| SFA Build |
| I decided to perform a Solid Axle conversion on my Blazer during my Senior year of college. There were a few goals that I had in mind based on the wheeling that I do. 1) As much travel as possible. I frequent the Silver Lake Sand Dunes, so I intended to build a machine that I could blast through the whoops and catch air. 2) Fit the widest all terrain tires I could find. The Mickey Thompson tires I have on it are 35x17.5. This gives me the largest footprint to float on the sand. 3) Not have to modify the engine, transmission, or transfercase. 3) Onroad ride should still be reasonable. Can be brought down for fix-it tickets. Having those goals in mind, I decided to use a D44/Ford 9" combo from a 1974 F150. Those axles would be plenty strong enough for the size tires planned, and the front pumpkin is on the drivers side to line up with my factory tcase. I decided to use a suspension style similar to that of the factory F150, but modified of course. I started gathering parts and rebilding the axles while on work term, and then when at school, me and my buddies blasted through the conversion in the tiny garage at the house I was renting. Below is what we used. Front Axle: D44 with 4.56 gears, lockrite locker, disc brake conversion Rear Axle: Ford 9" with 4.56 gears, strange engineering full spool Front Suspension: Custom made radius arms with 1.25" heims at the frame end and factory for c clamp style poly bushings at the axle end. Custom made trac bar with 1.25" heims on both ends. High misalignment spacers used all around Steering Box: Saginaw steering box (same as S10) from a 94 Astro van. Astro van boxes have a pitman arm that swings forward. This allowed me to move the axle as far forward as possible. Steering Links: Trailproof system from bulletproof steering. Kit has tierod over comversion and bends in the draglink to allow the angles I required. Steering has little or no bind at full travels. Springs/Shocks: Sway a way 14" travel 2.5" coilovers. These are mounted on the radius arms in a position that gives me total wheel travel in the area of 18". They are mounted to custom shock hoops. Total lift about 16". Rear Suspension: spring over axle conversion and 3" lift blocks. Total lift about 8". Rear Drive Shaft: Factory S10 shaft was cut and a CV was put on. Due to the lift, it was just barely long enough to not fall out at full droop. It only had about 1/4" engagement on the splines of the tcase at full droop. Front Drive Shaft: Because the front suspension is a radius arm style, we setup the pivot points to line up with the output of the tcase. Therefore throughout the suspension travel there would not be much slip required. Unfortunately, I required a huge amount of angle on the CV. Therefore I got a Big Boy JR from arizonadriveline. I have not yet installed the slip yoke eliminator on the front that came wiht the shaft. That is why it is not installed. We did the conversion in about a month and a half, without air tools. After the first few test runs, we made some modifications to the tracbar to eliminate bump steer, and made a few other adjustments. It has run flawlessly everywhere I have taken it, in 2WD. I recently sheared the splines off the dshaft/tcase when I boosted some big air. My intention is to get a slip yoke eliminator for the rear, new shaft that will fit better, and lift springs/shocks to lift the rear to match. I also have a cage, V8 swap, and some other tricks planned, but it will be some time before it will be done. Money has been a concern for the past year or so, hence the reason why it still isn't sitting level. Please check out the pics and feel free to visit greatlakes4x4.com if you want to ask me any questions. My username is SFA BlaZeR2. |