Like many others I prefer a truck to have much less ground clearance than General Motors intended, the first stage of this job is simple replace the rear springs. I am located in Australia so it’s easier for me to source local parts if they will do the job, my choice of rear coils came from a Commodore utility think El- Camino version of a 2004 GTO (or google 04 Holden Ute) this gave me about a 6 or 7 inch drop, it’s hard to tell for sure as I suspect the truck had been raised with fwd springs I don’t know the factory standard height. With this done the shocks became useless you will see the problem this created in the attached image. Lowered is never low enough so its now getting a c-notch and 2 inch lowering blocks and while the bed is off I am fixing the shock absorber location issue. I had been researching this project for a while and came across lakeroadsters shock mount drawing. To find it use the link. https://talk.classicparts.com/threads/lakeroadsters-build-thread-65-swb-step.13928/page-3 I lack some of Lakeroadstes skills, check out his thread for extra information.
I had made a pair of upper shock mounts to Lakeroadster drawing some time ago but when I removed the truck bed I discovered the cross member that the brackets attach to was different on the 65 C10 to the 69 C.10 The rivit locations on the 69 bracket are 6 inch apart. I decided to use the new brackets anyway. After filling the rear hole in the bracket and bolted the bracket in with the front hole and re-drilled the bracket using the rivit hole as a guide. This created a clearance issue between the bolt head and shock, to solve this I used counter sunk unbrako bolts this gave me the clearance needed. Images are coming
Before you notch your frame read through the "Rear Frame Notch" thread, see link in my signature line. There's a lot of ways to notch a frame, but however one chooses to do it, making it at least as strong as factory should be the goal. Is your truck originally from Australia? Good luck with your build, looking forward to watching things progress.
Your information on the c-notch is certainly interesting if I hadn’t already completed that part of it I might have taken a different approach and still might. I know I can’t predict what another owner might do but this truck won’t be carrying any loads, I would not have considered doing it if the suspension mounting points were not forward if the notch. The truck originally came here from Washington around 3 1/2 years ago which was when we adopted her she is a little beaten up, a checker plate bed, some less than great panel work and a patchy pearl white paint job with the original turquoise showing through on some edges. A new oak bed is on its way.
Did you remove the truck shocks? I guess the bed has been installed, yeah? How's the progress of the build?
Thanks for your interest, Life has been busy and I have not been able to do much on this part of the project, the c-notch is in place as well as the 2 inch lowering blocks. I was concerned that I might have needed to move the lower shock mounts to get clearance on the axle tubes but with the lowering blocks in place I have room for them although they are not bolted in yet the shocks have an extended length of 15.5” and collapsed length of 10” to fit with my block/spring combination. I have not received the truck bed yet, it’s coming to Australia by sea so it takes some time to get here, once I have it I will probably need to fabricate some new cross sills I have some but suspect I don’t have a full set under the chequer plate floor and freight would be to much to import them.
