Lift Kit Installation

 

 The rear of the kit is simply unbolting the leaves and bolting in the new ones. You should remove the shocks, the nuts from the u-bolts, and then lower the rear end. For safety, I did one side at a time, leaving the tire on the opposing side. The brake line bracket needs to be unbolted from the drivers side frame to allow for the droop while installing the leaves. The jack stands had to be fully extended and a four-by-four on top, just to touch the frame. The leaf spring should be unbolted at the front first and then you can slide it forward, so that the bolt can be slid out of the rear shackle under the frame. The rear would seem easy, since it is only eight nuts, four bolts, and two shocks. But the rusted u-bolts (that had been soaked with rust-buster for days) took forever to back off. If you are not going to re-use them somewhere else, cut the u-bolts to save time/strength.

The leaf springs go in simply. The rear gets bolted up first then the front,  then the blocks (which are marked -front-). Then you jack the rear-end up and install the new u-bolts.

After you have the rear-leaves installed, you might, (as I did) notice the paper-thin clearance between the rear drive-shaft and the rear frame cross-member. I took this out (drilled out the rivets) and made a U in the middle of it and bolted it back into the truck.

After all of this is done then you can re-route the front brake lines and ABS wires. Un-Clip the wires that connect to the front differential so that you can re-connect them and be able to use 4wd. Bend the rear brake bracket and drill/bolt it to the bottom of the drivers side rear frame. Bolt up the shocks, using washers or spacers up front to try and clearance them from the upper a-arms (my new shocks are dented now). The rear shocks are setup to bolt horizontally with one bolt, while the originals bolt vertically. I made four L brackets to bolt to the frame and then to the top of the rear shocks. This also allowed me to offset the passenger rear shock at the top to allow for more clearance from the exhaust.