Glad you posted the pix of the front end. Jack is right, there is no suspension here. It is solidly riding on the stops.

You might score at a junk yard, but the chances are the parts will be worn out too, if they come from the same era. It sounds to me that you are realizing you need to fix some things on this truck before you use it. That is really good. It sounds also like you might be dealing with some cost issues in doing the truck. Welcome to the club, most of us have budgets to work around in building our cars, me included.

The facts are, you will be spendiing some money on the truck to get it in sound operating condition. There is no way around it. But, if you keep it simple and do the work yourself, you can get by a little cheaper. By simple, I mean rebuild what is there. Scrap the rear springs and all that hydraulic stuff that is welded on. Go to a spring shop that does truck springs in your area, and have them make up 2 new rear springs for this year truck. It looks in the pictures like the builder left the stock spring mounts there, so you can just go back and put new shackles or whatever is needed and put the stock springs back on. You can even use lowering blocks or have the shop dearch the springs a little, to drop it down.

The only way to get the truck really low is to do major revamping of the rear suspension, and that can happen later on. The front needs the same treatment. Looks like someone took a torch and heated the leaf springs to lower it. There are helper springs in there, but they are doing nothing. Just go through the front end and get it back to sitting on springs, then start checking kingpins, brakes, etc.

Have you driven this truck? How did it handle? It has the early lowrider look with the small VW sized tires and wire wheels. That is the look they were going for. It actually looks solid, bodywise, so you have a good start.

By the way, thanks for being such a good sport to put up with some pretty harsh comments and criticism. I would rather tell you the truth than see you dead, and I know the others feel the same way.

By the way, truck spring shops are usually pretty reasonable and can build you any spring you need. Take your measurements and old spring in to one and get a quote to build you some new springs. I think you will be surprised at the cost.

Good luck,

Don