Project Responder is riding high with the addition of a complete Superlift Suspension lift kit, courtesy of Superlift and Hill Four Wheel Drive Center. The front springs were supplied by Hill Four Wheel when they saw our wish list on this web site. It just so happened that they had a brand new set of front Superlift Springs that had been laying around collecting dust for quite a long time. We were extremely excited to get the springs, but we still needed the rest of the kit to lift the rear of the truck. This is where Trent stepped in from Superlift and graciously sponsored the remaining parts of the kit.
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To complete the lift, the truck was outfitted with rear Superlift Add-a-Leafs and rear riser blocks to achieve the 6″ of lift and be able to support the additional weight of the Stahl service body. The kit also includes the rear u-bolts, a track-arm relocation mount and a complete set of Superlift shocks to smooth the ride. Superlift has been absolutely wonderful to work with and we are very excited to have thier quality products on our truck.
The installation was extremely simple. Since we were starting with a bare chassis and all of the components had been sandblasted and painted, there was very little work involved in placing this on the truck. We began with the front springs once the Off Road Unlimited brand Reverse Shackle Kit had been installed. It took a little bit of effort to get the spring eyes to line up with the shackles. This was due to cutting off the bottom of the rear spring brackets to install the reverse shackles. The shackles ended up with a bit of a camber to them based on the templates supplied by ORU for modifying the factory brackets. We the rolled the Dana 60 into place and secured it to the springs with the ORU replacement shock mounts and a set of custom made front U-bolts.
Once the front springs were attached, we then focused our attention to the rear springs. Here, we actually had to remove the original center bolt and remove the bottom leaf from the spring pack. In its place, we installed the rear add-a-leaf supplied by Superlift. After standing on the spring pack to get the springs compressed enough to start the nut on the new spring bolt, we used an impact wrench to tighten up the leaves. Lastly, we cut off the excess spring bolt and covered the springs with a final coat of gloss black paint.
To complete the project, we lifted the rear springs into place and fastened the bolts to the frame and the rear shackle. We then rolled the rear axle into place. After lining up the spring pads on the axle with the springs, we set the riser blocks in place on top of the factory blocks and then secured the axle with the very long Superlift U-bolts. To get the bolts tight, we actually had to have a special impact socket makd that doubled its length so the socket could reach all the way to the springs. That’s it. The chassis was lowered down so that it was finally supported by it’s own device. With the rolling chassis complete, we were now ready to start adding the powerplant and drivetrain.