Fabworx's Solid Axle Swap Kit On A 1998 Chevy Tahoe - Solid Axle Weekend

1. The team at Fabworx removed the suspension bolts attached to the frame and let the entire front end come out as one piece. Mike watched a little nervously as his Tahoe was lifted into the air. This is Mike's first shot at a truck build this serious, and it can be a little nerve-racking the first time you see your truck go past the point of no return.

2. Once the front IFS was dropped, Forrest Moore went to work torching off all the old IFS mounts and smoothing the frame.

3. Fabworx includes weld-in cover plates to hide the frame indentations where the IFS used to bolt onto. The cover plates give the front a much cleaner look.

4. The Fabworx solid axle swap (SAS) kit is made for '88-to'98 half-ton trucks, Suburbans, Tahoes, Yukons, and Blazers. The brackets are made from 1/4-inch steel and are CNC formed before being MIG-welded together. The front hanger incorporates a crossmember that gives rigidity to the front end after the IFS equipment is cut off. Fabworx offers two kits: A kit for a 36-inch spring perch-to-spring perch width or a 32-inch perch-width kit. The 32-inch width kit does not need the offset shackle that the 36-inch width kit does, but the '78-to-'79 Ford axles that have this width are not nearly as common as the later Ford Dana 60 36-inch perch-width axles. Since we used a 1990 Ford Dana 60 axle, we used the 36-inch width kit.

5. Bryan McCully lifted the front crossmember and hangers from the middle, so the hanger wouldn't wedge onto one side. The fit on the frame is very tight, so make sure you're starting with a straight frame.

6. The most difficult part of the installation could very well be adding the nuts to the bolts inside the boxed frame. Billy McCully used some "claws" to grab onto the nut and hold it in place while he got the bolt threads started through the holes Fabworx drilled in the frame to mount the hangers.

7. It's good to take some measurements and make sure that the left and right front hanger-to-rear hanger distances are identical. If the truck you're starting with has a slightly tweaked frame, you might have to account for that when placing a hanger. If the left and right spring hanger distances are not equal, the truck will sit high on one side.

8. Once the hanger distances were checked, Bryan clamped the upper portion of the two-piece shackle hangers in place.

9. The rear shackle hangers for the front springs are two-piece units. You can move the lower part back and forth in the upper part to change the pitch of the shackle on the leaf spring when the truck is at ride-height.

10. Since we were using a 1990 Ford kingpin Dana 60 with a 36-inch perch width, we used the offset shackles.

11.Since Fabworx recommends using Atlas springs, that's what we used. Unlike most SAS kits, the Fabworx kit utilizes front leaves that are six inches longer than a typical '73-to-'87 leaf spring (three inches longer in the front and the rear, keeping the center pin in the same basic location). This discourages some cheapskates that would rather use a SAS kit that they can bolt an old, rusty, used leaf spring into, but we liked the idea of having longer leaves for a better ride and increased travel.

12. Atlas uses a front military wrap (the second leaf extends and wraps around the main leaf's spring eye) on their truck and 4x4 leaf springs as added safety should the main leaf break under severe stress.

13. Fabworx set the axle under the leaves and lowered the truck down to compress the leaf springs enough to install them in the shackles. When leaf springs are brand new the arch of the leaf might be too great to get the shackle and rear spring eye to easily meet up. Putting some weight on the springs can help to flatten them out enough to bolt them in place.

Bryan tightened on the Atlas U-bolts before lowering the truck onto the axle. Remember to start with brand new U-bolts any time you clamp an axle to a leaf spring. U-bolts stretch and can break if reused!

14. We were going to have to go with new wheels since we were adding a Dana 60 front end with an 8-lug pattern. And since we were under a time crunch of less than a week, we started making some calls fast to see who could deliver tires and wheels quickly. After some searching we found that we could order the tires and wheels online and have them shipped directly to us through Discount Tire Direct's website. We got ourselves some Liquid Metal Gatlin wheels with a chrome finish and a 17x9 pattern. Why chrome? Well, black was an option too, but black wheels seem played out. The chrome looks awesome, and it is a hundred times easier to clean than polished aluminum. Also, we suggest checking on the blowout deals that Discount Tire has. Since they had an overstock of the discontinued Goodyear MTRs, we were able to get a killer deal on the 37x12.50R17 tires.

15. With the front axle in, we couldn't help but bolt the new wheels and tires on and lower the truck down to see how it would look. We still had steering, brake lines, drivelines, and some other things to work out, but it looked awesome.

16. One of those "other" things we had to do was rerouting the exhaust to clear the driveshaft that will now be moving up and down with the front axle (the driveshaft stayed put with the IFS drivetrain). Since it was the weekend and all the local muffler shops were closed, Forrest got to work fixing our exhaust. Wanna know how to piss off a master TIG-welding fabricator? Make him build some cheesy exhaust for you.

17. Like we stated: This was a last-minute deal we threw together a week before driving to Santa Rosa to do the solid axle swap. With a day to go before we left, we drove over to see Hugo at Metro Fluid Connectors in Fullerton, California. They are one of the few shops that will make hydraulic lines while you wait. We took over our new (used) axles' brake lines and the Tahoe we were putting them on so we could be sure to get the correct fittings.

Metro has various brake line sheathing colors, as well as different anodized ends for the lines.

18. Billy added the new brake lines to the axles and used a brake bleeder machine to clear the brake lines of all air.