AIM or DJM I-beams; which is better?

[trickf100]

Well that sure would have saved a lot of headaches about a month ago. I wonder what the E and Ce models thing means though. Oh well, I think the long bed will look better stock height and the short bed will be the ultra low cruizer.

[convincor]

yea, not sure on the E and Ce ??
Would be nice if they had listed dimensions.

[69timemachine]

My DJM beams arrived yesterday, so I pulled them out of the box and measured them with my digital caliper. Both ends of the kingpin bores on both beams measured .865 inch. The 67-74 kingpins should be .8592 inch, so that leaves a tolerance of .0058 inch. I set my caliper to that to see what it looked like and it's not even a sheet of paper; you can barely even see it. So I'm thinking things should be fine as far as not having slop goes. I won't be doing the actual install for a couple weeks, but I'll keep everyone informed if any problems should arise.

My new polyurethane rear overload snubbers also arrived and I installed them. I now have roughly four inches of travel between the snubbers and axle tubes. I was jumping on the rear bumper and had to really get some bounce going (without the shocks) before it would contact. I installed my new DJM shocks and the rear feels good & firm now. I doubt if it will ever come close to touching the snubbers, at least not without a load in the bed. After all, this thing is going to be a street truck; not an offroader.

[69timemachine]

Well, I finished the installation of my DJM drop beams tonight. No major surprises to report; just a few little things.

For some odd reason on the passenger's side, the lockwasher for the kingpin retainer bolt would deform and start rolling out from under the nut before I would even reach the specified torque. So I ditched the lockwashers and nuts for nylock nuts. Problem solved.

My '74 disc brake spindles would touch the kingpin retainer bolts when the wheels were cut all the way, leaving a 1/4" gap between the spindle bumpstop and the beam. Since I had about 7/16" of threads sticking out past the nut, I simply trimmed off about 3/16" off the end of the bolt with the die grinder cutoff wheel. Problem solved.

When installing the tie rod extenders to my '74 disc spindles, the diameter of the extender was slightly larger than the machined area on the spindle. There was an unmachined ridge on the spindle that wouldn't allow the extender to sit flush with "no gaps", which is a major no-no according to the extenders' directions. I simply took my right-angle die grinder with a coarse sanding disc and machined some of that ridge off of the spindle, allowing the extender to sit flush. It was about a two-minute fix per side. Problem solved.

Other than that, it went well. I didn't even have to use any shims for the passenger's spindle, and only two for the driver's spindle. The beams seem to be of pretty good quality so far. I'll be sure to post if any problems should arise.

[seattle67]

That sits nice!

[345window]

heres my expierience I bought the aim kit it came w/king pin kit the beams were longer than stock which created a tow out I could not adjust for, the ball joint hole on the tie rod relocators had to be reamed out to fit the ball joint would only show 4 threads on top side, the drivers side relocator was drilled off from the pass. one I had to heat and bend the steering arm so the tire would not rub the relocator which allowed me to get the extreme tow out back in line and there was a 1 inch gap between the relocators and where they were supposed to touch the steering arms for the second mounting hole that had to be drilled, as far as cust. service sorry to say aim sucks if I did not know much about trucks and bought this kit as a direct bolt in I would have been screwed I have not used the djm kit so I cant say if its worth the extra bucks or not hopefully mine was an isolated incident.

[69timemachine]

So going by your experiences, I reckon I made the right choice choosing DJM. Like I said, there were a few things I had to address, but since when is a bolt-on truly a bolt-on? There was nothing major like what you had to deal with though. Sorry to hear about your troubles with AIM.

That's gonna be a good looking truck! What color are you gonna go with? If I weren't going to keep mine original, I'd go with that bright green like my buddy's new Jeep Rubicon has. I haven't seen a color like that since some of the '70's LTD's; it's very distinct. I'm going to keep mine aqua when I eventually get around to painting it; it's a distinct color too. Keep up the good work!

[69timemachine]

Finally, here's a picture of the finished suspension drop in the light of day. The only thing I'm lacking now are my four new rims and tires. I'll be sure to post a new pic once I get them installed.

[td]

djm's here and no problems what so ever, and yes at the time of this photo i had the radius arms on the wrong side, it had been tore down for months and i had a brain cramp putting it all back together. needless to say i figured it out when it came time to mount the shocks.

[kilog55]

Finally, here's a picture of the finished suspension drop in the light of day. The only thing I'm lacking now are my four new rims and tires. I'll be sure to post a new pic once I get them installed.

Stock ride height:
http://www.fordification.com/forum/down ... p?id=10484

4-inch rear drop completed:
http://www.fordification.com/forum/down ... p?id=10485

3-inch front and 4-inch rear drop completed:
http://www.fordification.com/forum/down ... p?id=10816

yeah thats noticeable and lookin good

[seattle67]

Good pictures, thanks for taking the time to do that!

[td]

Finally, here's a picture of the finished suspension drop in the light of day. The only thing I'm lacking now are my four new rims and tires. I'll be sure to post a new pic once I get them installed.

Stock ride height:
http://www.fordification.com/forum/down ... p?id=10484

4-inch rear drop completed:
http://www.fordification.com/forum/down ... p?id=10485

3-inch front and 4-inch rear drop completed:
http://www.fordification.com/forum/down ... p?id=10816

it does look good i know your proud to have all that knuckle busting behind you! if your interested i cut 1/2 of a round out of my coils, when i sat mine on the ground it needed just a little more rake to suit me.

[69timemachine]

Cool. Yeah, I thought about taking a little off the coils while they were out, but wanted to see first how it would sit with just the beams. When I get my new tires, the rear ones will be about 1.5 inches taller than the front ones, which should add a slight rake to it. Since the Cleveland hasn't been installed, I'm not going to cut the coils just yet. I'm thinking that the Cleve will add a couple hundred pounds to the nose over the six, which should equal free rake. If it's still not low enough then, I can take a little off the springs. Thanks everyone for the compliments!