Yeah, thats the downside to a truck sitting level unloaded. I'll pull some part numbers up and see what we can do.

 

Uncle Bubba...that's almost funny, I work with a guy we call Uncle Bubba....

I'd recommend the Bilsteins all the way around. You can get a 3" coil from Carli or Thuren. It's roughly a 400# rate (compared to around 440 or so for your OEM coils), make the front ride very nice. As far as the rears, the problem with the 2500/3500 trucks is getting that big chunk of iron on top of the axle to move. In order to achieve the load carrying capacity, the leaves in the spring have to be fairly thick (or a 10-12 leaf progressive pack, which is $$$$), consequently they don't move very well when driving unloaded. There's really only two options, put up with the bone jarring ride, or go with an add a pack/airbag combo. That's what I'm running on my 2nd gen, works pretty well. There's a third option, replacing the whole leaf pack, but a nice pair of leaf springs will run you close to $1K.

If you want to one-stop shop it, Carli has a starter kit that includes coils, add a pack, shocks and sway bar end links. IIRC, the kit runs about $1300, it'll give you +3" ride height in the front and 1-1.5" in back. It'll ride and handle tons better, but if you haul or pull heavy, you'll want to airbag the rear. My 27' toy hauler with a 900# TW will squat the back 3-4", that's why I run the bags. But it sure rides better empty....

Feel free to PM me in you have any othe questions.....

 

Thanks Cowhand. I borrowed the name from one of my horses. Thought that was a safe way to have one not already being used. I started out back in 99 on these sites using 99 cummins as my handle and through the years ther got to be so many other guys usin the name in different variations that nobody knew who was who anymore.

I just wish I wasn't so tight with a dollar, or am I just poor. Guess it boils down to the same thing in the end. I keep lookin at the air system but even it gets a little pricey when you put all the parts together and I'm lookin at the wholesale prices for it. Maybe I need to put together a group buy and see if enough people would be interested to get a price break on it. Guess I'm just gonna have to settle for fixin up the front end and call it good at these prices.

 

Hey Diesel Nut, any luck on those prices yet. I also sent off for some more info on the Carli system. Looks like some nice equipment, I'm just waitin on the sticker shock when I hear back from him.

 

I'm back to the drawing board. I heard back from Carli today about his basic system. $1300 plus is a little out a this country boy's price range.

 

Try looking at Lorenz suspension, I think it's 1000 for a similar set up as the Carli starter system.