Posted by Keith in Washington on Friday, March 07, 2003 at 10:39AM :
In Reply to: How far do the rear 1 ton springs bend under rated load posted by Willy-N on Friday, March 07, 2003 at 0:45AM :
People have always been surprised how little the rear suspension goes down when you load a ff PW up. I had 12 leaf rear springs on mine until I did a recent swap to 14 leaf. I have no overload spriongs. With the 12 leaf springs I loaded 5300 lbs of gravel (this is accurate as the truck was weighed both on the way in and out of the yard) and the suspension squatted about 7". I would not travel far with a load like that. I can fill the bed with railroad ties and it goes down maybe 2". I often carry 1 1/2 yards of crushed rock for my driveway and it squats 2 to 3 inches.
It will be interesting to see what the 14 leaf springs will do.