Leaf spring removal

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02ramboi

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How has the truck been doing since you fixed and leveled out the back


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McBroom

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I have a 98 1500 5.9L ram, it has a 13 inch lift. the problem is the back sits a little higher than the front. my question is would I be able to pull a single leaf from the rear end? if so how much of a drop would a single leaf do? any help would be appreciated, also, could anyone point out which spring to remove? I will try to post a few pictures of the setup. thanks!

Can’t see the pics


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Gr8bawana

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well since i live 1 block away from Home Depot i just used one of their bolts, i did have to grind the head of the bolt just a tad to fit, but i got it all in and bolted down and it looks a whole lot better! You guys are awesome!! thanks alot for all the help. it was greatly appreciated!!
View attachment 92330

I just noticed your u-bolts are round going over the leaf springs. If I'm not mistaken the u-bolts should be squared off over the springs.
UA176SCSP__ra_p.jpg
 

EvilSpirit

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A couple observations.

First picture had the correct shaped spring u-bolts, so the incorrect ones got installed during later work.

Generally speaking, once you start getting over 4-5" of lift it's a crapshoot to balance u-joint operating angles for reliability and vibration. As was said earlier, the u-joint angles need to keep the trans and pinion on the same plane. It gets to the point where you can't get that "right", because of the height difference making the operating angles too severe. At that point people band-aid this by rotating the pinion up to help lessen the operating angles, at the expense of creating a vibration from the mis-matched angles. Strength, vibration, and joint life are all compromised by the excessive height and angles.

At 13" of lift the front shaft angles must be absolutely horrible. Remember, the engine/trans/transfer case is not level in the frame - it usually points down several degrees. This helps the rear, but hurts the front - for the angles to be "correct" a solid front axle pinion should point DOWN. Combine this with the short length of a front shaft and the angles are complete garbage. So the axle gets rotated up - again creating mis-matched angles and vibration.

My 2 cents worth, coming from having lifted trucks 35+ years ago - generally when you get trucks lifted that high you can "help" the driveshafts angles - but you can't "fix" them.
 
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