I'm planning on doing my SAS on my 86 soon, what my plans were was to use the 79 coil towers and lower them 2 inches. Everyone that i saw who did this used the cage arms or some type of long arm kit and that is just to far out of my price range. I want to know if i'm going to have any problems with caster if i lower the towers 2 inches and still use the stock 79 radius arms? Any help would be appreciated.

 

im not 100% sure but for some reason i believe you will be fine. But like i said im not sure. Is that the only lift your adding? if so i think it will be fine.

 

They make different degree wedge bushings so you can change your caster a bit with that. When I did my sas on the explorer (essentially the exact same setup you're going for) i dropped the ra mounts 2"s down as well so I had zero problems with caster.

 

Wait, I'm sorry guys. I completely left something out because i'm at work and i was rushing to try and get this thread posted. I got 79 9" lift coils for it and i'm using the drop radius arm brackets that i have on my truck from the 6" lift thats on it. I have 7 degree c bushings for it already but thats the biggest angle they make so thats y i'm worried about dropping the coil buckets on top of that. It should be some where around 11" then if i drop them 2". I'm sorry about that guys, I completely forgot to put what size I was going with.

 

Dropping the ra mounts very much isn't a great idea since you lose clearance. Yes I dropped my 2"s but my mounts are part of the transmission cross member as well and I really don't lose much with that little amount. Since every truck is different i'd try the buckets uncut and see where everything lands. Then if you need to trim you can.

 

Oh and do yourself a favor now. Extend the RA's using some beefy DOM tubing. I have mine bone stock and the front end is pretty stiff even with some pretty flexy springs. I'm going to wrist the passenger arm on mine for now. You can then bend the extensions, put heims or johnny joints on the end, build a cross member and get rid of the junk drop brackets. If you put much of a bend in them I would consider gusseting. I know it IS more work but the front suspension will work much better than a bone stock setup

 

I'm not much of a Fabricator yet, so I dont know about building a cross member and all. Just for now i think I'm just gonna stick with the stock radius arms and 9" coils with my drop radius brackets from my original lift. Thats what my friend did and just made a brace connecting the 2 radius arms in the back. Maybe eventually i'll make some long radius arms and a big cross member. How long did you make your Extended RA's. Can you PM me some more details on them because it does seem like something i would mayb want to try doing. thanks

 

As well as what size DOM that was and What size Heims.

 

I haven't done it on my yet. But just do some searches and you'll find a ton of info.

 

ok thanks