Hey guys! I posted a while back about beefing up the rear in my Chevy, and after taking all the good advice into consideration I went out and found a 9" at the Glendale swapmeet a few weekends ago. Talking with the guys at work I've decided that I want to go with a parallel ladder bar setup vs. transferring all my stock suspension to the new rear end housing. I'm looking for some thoughts on using the original coil springs with a setup like this. Pretty much all pictures I can find online are either leaf sprung or use use coil-overs. The original suspension utilized spring pockets on the lower control arms themselves. Would there be any reason to not put my spring pockets on the ladder bars in a similar fashion? I know there will also need to be a lot of structure added to the frame for the front mounts. I haven't figured out exactly how long they will be, but in any case will end up needing to mount in the "X" space. I'm also toying around with the idea of tying whatever I built there into a reinforcement for the frame tube so I can clearance it for a 1 piece drive shaft. I know you can beef up the 2 piece, but I figure one less U joint is one less thing to break.. Anyways, any thoughts or advice on this project is greatly appreciated, as always!
Take a look at the control arms under 1960's Chevy pickups . This might be a good way to get to where you are going .