I am looking to beef up my rear suspension a bit, add a little more payload and get rid of some of the rear sag when I load something up in my truck bed. I have been looking at the Air Suspensions and the Add-A-Leafs along with the the Suspension Helper leafs, anyone have any of these kinda of helpers? If so how has is it worked out for you and was it hard to install. any problems since you installed it. I dont really know what I want to go with right now. It would be installed on a 1998 4X4 Extended cab 5.4 lt. any info about these things would be appreciated.

bigNAnative

 

i'm interested in the actual installation of the add-a-leafs and how hard (time, tools needed, PIA factor, etc) it was? i would like to do the add-a-leafs and 4" coils up front to even her up. thanks guys

 

You'll need to remove your leaf springs and take the center bolt out. The new leaf will probably be more curved than the stock, so you'll need a couple of c-clamps to compress them together so you can reinstall the center bolt. After that just reinstall back on the truck. I did this on my 97 4x4 in a couple of hours.

 

as far as removing the leaf springs, what kind of tools will i need? i figure a jack to let the truck rest on , but what else? thanks... oh and is it a one man job or would it be best to have some help

 

If you remove the leaf springs be sure replace the old U-bolts with new ones, they are ment to be used one time only.

 

Worst thing in my opinion is add aleafs. Put them on my 4 wheel drive and could run over a dime in the road and feel it. The simplest and least expensive fix are load capicity shocks from NAPA. About $115. They are gas filled shocks with a spring around them. I used with a cab-over camper on my 2 wheel half ton truck and worked out fine. Another thing you can do is add some shorter leaf springs. Go to junk yard and get the same width and cut and taper to lenght and a new spring center bolts. This will run about thirty dollars. Make sure the u-bolts have enough threads or buy longer ones. The shocks say they are good for 1500 lbs but don't believe so, they do make a big difference and are the easy way out.

 

I put these on about three years ago and they have been great! I don't drop to the stops anymore and it's helped the handling, ride, no more wheel hop and no more 'clunk' from the rear either.



Easy install. Took about an hour total, including putting them together on the bench first. You can set the tension on them to be as firm or soft as you want. I keep them a bit snug so they won't rattle and I like the firmer ride anyway.

 

mitchF150: those are looking pretty good, and easy to install. i may look into a pair.

thanks everyone for the replies.