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I've had a couple of threads asking questions for this truck. There was good & bad stuff when I first purchased it back in '17 & the bad stuff took some sorting. Once sorted (& since then) it's been completely reliable. Only maintenance since then was replacing the battery in '19 & annual oil changes.

That being said, it was a handful on the highway. Every freaking part under the front end was worn. I purchased new tires from the start but never put the fronts on as I didn't want them wearing funky & figured I'd rebuild things sooner rather than later. Well.... That didn't happen. When you can walk to work & don't travel, the worn out parts aren't causing an issue.

I've had the replacement parts on a shelf since Dec of '17 waiting. I was planning on a revised rear set-up so the front rebuild waited while I procrastinated. I used my Christmas break of 2020 to get things done & kept it simple for this round of tweaks......

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Much better!

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Thank you sir.

5/7 drop
3" Belltech spindles, 1-coil sliced off of the OE springs, & Bilsteins.
OE 1.25" swap bar w/Billet frame pivots & poly bushings.

Belltech flip-kit, bolt-in C-notches w/additional reinforcement, & lower shock relocation brackets.
Western Chassis lift shackles & G-body Bilsteins w/a relocated pass side upper bracket so the shocks angles were the same (pass side was <45° angle after drop; driver side @ 58°).

2" carrier bearing spacer & modified the bed floor brace over the rear end/c-notch reinforcements.

215/75-16's on 16x6's; 265/70-16's on 16x8" Wheel Vintique 62 Series 8-lug.

Existing tailpipes had to be cut off @ the muffler exit as they interfered w/the new rear end height. Picked-up a new 2.5" dual In/Out Dynomax Ultra Flow on Saturday to replace the Flowmaster. The noise level w/the pipes cut off is crazy loud @ highway speed.

Fixed the rear frame rail issues from the previous owner & working on installing the CURT Class V hitch stuff now. Going to attempt another Hidden Hitch set-up if it doesn't over complicate things...

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Diggin' it!! Funny you mention the exhaust, mine is lowered bout 4" and had the stock exhaust. I had to put a new intermediate pipes on, and when had those off noticed the rest was kinda hacked. Just put a Dynomax y-pipe on a Borla XR1 muffler. Took it for a spin, (LOUD, killer drone, not in good way lol but no pipe off muffler) and noticed it doesn't make as much noise. Apparently the stock exhaust was hitting somewhere back there, not anymore!!!

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Are you going with a stock rear bumper or a roll pan?

Thanks for the specs on all you did.
That saves answering a lot of questions.
Weird how the shock angles were different.

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The bumper is already installed. The pics were straight from getting aligned. No license either in that pic....

I've been pulling the bumper brackets one side @ a time to tweak as needed for the hitch brackets.

Agreed on the difference between shock angle & bracket location difference. I just noticed the shock angles & was really surprised of the numbers.

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I've never seen 3" spindles for an OBS. Only 2". Hated using 3" coils on my 98 to get the 5" drop but since 2" spindles were all I could find that was my only option.

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Maybe the 3” drop spindle is a 2500 (3/4-ton) truck thing.

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Correct... The OBS spindle from Belltech for 3/4 & 1-ton trucks is 3" of drop like the Squarebody trucks.

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So after some measuring, the C/L of the driver side upper shock mount to the C/L of the c-notch was ~15". The C/L of the passenger side was ~19". Thus, the reason why the pass side shock was laying over too much.

*EDIT*
Image #1 is the drivers side
Image #2 is the pass side

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I studied the position & shape of the bracket & decided to modify it vs. building something from scratch. There was hardware/holes conveniently there to push that decision.

I knocked the rivets out to allow moving the original bracket back the 4" needed to yield the same shock angle/travel. The lower rail c-notch bolt was already there so I was able to drill the hole in the bracket slightly oversize & utilized the c-notch hardware for that position. For the 'front' lower bracket hole I just drilled a new hole.

None of the holes on the top rail aligned & since shifting the bracket rearward required reducing the bracket height (frame rail height shrinks in this area), I sectioned the top off the bracket & welded in a new piece @ the new slightly lower height. Then, I just drilled a new upper mount hole near the C/L of the shock mounting. It has 2-lower & 1-upper fastener just like it's original position...

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Bracket shifted back 4" @ a 15" C/L. Shock angle now matches the drivers side & the shock is @ 16" @ ride height (center of shock travel).

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Did you know Belltech made an UPPER shock relocator for the OBS trucks.
I follow @macsgarage on Instagram.
He just put a set of these on a 1/2-ton single cab truck.
I never knew they existed.

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I did not know about the upper relocators. This is only my 2nd 88-98/GMT400 body style truck that I've owned & only the 4th I've dropped..

I knew from my '90 the shocks were compromised. Even w/the lower relocation brackets, the shocks were too long w/a flip kit & shackles (just the flip kit for the heavier duty trucks have the same issue). I had bad tire cupping from that. I switched to the G-body shock & it helped as the travel was in the sweet spot.

I never measured a stock/unmodified suspensions shock angles but I agree 100% the angles are very poor when dropped.

My angle is currently 53°. I like them to have 30° or less (60 - 90° target). I'll have to look into the upper relocators. But.... Pulling & installing a bed solo is a PITA. It wore me out this weekend but the shock angles match & I got the CURT HD hitch & front air dam installed.

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I wish I had known about the upper shock brackets from Belltech. I just 4/6 Belltech'd my 94 truck last week. It's finished now and I'm not motivated to jerk the bed and dig back into it right now. Frankly, it's a failing of Belltech's since I went to their website prior to ordering my stuff and thoroughly explored all of the parts they list for OBS trucks.

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Agreed.... Epic 'fail' on Belltech.

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I used the Googles.

Belltech 6658

https://www.summitracing.com/parts/bel-6658

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Funny thing is, I debated making a bracket that attached to the original for relocating the pass side. But then decided I could utilize the existing bracket w/a couple tweaks.

I'll be getting a pair of these to make the angle even better.

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Tx Firefighter,... Thanks for the Belltech part number.
I agree Belltech needs to get the word out, especially with the popularity of the OBS trucks right now.
@macsgarage is a good guy to follow on Instagram.
He usually has detailed posts on what he’s doing and likes to used quality parts in all the vehicles he works on.

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Picked up my upper relocation brackets today. Basically you could use just one of these on the pass side & it would bring the 2-sides to almost equal angles.
The brackets are identical.

I'll swap them into place when I pull the bed off again on my next weather free weekend opportunity. This will yield ~4" difference on the driver side & ~8" total difference on the pass side between the relocating the original piece plus Belltech bracket.

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Scot do you think you will have any issues at the lower shock mount since you already moved the factory mount back?
Like the shock tube hitting the add on lower bracket.

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I considered that. But, if it will work on the drivers side, I think it will on the pass side. Only big difference is the pass side has the e-brake cable/bracket attatched to the lower shock bolt. It might make that interesting but I think it can still work.

*Blazer chassis & driveline looks outstanding BTW!

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I agree.
n2billet always does amazing work.
I’m lucky to have him putting his spin on the old blazer.
I have the same vision, but he makes it reality.

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He shares progress stuff from time to time. The rust repairs were spot on IMHO. I look foward to you getting it back & logging some CtC miles.

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Well.... I bought 2.5" tubing for the muffler back exhaust & there's no freakin room to run piping w/o being directly in the path of the hitch and/or bed bolt access. Now I get why so many just dump the exhaust w/a stock bed floor.