OG's method of 2Gen shock swap.

BenBB said:

Dibs. Still got it?

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Sold the rack. A guy drove in from AZ

Kings went to a guy building a 1450 truck in Vegas.

BlueOvalF22 said:

Sold the rack. A guy drove in from AZ

Kings went to a guy building a 1450 truck in Vegas.

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Dammit. Was worth a shot heh. A nice rack is good to find!

Ha! Finally someone is doing it right!
As far as the live valve, it probably wouldn’t be hard to get it to work. My guess it’s 5v, 5v being full soft and 0v hard (hence unplugging gives full hard) add a potentiometer and you could have a really neat adjustable system


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I used the portaband instead of a big hole saw.

Just take the lid off the can the bushing will bloop out with the first blip of an air hammer.


This is stock droop with no sway bars.




Back to work.

Standy to stand by.

ogdobber said:

Ha! Finally someone is doing it right!
As far as the live valve, it probably wouldn’t be hard to get it to work. My guess it’s 5v, 5v being full soft and 0v hard (hence unplugging gives full hard) add a potentiometer and you could have a really neat adjustable system


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The live valve nub is strictly mechanical. As in sealed, no contacts magnetic force from outside the housing actuated. The component on a live valve truck that slips over the nub is an electromagnetic coil. Probably higher than 5 v and PWM controlled.

It may be possible to hold the valve open with a permanent magnet on the nub.

Here is the result of measuring from the flat on one bumpstop cup to the other.

You don't need to take the 1 gen cup offf the bottom of the hat. I drilled out spot welds to see which side the bushing came out easier. Chopping the top is the way.
It's mostly red dirt road mud up front, but some rust on the hat. . I'll pressure wash and touch up things before it's all sealed up.

So given 1gen OEM & kings are 27 extended and a 2gen is 29 I think I got pretty close for a lowbuck pandemic fix. It's definitely a spring compressor job.

About 1/2 inch less at full droop with no sway bar.

Have you had a chance to drive it yet

So I have the live valve shocks on my first gen and I have not yet figured out the cv axle angle change. It would appear that your top hat mod kept a similar length and would avoid putting the front axles into an extreme angle. Any suggestions would be welcome.

Kodiak2015 said:

Have you had a chance to drive it yet

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Drove it, double-checked torque, and then beat the sh*t out of it. With blown OG fronts, it used to shimmy a lot when I landed after jumping some local RR tracks. With the UCA's and shocks, it just lands and sticks it like Olympic gymnastics now.

It's great.

The double top hat + spacer install requires a good spring compressor and a bunch of fiddle f*ckery to get it all lined up and bolted in. You aren't compressing a ton, just enough to have enough slack to put the shock shaft through the stack up on the bucket. Not like doing a full-on mac strut still on a car or anything.

A simple way is if a shop like SVC or RPG with a CNC setup could machine an extended top hat.. I got it all in but it was R&D the whole time.

Now that it's done, DO take off the lower cup of the 1G hat and also cut off the top of the 1g hat to remove the entire bushing.

Also just put in the entire 1G bump stop.

Measure between your stock bump stop at ride height and the shock body before you take it apart.

Then do the rest of the redneckery engineering.

Lower it off the stands and measure between the 1G bump and the 2G shock and you'll see why.