'70's model ford lift kits?

workinprogress · #1 Thu, September 23rd, 2010, 11:14 AM

Does anyone know a good place to find lift kits for a '76 f100? I am looking for something to lift it 8-9 inches and so far all I can find is 6 inches. I have found front 8 inch coils, but no springs for the rear. I would really like to stay away from blocks as much as possible. Or does anyone know what the difference is between the suspension on a '76 f100 and f150? If there even is a difference. I can find 8 inch lifts for any '70's bodystyle f150 all day long, but not for the '76 f100. Jeff's Bronco Graveyard offers an 8 inch kit for a '77-79 f100, but they couldn't tell me the difference between a '76 and a '77. Any Ideas?

***cleatus12r*** · #2 Thu, September 23rd, 2010, 11:35 AM

Without going completely custom, no, you won't find anything higher than 6".

Here is what I have learned after dealing with '73-'79 Ford trucks for many years.

The coil spring bucket on the earlier trucks is different and requires a different "twist" at the top to retain the coil. This may be the reason they offer an 8" kit for the later trucks.

The easiest way to get more lift out of the F-150 trucks than the 6" coils is to remove the coil buckets and have 2-3" cut out of them. It requires a bit of fabrication work, but it is safe and not too labor intensive. The only downside to this is that the 1/2 ton trucks had married transfer cases (the transfer case is mounted to the transmission) and the front driveshaft angle becomes ridiculously extreme in a hurry.

I was involved with a build a few years ago (I came up with the idea and bolted the parts together) where the guy bought a set of 6" coils and two sets of radius arm drop brackets. See where this is going? The radius arm brackets stacked on top of each other and I had him cut down his coil buckets almost 4" (more than I would do nowadays). With that, we had 8" of drop on the radius arm brackets and almost 10 inches of advertised lift. Obviously, there were additional brackets used to support the radius arm brackets..... It drove pretty good. The track bar was dropped a bit and lengthened. He never did fix the draglink angle though....

You will have to get creative, and I strongly suggest resisting the urge to to a body lift. They make for a lot of headaches.

***cleatus12r*** · #3 Thu, September 23rd, 2010, 11:38 AM

I forgot about the rear...

Yes, you want to stay away from blocks. I had a set of springs made in Canada at Carrier Spring Service a few years ago for one of my trucks. I couldn't tell you the difference between the '76 F100/150 rear springs though. I am a big fan of shackle flips and that can get you an additional 2-3 inches of lift without spending any real money (8 bolts).

Don't do add-a-leafs, as your ride will suffer substantially and you won't get any real height gains out of it.

workinprogress · #4 Thu, September 23rd, 2010, 12:10 PM

Ya I agree about the body lifts, they look bad and make it ride even worse. I've never heard of cutting the coil buckets before, but it sounds like it would work and it would be pretty simple to do. I don't start working on it till January when I get back home, so I have time to decide how I'm going to do it. The truck has 6 inch blocks on it now, I'm going to have to get springs made to eliminate those. I'm planning on running 38" boggers, so blocks are out of the question, I don't feel like dealing with axle wrap, etc. I was hoping to find an 8 inch "kit" made for the truck, but a lfew mods like that won't hurt either. By the time I'm done, there will be other mods that require a lot more work so thats not too bad.