Greetings.

I've been working on a chevy spring swap for my T100. I have the fabrication done and am starting to work on the hanger placement.

The front hanger looks like it's going to have to go right under the rear body mount, which wraps under the frame. I'm using a front hanger design similar to the one on Eric's T100 spring swap pages.
(http://home.4x4wire.com/erik/t100/chevyhanger1.jpg)

So the problem is that the steel from the body mount wraps under the frame member which means that the underside is stepped and not flat for welding the hanger to the frame.

Any thoughts on dealing with the issue?

Here are the alternatives that occur to me:
1) Grind the underside of the mount to be flat on the frame.
2) Grind a recess in the hanger to allow it to mount flat
on the frame
3) Add shims of some sort to the front of the hanger to
level it out.

Of these, I"m actually leaning towards #1. 2 seems that it would weaken the hanger quite a bit and 3 seems that the welding would be compromised.

#1 would compromise the strength of the body mounts but would have the backing of the spring hanger.

Thanks in advance for any advice.

Chip

Also wanted to add another question --

In reading on the web I see that people are putting the mount about 11" forward of the original position. However when I measure, I get around 9". Aligning the center holes on the original and new springs the front spring eye is approx. 9" back, not 11".

I also used a plumb line to locate the center hole on the original springs and then the new springs and come up with approx. 9" every time.

Any thoughts as to why this may be?

Thanks in advance.

Chip

I think I shimmed mine, and 11" is just for the '88 and earlier mini trucks. I just put mine where the tire was centered in the wheel well.

Thank you thank you! Considering the cost of a screw-up on a project like this, I want to move very carefully and when I see conflicting information I really want to reconcile it before proceeding.

Hmmmm... Maybe I'll try mounting the tire back on the axle, the axle on the main leaf (only) and see where it centers.

As for the shim vs. grinding.. welp, I did do some grinding. Maybe I'll adopt a compromise between grinding the lumpiness out of the original frame welds and adding shims. I'll have to re-evaluate that one.

Thanks again for your help. I'm really enjoying this project and really appreciate your web page on your efforts.

Chip