Chevy & GMC Vans

Hello Everyone...

I was curious if any of you have ever heard of a modification where the leaf springs on an Astro are replaced with a trailing arm set up utilizing the existing front leaf spring hanger with a modified pivot point? If you can imagine the trailing arm fabricated so as to be able to accept the stock anchor plate, pass through like a conventional leaf spring, but then terminate in a lower strut mounting point. The upper strut mounting point could be attached to the frame or in a more radical design pass through the van floor to a welded assembly inside the van. The stock rear leaf spring shackle would not be used. I hope I was descriptive enough but I will sketch up a design if it was difficult to picture.
I suspect that this post may spawn a few "why would you...?" questions but I present my initial question just for the sake of an engineering alternative.

Thanks for your input.

A 2 x 4 square frame rail bent to go over the rear end welded to the back of the sub frame and to the floor pan going to the back bumper with ladder bar traction system and coil over shocks might be easier to fabricate.The ladder bar systems do bind in tight cornering where the four links are better.

Yrs ago before coil over shocks in drag racing the gasser's used a semi-elliptic cut in haft leaf spring and a ladder bar.They where hard to predict as to weither or not they would add traction.

Rear torsion bar systems are in use in road racing where I would think they are hard to design and very expensive.

One of our members Rebel has installed a IRS in his van.For cornering and handling on the street is likely one of the best all around systems.

I don't recall anyone here ever toying with using the front hanger as the anchor point for what you basically are wanting to build...a Radius arm...ala Ford. It would be mounted to the rear instead and you would need a sizeable panhard bar, and then mount the coils or coilovers (ideal). I think the radius arm part would be the easiest part of this build. The panhard would be the trickiest I think. You would have to beef the Astro's unibody frame rail for the mount.

Newer Super Duty arm...

It's a great idea and as a matter of fact,,after installing the Vette rear I was looking around under there and wondered why I didn't use that location for the Vette dogbones.


Early pic before building the arm brackets,,should have run them to the spring bracket.

I haven't seen any mods like that on these vans. But I would think the rear is a blank canvas...especially if you lose the stock gas tank.
You could build the suspension any way you want.
Baja/Desert/Pre-Runner forums are great for looking into suspension setups btw

LiftedAWDAstro wrote:I don't recall anyone here ever toying with using the front hanger as the anchor point for what you basically are wanting to build...a Radius arm...ala Ford. It would be mounted to the rear instead and you would need a sizeable panhard bar, and then mount the coils or coilovers (ideal). I think the radius arm part would be the easiest part of this build. The panhard would be the trickiest I think. You would have to beef the Astro's unibody frame rail for the mount.

Newer Super Duty arm...

I'm assuming that is a lifted Super Duty... The shiny black bracket looks like it is there to lower and offer additional bracket strength to the original radius arm.

Thanks for everyone's responses to this post. I appreciate your comments and the pictures. If I am successful fabricating a prototype of the system I described above I will be certain to post my results here.
Thanks again.