Project: Modify everything, even the aftermarket parts to fit...

If I remember correctly when I look up the 2D drawing for the leaves I will get those spring rates, but I'll try to remember to give it a shot on Monday.

isnt part #9 a shackle?

Yes, but it's so short that the spring basically rides on the frame all the time, it's more of just a locating device than a swing shackle. I'll try to get pics when I got back this week, I think I have thursday and friday off.

Well, I spent about six hours getting the steering box and jeep steering shft installed, and I don't know if it was the gunk on the box or something else, but it's not a fast ratio box, but it is at least slop free, and pretty freshly rebuilt by the feel of it. I guess now, since I got this one so cheap, I should just save up for a Lee rebuild of my now spare box with 12:1 conversion.

The steering shaft was all too simple. I did not like how others used a smaller bolt on the column end though, so I broke out the dremel and grinding wheel and made a tiny notch in the column so the stock bolt could still be used.

Getting the damn pitman arm off the center link was by far the hardest part of the day, I finally got it by using a very large pipe as a giant drift and smacking the stud on the center link from above with a 3LB sledge about as hard as I could several times.

Yesterday was an out and about day, but the day BEFORE yesterday, I installed a new steering wheel on my truck. That was a MAJOR chore. I really like the wheel I got, but in retrospect, may not have been worth the effort required. The wheel I got was designed to use three bolts and a nut on the steering shaft itself, the wheel in my blazer had a 2 inch spacer off the main hub of the column and used six bolts in a large pattern. So I had to machine the wheel flat, and drill and counter sink the six holes for the torqs screws to mount the wheel, plus four holes for the cover that mounted to the back of the wheel to cover the spacer, and three larer holes to mount the stock horn button to the face of the wheel. That was about a twelve hour work day from un-bolting the stock wheel to see what I had to do, to a new, freshly painted wheel being bolted on.

What kinda wheel did you get?  Is it a smaller diameter than stock?

sucks that the box isn't a fast ratio one.  I did something similar to that when I went to swap out throttle bodies.  instead of the quad 4 throttle body, I ended up with one off a 2.4...which is the same as the 2.2 i already had. lol

It's a 12" split three spoke, black on black with about an inch of extra dish. Much better than the 14.5" stock wheel that weighed about five pounds.

Did some researrch, just being the curious type that I am, and the astro has a track width of 65.1", maybe I do want those dually fender extensions I saw at the yard.

Yeah, that pretty much looks right. Do we know for sure if that front is an open eyelet or not, that will make all the difference.

I know for sure that it is not an open eyelet.  The drawing pretty much shows it as a round bushing glued to the end of the spring.

That's exactly what I was afraid of from looking at it. So the only real way to mount it to an S10 would be to either modify the front to use a bushing, flip it around and more than likely have to put a custom front mount on the frame because the rear is longer than the front, or try to adapt that whole clamshell front mount to the S10 frame which is neither going to be easy, or very effective IMHO. It was a nice thought though.

A small update for everyone, my trip to the yard last week was canceled due to pretty heavy rain and the yards being all dirt lots, there was abut 2" of soft mud and wet sand over the whole yard, not going to fly.

I have however done enough research to find that the lower bushing outside diameters are 1.45" and 1.65" and due to slop and the fact that the holes are roled, I have to oversize the bushings and they're going to get torn to bits. So I'm going to have the arms sleeved, I'm thinking 2" OD 1.625 ID mild steel tubing welded into the arms after I open the holes up, but we'll wait till I have arms on hand before deciding. Parts list for just the LCAs is going a bit out of control as I keep adding parts and complexity and badgering myself into higher quality materials, and the parts alone are at $112 right now. That's not going to include altering the arms, having the sleeves welded in, machining the delrin or any of the labor, only some of which I can do in house. I'm very nearly considering the del-a-lum bushings, even though I don't particularly like the design or execution.

It's raining again, damnit!

No pics? Are you trying to kill me? I can't read without pics...lol
I have to finish reading but sounds just as good as it did in the planning process.

I haven't done anything yet, that's why there are no pictures, I could take a picture of the new box, but it's just a stock box, I could take a picture of the Jeep lower shaft, but who hasn't seen one? I do need to take a picture of the wheel with the mods I had to do, that's incoming, eventually, lol. The rest hasn't been done yet, I haven't been able to get to the yard for like three weeks because of rain.

Decided to go to the yard yesterday, figured it had been a solid week since it rained, should be good. The yard actually had 6" deep water in some areas and was mud anywhere there wasn't standing water. BUT it was a great resource. I was shocked at everything they had in stock. The yard wasn't as big as the other one I usually frequent, but it was purely trucks and vans, and it was nearly 50% S10s and blazers, and about 50/50 between the trucks and blazers. They had more first gen V6 trucks than I've ever seen at a yard, they had a pair of 94 or 95 full leather package trucks with electric mirrors, the whole 9 yards, I've only ever seen one previously in AZ. So I went to town.

Got a new throttle pedal, because mine is rather stiff most of the time. Got a pair of LCAs so I can start work on delrin bushings, finally. Got a fully set of Bilsteins off a truck that looked like the entire suspension was rebuilt about 10 miles before it was totaled. New springs on all four corners, new bushings in stock arms up front, new shackles, new bolts, BRAND new bilsteins, not rebuilt units, the paint on the rubber bushings was barely starting to crack. I also finally got a ZQ8\2GB front swaybar, and I grabbed a set of stock rear endlinks for the 2dr blazer rear bar, for mock-up and to get it mounted then see what mods need to be done to make it better. Work starts tomorrow on throwing all this stuff at the truck. No true ZQ8 trucks at the lot though, so no steering box or lowering springs.

awesome, good to hear!

The pattern of one step forward one step back has continued. Two of the three bolt holes in the frame for the swaybar mounts stripped enough that I couldn't get a good lock on the bolt, so I had to drill and tap them out, and had to go up to 1/2-13. And ace only had 3 of them on hand, so I took care of two of them and will do the other two when the last one comes in on thursday. Got grade 8s.

On the bright side, I got the big sway bar on with poly endlinks and it made a noticeable difference all ready. I can't wait to get the rear on, I'm still working on figuring out how to do the rear. The stock end-links are nice, but I may just do a straight end-link through the frame.

if you just box up that section you go through the frame, i dont see how much better it can get

I had to drill and tap one of the swaybar bolt holes on mine too.  I have one bolt that's larger than the other three. lol

if you just box up that section you go through the frame, i dont see how much better it can get

That is going to be difficult considering I don't weld, but I'll get it mocked up coming up here, I don't know if I'll have the energy to do it after work any day, so it might wait till friday, but I'm thinking straight is going to be too much easier to ignore.

I helicoiled one of mine that popped out and it's held up to 2 years of serious abuse.  It's just a threaded insert so you could pop a new one into the frame if you had the tool.

A lot of people just get someone with really small hands to reach down into the frame and put on a nut onto the bolt.  Child labor would be ideal in this situation.