D44HD suspension upgrades?

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D44HD suspension upgrades?

Lima Delta
Just been doing some thinking about the future...
I have no issues with the D44HD in the front of my F250, except that the ride is terrible. I think I've read everything there is to read on doing a D60 swap, and that may eventually be the way I go. However, since I don't really need the extra weight and strength of a D60, I wonder what options there are for improving the ride while keeping the TTB?
For example I see there are radius arm kits for the D50 TTB... Does anyone know of such a kit for the D44HD?

LD
Lucas
"The truck" - 1985 regular cab F250 4x4 - 351W HO, C6
"Beige Beast" (project) - 1981 regular cab F250 4x4 - 300 straight six, T18
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Re: D44HD suspension upgrades?

Gary Lewis
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The main issue with the F250's is that they have leaf springs and TTB's.  And those things don't work well together since the TTB's work in an arc so are trying to twist the leaf springs - and they do NOT want to twist.

So if you want reasonable ride I believe you have only two choices:

TTB and coil springs

Solid axle and leaf springs

I had 1" of compression on Big Blue before the suspension hit the bump stops when I had TTB's and leaf springs.  One whole inch!  So the suspension had to be extremely stiff.

Now, with the D60 swap, I have 4" of travel when sitting on the ground, and a full 8" of articulation.  And the ride is dramatically improved.

As for coil springs, I've read that people are now starting to use the coil spring suspensions from recent F250's in earlier trucks.  But I don't know what is required to do that. Nor do I know if a kit is available.
Gary, AKA "Gary fellow": Profile

Dad's: '81 F150 Ranger XLT 4x4: Down for restomod: Full-roller "stroked 351M" w/Trick Flow heads & intake, EEC-V SEFI/E4OD/3.50 gears w/Kevlar clutches
Blue: 2015 F150 Platinum 4x4 SuperCrew wearing Blue Jeans & sporting a 3.5L EB & Max Tow
Big Blue: 1985 F250HD 4x4: 460/ZF5/3.55's, D60 w/Ox locker & 10.25 Sterling/Trutrac, Blue Top & Borgeson, & EEC-V MAF/SEFI

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Re: D44HD suspension upgrades?

Lima Delta
Gary Lewis wrote
As for coil springs, I've read that people are now starting to use the coil spring suspensions from recent F250's in earlier trucks.  But I don't know what is required to do that. Nor do I know if a kit is available.
Hi Gary, thanks.
That's interesting, I haven't heard anything about that before. I'll have to look into it.
I've seen pictures of a couple of situations where people have fabricated their own coil spring conversions from scratch but I'm not sure I'm up for that. I do like the idea of converting to coil springs somehow...

In any case, I will eventually need to do SOMETHING about my front suspension. The highway in front of my place was recently resurfaced. All summer there were long stretches of very coarse gravel where they had done culvert replacement. The washboard was so bad I could really only do about 30kph/15mph over it before the truck felt like it was going to rattle itself to pieces.
My truck is good for lots of things, but going fast over bumps is not one of them!
Lucas
"The truck" - 1985 regular cab F250 4x4 - 351W HO, C6
"Beige Beast" (project) - 1981 regular cab F250 4x4 - 300 straight six, T18