Fattirebicycles' '81 courier I coulda sworn I heard a woot

The gas tank will be in the factory location and there will be a large air tank in the same spot on the opposite side of the frame. there is not enough room for the tank in the rear of the frame, even with a raised bedfloor, to keep it out of harm's way, and I don't want anything in the bed.

I just spent three hours with the four link calculator, checking and fine tuning my setup, and I feel that I should have a pretty decent handling four link.
I fully understand the issues with the reverse link, and I appreciate your concern. I will be running shocks to help with the chassis lift during braking. I would like to run a forward four link, but there's just not enough room under the bed to put things in other places. I've spent a long time trying to figure out the best way. The reverse four link is not the best setup, but everything fits.

My instant center is 16.5 up from the ground, 83.199 inches in front of the axle. 103% anti-squat.

check mine out bro, gas tank is raised 3" and i am running a 50/50 4 link. it has been setup that way for like 8 yrs now. no problems at all. i know you said that you are keeping the gas tank in the stock location, just remember that you need to raise it atleast 3" so you don't burn your truck to the ground. looking damn good man!

bro, your front bag setup looks tits! only question i have doing it that way is are you going to have positive camber when barely aired up? and what size bag is that, it looks big. and i just remebered, why dont you run a wishbone instead of the reverse upper bars? would be a lot better and shouldn't get in the way of anything. i only left mine with the 50/50 because when i come back from iraq i am building a frame and using an independent rearend.

Good looking build. Am currently running a reverse 4 link on the daughters truck and have to admit a couple of things.
1. No, it does not handle as good as a forward 4 link. But it still handles pretty good. Lets face it, it's an 85 HP pickup - not a 500 HP Corvette.
2. If you normal ride height results in the link bars pointed slightly up from back to front, it works kinda like a vise grip pliers during braking - the weight moving forward wants to push the axel up, the braking action wants to roll the axel down. I actually works pretty decent. If the link bars point down to much (like when aired up 3/4) then you will have serious braking issues.

The front bags are 2600s. I got them for my sfbd chevy fullsize that I 86'ed in favor of this truck. I'll be raising the bedfloor , and the tank will be about 4" or more higher. I won't have to worry about wrecking my tank riding cali, either, because the notch is only about 3/8-1/2" bigger than needed. The control arms are almost perfectly matched in their travel,now. the camber varies between 1.5-2.5 throughout most of the travel, then negative camber cones in more at full lift. sadly, I probably won't reach that area of lift, since my lower mounts are so far out on the arm.
The reason I'm not running a wishbone is because I wanted longer bars than the area below the frame kickup would allow.

You could always make it into a 5 link or what not.

I was gonna suggest some sort of wishbone to swing around the factory gas tank. Would be pretty bad ass, I have seen that done on a pre 86.

But regardless nice job on it, glad this didnt turn into a hack job. Any other plans for the truck as far as wheels and what not?

this build it moving along quickly... nice progress..... can't wait to see finished.....

I've got some 17"motegi mr7's that will probably end up on the truck, but that requires the redrilling. I friggin love the navis on your truck. for now, it will sit on the stock wheels and caps. They're pretty badass, too, and have almost brand new tires.

Looking good.Those welds look great.Keep it up and you'll have her done in no time