Bleach

  Bump steer spacers in the front?? What is your plan here??

  Never heard of a spacer for the datsuns.

Jason

Well, maybe you're right. Maybe they don't fix bump steer. They are ball joint spacers to lower the lower control arm 1". This helps in a very small way more shock travel and less negative camber on a lowered truck.

I got the 4.11 axel out. I cleaned up the brakes which looked to be in good shape. Good seals on the cylinders and lots of brake shoe material. I installed some new drums I had laying around. Might as well. By the time these drums are bad I'll be doing a rear disc swap.

I also put new gear oil in the axel

So the shocks I had pictured yesturday are the Caddillac shocks. The Pinto shocks for the front are even shorter. But, as it turns out for right now the Caddy shocks are still too short.
 

This is with the drop blocks and everything installed

Ok, so since the overload leaf is gone and the 2" blocks are now swapped to 3" I raised the rearend untill it just came off the jackstands...

This looks like the same clearance I had before! I'm not happy... I expected to be another 2 inches lower than this...

Looks the same as it always has... it should be at least 1" lower due to the blocks. oh well, I'll finish the rest and get it back on the road. I can lower it more later if needed.

The shocks need another 2 inches of drop and there's plenty of clearance above the axel....

no, unfortunatly the front wheels are up on wheel ramps. So all the weight is on the suspension when I have the jack under the rear axel. but ya, I'll get it on the ground later, jump in a bed, and then see where it sets. I can always go with 4" blocks. I am not going to go monoleaf though. I like having the thin helper spring under the main leaf.... gives me a little bit of security.

Anyway, if the Cadillac shocks do work, here is some info on them. They are from the front of an early 80's Caddy. I drove out the pin you see that goes through the bushings. (came out easy) and they bolt right on.

Unbolt the ball joint, put the spacer onto the A-arm, then bolt the lower ball joint back down with some longer bolts. (oh ya, these only work on disc brakes so 1978-79 only)

It doesn't lower it, but it allows the lower arm to be 1" lower than the rest of the spindle. Its almost like a 1" drop spindle but not quite. (because the upper arm is still at the same angle)

So imagine you drop your truck 5" by turning the torsion bars down. You put the spacer in, and even though the upper arm is the same, the lower arm is now really only needing to be dropped 4". So, the shock has slightly more travel and your lower arm angle is better for control. (pointed downward slightly more) and it bring the lower ball joint in about 1-2mm. I know, not much but its something.

If I was there, I'd let you trace these... but you can probably just use a stock ball joint as a pattern. plus you have pics of the ones here. These were installed and used on another truck before.

I'm having a rough time with the stupid parking brake tonight!
Cables frozen up, I pull them back and forth and they're very sticky. Plus, it took forever to remember how to pull all these shoes and springs out of the rear. I hate drum brakes!

I'm trying to swap over the cables from my other axel into this one. Very time consuming... and that's just what I don't need this week.

Nope, I did not do height measurements before the drop. I figured it wouldn't matter.

The angle is very small on these blocks. From the picture you can see that they are a third longer than the 2" blocks. Both angled blocks have the angles pointing the same way in the pic. You can see the difference is only about a quarter inch. this would make the middle about 1/8 of an inch less tall...

well tonight I did a bunch of work on the rear brakes. The adjusters were completely seized up, the parking brake cables as well. I got both off of the other axel and partly installed. I also put new seals in the brake cylinders because everything was torn down anyway. Now comes the fun part.. trying to get those stupid springs accross the shoes.