Got an unexpected "4 hour window" of time last night to work on the car. Stock rear end out, leafs out - front bolts were a major pain in the ass. TOTALLY siezed in the spring bushing. I ended up cutting throught the bolts with the sawzall to get them off finally. Rear Crites offset shackles are in place. The aluminum bushings fit perfectly in the frame.
I cut out the inner wheelhouse on the passenger side. In one of the pics you can see the axle snubber getting removed. This is definatley required to fit bigger tires. I originally intended on trying to graft the stock inner wheelhouse sheetmetal back in to be as stock looking as possible but I now think I will just fabricate new ones out of heavy gauge sheetmetal. I will probably c-notch the frame after as well to allow more axle to frame clearance once lowered. Not sure if I will need to replace the snubber? Easy enough to do later if required.
The before and after tire shots are now possible with the wheelhouse open to fit the bigger tires. It looks like the 275/40/17 tires will have (with the right offset) about a solid 1.25" to leaf spring clearance and 1" to unrolled fender lip. Off course this means that a well placed 285 or 295 should fit too
As of now though I will stay with the 275 width - it is definatley a drastic improvement over stock.
I will cut and insert the Crites front spring hangers this weekend. Then I can finally put the springs and rearend in there and really see how the rims/tires fit.
Pierre
