[44boggers]

The last few weeks I started to tackle the wiring in the truck. I have about 90 percent of my painless harness wired as well as my dakota digital dash. I think I am putting the cart before the horse here a bit, but I havent had the time to work on the body , so I figured i would get a head start on the wiring. Anyway that is sorting itself out alright.

Moving to the rear of the truck, I took the axle back out of the truck and stripped off the shock mounts, spring perches and brake line holders, so I could get ready to sort out my pinion angle and weld on new spring perches instead of using a flip kit. I got my pinion right around 1* negative (i first got the pinion and trans/motor parallel to each other, but opposite degrees) and then pushed the pinion down around 1* to compensate for the axle rotating under acceleration. After the pinion was set I tacked in the perches.

Next thing is to move onto the shock mounts. This is where I am a little unsure of how I should mount them. I thought I read somewhere factory shocks were mounted around 30* to help with axle wrap. Then I read people use the shock extenders to create a better shock angle. So what degree of shock angle should i shoot for.

My shocks fully extended have around 8 1/4" of shaft showing. I was thinking of having them at right height with around 3" of shaft showing. With this amount of shaft showing and the shock around 30* it looks like I would have need to make my shock mounts around 3.5" longer than stock.
Is that close to what the shock extenders are?

Now one more thing to discuss which is a big concern of mine. I was measure the wheel base when I noticed the driver side is around 3/4" to 1" shorter the pass side. This was a bit of a surprise to me because when i drove the truck prior to taking it apart it drove straight and there were no issues. BUT the frame was cracked at the steering box and there were a **** load of shims on the driverside A arm. I dont ever remember the driver side wheel looking like it was not centered in the wheelwell.

I am not really sure how to proceed from here, but I am going to worry about it when its time to. Cause right now the truck is so far along and everything from the A arm back is straight, I am going to continue working on the rear end and and begin the body work on the bed. I mean the PO was able to make it drive perfect under its current circumstances. Maybe I can find a frame repair shop somewhere in austria or germany who can do some corrections without beating the crap out of my powder coating.

Thanks for any input.

Paul