bit better suspension for jumping etc. I am currently gathering all of the missing parts, I have a 4.8 and th400 that will be going in.It is a 78 chevy C20. used to have a 454/th400, but the motor was pulled and the cab floor are quite rusty.

So you may ask, what are my goals?
I want this truck to handle jumps better. that is it, plain and simple. I have had plenty of trucks and cars, and all stock suspension and I am getting tired of having a sore back after jumping my vehicles.

I want to do this as cheaply as possible, I will be putting a cage in and boxing the frame. cage will be much later though, I do not care if I get more travel, but it would be nice. I have a idea to convert the front end to a coilover. using stock control arms.
Does anybody have any ideas? Anybody have some old Long travel or Mid travel arms they would sell me?
Thanks

 

[Ol' Curmudgeon]

Does anybody have any ideas?

Repair rust, install engine/trans, get some money, buy a UTV. Keep 40 year old truck on ground.

Or, save up some more, and get this:

 

[Sreidmx]

Thats a tall order for pretty stock components, the arms are limited to 11-12 inches of travel without the bump stops using the stock upper and lower components including the ball joints.. if you somehow got a coil-over in there I would think it might be a waste of time not to do something else.

I went the beam route on my Blazer.. leaf springs dont cut it..

 

[HeavyCheby]

Repair rust, install engine/trans, get some money, buy a UTV. Keep 40 year old truck on ground.

Or, save up some more, and get this:

Yea, that would be fun and all, however I am a man who prefers to build m stuff and not bu something already done. However there is nothing wrong with that, its just my opinion

 

[HeavyCheby]

Thats a tall order for pretty stock components, the arms are limited to 11-12 inches of travel without the bump stops using the stock upper and lower components including the ball joints.. if you somehow got a coil-over in there I would think it might be a waste of time not to do something else.

I went the beam route on my Blazer.. leaf springs dont cut it..

I agree, it is a tall order for the stock components. But in reality 10-12" of travel is plenty for what I will be doing. And you said you went to Beams for your Blazer an that leaf springs dont cut it. My truck is 2wd, so she dont have laves up front. In a perfect world I would buy a Beam kit for it, But I feel that is over kill for my purposes.

 

[Ol' Curmudgeon]

Don't forget, you'll need some kind of bumpstops. Decent hydraulic units aren't "cheap."

I'm just afraid you'll be spending money on metal fatigue, tows, repairs and spinal issues if you try jumping that old truck.

I hope its frame buckles in two before yours does.

Ever experience a major balljoint failure over 50 MPH?

Money loss hurts less than physical pain.

I have a '76 model year vehicle myself. I wouldn't think of trying to jump it.

You are planning to replace all fasteners with Grade 8 or above, get the spindles (and etc and etc) Magnafluxed after each jump and have no time for a family or life beyond two seconds jumping, followed by months of wrenching, assuming no months of rehabilitation are necessary?

BTW, does the Canadian Health System cover repeated repairs for the same accident over and over, or does that fall under negligence and become an "elective"?.

One more thing, have you owned/operated/repaired/financed a Traxxus off road R/C truck? If so, did you notice they seem to wear out or break when used as directed?

 

[HeavyCheby]

I understand that a quality bump stop is expensive, and i am ok with that. Its just spending big bucks on stuff that is not neccesary where it bugs me. Grade 8+ hardware is a given, thats a no-brainer. And I currently drive a 1998 p71 crown vic. That garbage gets jumped alot. And the frame on my 78 would be getting fully boxed front to back, and would be getting a cage most likley. Just because i feel that is nessecary. Me and my friends all drive stock vehicles and treat them like prerunners/rally cars, etc. We have gotten lucky so far with reliability, but as our driving skill has been increasing we have found that to progress anymore and do more things we need purpose built vehicles.

And yes our healthcare system does not care how often a accident happens, it covers it. But we still have to pay for medication depending on circumstances, and such.

 

[HeavyCheby]

By the way, how did the guys driving these 73-87 chevys do so well in the dezert before they had 18" travel kits? I cant temember what class it was that they ran, i think it was class 6?

 

[HeavyCheby]

For example these Cars;
Grabber Oldsmobile 442 - Hot Rod Magazine