Just wanted to post a 1.5 year update after doing this swap. Ive been daily driving the truck the whole time and just got back from a wheeling trip.
The swap wasnt that bad, even with the odds and ends at the end like getting my driveshaft angles and caster dialed, but overall its been 1.5 years and ive largely not changed anything.
The only change ive made is putting 100 series springs on the rear for the spring rate when adding a rear bumper.
This has been kind of a set it and forget mod for me. Its been really nice and still drives great. I drive it to and from work every day. Drive it up to the mountain and the beach here in Oregon. Take my truck up to 100 mph or slow drive. Can hit speed humps at 50mph and do little railroad track jumps. The only people who notice the swap are people that know 80 and 60 series pretty well, and it all looks factory so id say most people cant even tell its had the work done which is really nice.
Offroad its night and day. I dont lift front wheels off the ground anymore. Washboard gravel forest roads dont rattle my truck anymore and i can run higher speeds on them. Its more comfortable all around and the flex when wheeling is unmatched. Single black diamond trails that I kind of struggled to get through on leafs are like almost too easy now and required much less effort and much less body damage risk. Its not a buggy or a super flexy 3 link, but the improvement in offroad capability is very significant. I didnt even remove the front sway bar this past time and did all of the trails just fine, however when you remove the front sway bar, your flex dramatically increases in the front.
at 1.5 years im still extremely happy with this swap and happy I did it. I couldnt imagine running leafs again on 60. Also, im very happy i did the rear swap as well. I was on the fence about doing the rear at first and originally wanted to keep it leafs, because its A LOT more work to do, and more expense... but for me, the end result is worth it. Even with the rear sway bar on i get a TON of flex out of the rear and its very comfortable on the road. The only downside of the rear is with my corrected panhard bar angle, i cant run my exhaust out the back anymore so it dumps under the truck.
right now the only issues im fighting are:
- I used rock auto front sway bar ends (the oem ones are $120 each) and I can not keep them tight. When they loosen up they clunk. I need to just pony up the money for the oem ones.
- Every few months or so I have to go and tighten the lock nuts on the metal tech rear upper control arms for some reason. I should probably run some loctite on them but since theyre kinda hard to get to, Ive been weary of doing that.
Thats about it. I really want to figure out a way to re route my exhaust to run through the back, but with raising the panhard bar on the axle side, there isnt much space between it and the gas tank so for the time being its just turned down before the rear axle. No issues other than it being a little louder at WOT and highway downshifts.
I posted these photos on the photos thread but ill post them here too. This was this past weekend here in Oregon
