It's been a few issues since we've been able to bring you an installment of our '48 Willys truck buildup. Our only excuse is that, unlike most other magazines that drop a vehicle off at a shop and swing by from time to time to snap photos of the progress, we're building this sucker in the driveway and out of a two-car garage in our spare time just like you would.
Despite a winter's worth of weather setbacks, too many hours behind the keyboard, building other projects, and child-rearing duties, we're gladly able to bring you up to speed on the project. Now that the suspension is done and it's a roller, we've sent the 455 off to the machine shop to be prepped to meet the drivetrain. Next time, we'll introduce you to the drivetrain since the engine is still a ways from completion.
When fabricating your own...
When fabricating your own suspension, you owe it to yourself to check out M.O.R.E.'s product line. We ordered the company's new stubby front spring perches for use with 2.5-inch springs, as well as the company's standard spring perches. We also ordered two pairs of M.O.R.E.'s incredibly beefy boomerang shackles and its chromoly shackle hangers.
We're anticipating big power...
We're anticipating big power and don't want a ton of lift, so we decided on a spring-under suspension for Overkill. To allow the 40-inch Goodyears to clear the cab at full stuff, we moved the axle forward a good 8 inches from stock. We began the suspension build by spacing the shackle hangers apart 32 inches on center to match our spring-perch width and tacked them to the frame using the stock spring hangers to ensure they were square to the chassis.
Since our spring-perch width...
Since our spring-perch width required the shackle hangers to extend half of their width past the frame, we cut gussets out of 131/44-inch, 0.120-wall DOM tubing. The trick gussets look way better than boxing the whole hanger to the frame and give more than enough support.