Lowering a Peterbilt 379!!

I know a guy that took his blocks right out..lol......he said turning was pretty scary. Not too smart. I have heard of guys replacing the stock ones, I would like to do this as well. I can't afford to put a car hauler front axle on, or bag it...Spent all my dough on big chimneys, JJ headlights, a visor, bumper etc...

 

How much does the car hauler axle lower the front? I suppose the air bag height would have to be adjusted slightly?

 

back in the day they had a factory air ride on the steer axle, ive never heard anything good about them... haha what are the new/aftermarket ones like, anyone got some info?

 

If you take it apart, I was told not to re-use the old u-bolts. They can stretch and get weak. This came from the counter guy at Midwest spring in Denver.

 

Yeah... whatever you do DO NOT REUSE those ubolt. Cheap insurance you ain't gonna crash!

 

I pulled the blocks out of the front end and went with shorter U bolts. Just had the alignment shop do it and put the correct alignment shim in. Truck handles the same as it did before. The new airbag kits are not to bad. It uses your front leaf spring and mounts between your spring and frame. You just have to pull one spring and run it as a single spring set up. The car hauler axle is a 1 1/2 drop.

 

How much drop did you end up gettin?

 

I got about 3 inchs of drop out of mine. I hve a 20 inch boxed end bumper and it sits 6 1/2 inchs off the ground. Right now I am on the hunt for a car hauler front axle to set it down with out bagging the front. I plan on adding the bags it will just be further down the road.

 

I once seen on a cabover KW an airride front axle that had slotted shackles, and the airbag mounted right in front of them. How sturdy would that be?

 

Not sure how sturdy that sould be. I know in the arly 90's peterbilt played with the airbag front and the used a airbag and a wierd 2 peice front spring that had a extra set of shackle in the middle for a hinge point, hard to explain. I knew of a few people that hated it and switched it to regular springs and then I know people that absolutly love the ride and handleing of it.