It has been awhile for an update, work has been nuts.
After fighting my tire shake for weeks with a dynamic then static balance attempt, my friend let me use his tire machine to break the beads and drop in 14 oz of tire beads per tire. Stupid TPMS valve design wouldn’t flow the beads and the bead grip wheels are no joke. I could not get them to break with any manual tool I have, 20T bottle neck jack and truck on top. I did back to back 100 mi highway trips without and with beads and they eliminated all of the vibration. Smooth as glass with glass beads LOL. That is a relief and I had always wondered about them. Now I know.
After exchanging several emails with PMF and ultimately talking with the owner, he agreed to refund me for all of the rear suspension parts, including the springs. I had to get all of back to his shop on my nickel but that is better than being stuck with a setup that was never going to work right on my truck. Gotta give them credit for doing the right thing and taking it back. I got bad advice on a combination of spring and shackle that were never meant to work together. I was definitely too trusting when I called and described what I wanted to do with my truck and the sales rep recommended the combo of products I got.
After getting a refund, I made the call to CJC Offroad, and after talking with them, I went with the +1000lb Carli leveling Deavers with matching bump stop drops. No airbags. All springs, shocks and bump spacers are now Carli and that is a proven set of hardware…almost.
For the curious, here is a comparison of the leveling Carlis to the 4.5” lift PMFs. Both are made by Deaver just slightly different specs for different goals. PMF is the higher arched one without the mini overload.
13” Metal to metal as advertised. Had to cut and grind off my spacers though. A bit of a pain!
off to flex test the new setup.
Still good flex, especially considering I wasn’t loaded with stuff and these are +1000lb springs. No more tire to inner fender rubbing.
no more driveshaft contact with the gas tank but it would have hit the bump out on the skidplate and bracket if I had not already worked it over. I could get my fingers between the tank and the driveshaft, still close but enough I‘m not worried about it. I’ve seen pictures of trucks flexed out with these so I don’t know if people are oblivious or the longer trucks with a two piece driveshaft don’t have this problem.