Lowering a 1947-1953 Chevy truck without using air bags or lowering blocks (and still have a bed)

In this video we talk about, and show, how we lowered our 1953 Chevy pickup using off-the-shelf components and without air bags. We wanted the truck to sit and ride at the same height, and the goal was to get the bottom of the running boards to around 6" off the ground. We also wanted to maintain the original bed depth and not tunnel the floor.

We started with the original chassis and added a Heidts Mustang II front suspension kit with 2" drop spindles, and then a Chassis Engineering rear leaf spring kit. The Heidts kit lowered the truck to its current stance, but note when installing a kit like this that it may sit an inch or so high until you drive the vehicle. When we first installed it and had the full weight of the truck on it, the tie rods were still angled down, versus running parallel to the ground as they should. We jumped up and down on the front bumper and these still didn't change. Once we took the truck for a lap around the block, everything settled into place perfectly.

The Chassis Engineering rear leaf spring kit was a bolt-on kit that uses the stock leaf spring mounting locations. We bolted it on, but the rear of the truck still sat really high. We didn't want to use lowering blocks, so we decided to notch the lower portion of the frame rails and mount the kit to the top of the frame rail instead. Watch the video and we'll show you how we did this. After doing this, the truck sat almost perfectly, with a little under 6" of clearance at the front of the running boards and a little over 7" of clearance at the rear of the running boards.