![]() You will need to drill these holes larger for the van's bolts to fit the truck. The truck's factory lower control arm bolts are 5/8" in diameter. There is one modification you will need to make to the lower control arm pivot holes on your truck's frame. ![]() Now, you can transfer this information onto the van arms, mark your holes, and drill. Measure the distance from the ball joint to the strut rod holes on the truck arms. I pulled a stringline from the center of the ball joint to the center of the pivot bushing and found the holes in the truck arms are equal distance from the centerline of the arm. Next, you will need to drill two 1/2" holes in each arm for the strut rods. They are not needed and the arms will look cleaner without them. First, completely remove the steering stops. There are a couple modifications you will need to make to the lower control arms and your truck. New ball joints are $30 at NAPA, so you might as well replace them anyway. I do not know if the 1/2 ton or 3/4 ton ball joints are the same or not. You cannot reuse the ball joints from the one ton van because they are larger in diameter than the ones on your truck. Once you get the lower control arms home, take a large hammer and remove the lower steering knuckle piece from the ball joint and then knock the ball joint out. The only parts you will need are the lower control arms and the control arm pivot bolts/nuts. Remove those steering knuckle bolts, take out the shock absorber, unbolt the control arm pivot bolt, remove the strut rod from the lower control arms, and separate the steering tie rod from the lower steering knuckle piece and you're done. You will have to take the brake caliper and rotor off to gain access to the bolts. There are two 15/16 bolts/nuts that you will have to unbolt in order to separate the top piece from the bottom piece. I asked around and found out that the steering knuckle is a two-piece design. In fact, I gave up and left the junkyard. I had trouble separating the steering knuckle from the lower control arm at the ball joint. I purchased a pair from a mid 80's B350 for $40 plus tax at my local Pull-A-Part. It doesn't matter if it is a 1/2 ton, 3/4 ton, or 1 ton van. Just swapping the van's lower control arms onto your 1972-1993 Dodge half ton truck lowers it roughly 3" due to the fact that the van lower control arms have a spring pocket that allows the coil springs to sit lower than they do in the truck's stock lower control arms. Go to the junkyard and find a 1972-1993 Dodge B-series van and unbolt the lower control arms. There is another option that is very simple, engineered by the factory, and is cost effective. I've heard this works, but there are a few issues with this and it takes a lot of trouble to get them to work. You could go the expensive route by modifying a pair of lowering spindles made for a 1st generation Dakota. This may cause your spring rates to change or cause camber problems. What can you do if you want to lower your pickup? You can go the cheap route by cutting your coil springs. There is one small manufacturer that makes some very expensive lower control arms, but I've had no luck getting in contact with them. Parts for lowering your Dodge pickup are not offered by the major aftermarket companies like Belltech or Eibach. Nobody makes much in the way of aftermarket parts for 1972-1993 Dodge trucks. If I made a mistake, please let me know, so I can get it corrected. The intention of this is to provide information that I found hard to find. It wasn't until last year that I found out about the van lower control arms. I found tons of misinformation on the internet concerning this topic and decided to put all the correct information in one place. I decided to write up a how-to for lowering the front of a 1972-1993 Dodge half ton pickup.
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