Glad you liked it VA72C10. Coolant is one of my least favorite automotive fluids to have to deal with because it simply takes forever to evaporate if it isn't washed off immediately and when it does dry it leaves a white deposit behind. I just replaced the heater core in my Z this last week and had to deal with it all over the passenger side floorboard.
Back to the rear suspension. After doing a bit more research I'd decided to order a pair of ORD HD Rear Super Shackles. I purchased the 6” length with greasable poly bushings to help maximize lift as well as flex. Installation was fairly straightforward, but I did run into a snag on the passenger side.
The spare tire well on my Suburban was nestled very close to the shackle bolt on one side ,and the Blazer fuel tank pinned it in on the other.
My solution was to grind the heads off of the carriage bolts holding the spare tire well in place (they simply spun when I put a wrench on the nuts underneath) to let me slide the new shackle bolt in. This would also give me access to the zerk fitting in the future. Since my plan was to run 35” tires, there was no need for a small spare tire well and I intended to eventually delete the entire stock setup.
The new shackles certainly were a great deal heftier than the originals:
Since the OEM shackles measured 4” long these 6” ORD beauties were going to gain me an extra inch of height in the rear. Even with the extra inch of lift the rear still sagged. I was now up to 4.25 inches of suspension lift front, 6 inches of suspension lift rear and it was still a little droopy.
I started looking at ordering a pair of Tuff Country 19270 rear 2” lift springs. Re-arching the original spring pack was out of the question based on a cost / benefit analysis. Aside from some variety of add-a-leaf (which would raise the rear and possibly add some weight capacity but probably stiffen the ride) the only other option to consider would have been trying to find some stock 52” eye to eye springs with less sag and / or extra arch to try and level my Suburban. Another research item was added to my to-do list.
Here's a comparison of before and after the rear shackles:
As it sat in those pictures, all of the interior as well as many spare parts were in the back of the Suburban, it didn't have the bumpers I planned to run or a heavy winch in the front. I hoped things would level out more as it neared completion. The front springs hadn't been broken in yet either, so there was still a possibility that they would relax some.
I decided to hold off on measuring the pinion angles or purchasing any more suspension components until all the height issues were better settled (literally and figuratively).
In the meantime I'd noticed another item that was going to need some attention. This vehicle came from the factory with a SBC and a Turbo 350 trans. Now with the BBC and 4L80E the shift linkage didn't reach. I made the decision to ditch the rods and pivots that comprised the old linkage in favor of something I discovered in an issue of 4WOR (my dad had been a subscriber since 1996 and I have every issue from then until the present day). They had installed an Ididit cable shift system on the Ultimate K10. The product description didn't mention it being compatible with a 4L80E transmission, so I called Ididit directly. Their technician assured me a couple of times that it would fit fine.
Here are the parts all laid out:
Imagine my surprise upon reading through the instructions and not finding any mention of the 4L80E. I examined the bracket which was meant to mount on the transmission pan and confirmed my suspicions, it wouldn't be a straight bolt on. After a little modification this is what I came up with:
A couple of ¼” longer bolts were fished out of my collection to compensate for the spacers. With the transmission end mocked up it came time to dig into the steering column. As night began to fall I realized that the column I had been trying to fit the horseshoe and bracket to was the wrong one. The plan had been to take the van tilt column back out of the Blazer and put it in the Suburban where it had always been destined to reside. With a LED headlamp on I removed the columns from both vehicles and called it a night.
Mmmmm, original medium green steering column...
