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DIY | Lowering a Chevy Silverado

Lowering a Chevy Silverado!

Whether your truck is lifted, lowered, bagged or bodied. Making sure it has the right stance for your style and needs is important. Since you’re reading this, we’re guessing the style we left out—stock—isn’t something you’re too fond of. That’s why, when we had the chance to get our hands on this 2019 Chevy Silverado Crew Cab and upgrade the stock suspension with a 3-inch/5-inch lowering kit, we up the install and got the parts ordered.

2019 Chevy Silverado

The truck already had a set of 26-inch wheels and tires. So this mild drop would set the truck down closer to the tires and lose the massive wheel gap. To handle the install, we teamed up with the crew at Counts Kustoms in Las Vegas. If you follow through the install photos, you can see that if you have basic wrenching skills and access to a lift, or even jack stands, you can knock this install out with a couple friends.

For the parts, we reached out to IHC Suspension and got its 2019 Chevy/GMC 2WD and 4WD lowering kit with helper bags (Part # IHC-1920GMCk-35), which retails for $1,400 and comes with everything you’ll need to tackle this install.

This kit will lower the front of the truck 3 inches and the rear 5 inches. This will eliminate the factory rake that all trucks come with and let the truck sit level. With it including the rear helper bags, it ensures when loading the bed or towing a trailer, the truck won’t have any sag in the rear and will still ride and handle nicely.

The front kit comes with new upper and lower control arms and keeps the factory spindle and strut, which keeps the truck riding the same as stock. The rear requires the leaf springs to be flipped and a new leaf spring hanger to be installed, as well as the helper bags. The install can be done in a day and gives the truck a classy look. Follow along as we show you the basic steps to install this lowering kit on this Chevy Silverado.

 

2019 Chevy Silverado
THE
truck is not very “cool looking” with the factory suspension on these massive 26-inch wheels. Lowering the height will give it a more aggressive look and feel more responsive with this wheel and tire setup.
IHC Suspension for a Chevy Silverado
WE
reached out to IHC Suspension and got its 2019 Chevy/GMC 2WD and 4WD lowering kit with helper bags (Part # IHC-1920GMCk-35), which retails for $1,400 and comes with everything you’ll need to tackle this install.

FRONT

After getting the truck off the ground and the wheels off, start by removing any brackets on the front spindles and control arms to free up the brake lines and sensor wires. Also, unbolt the caliper and tie the caliper out of the way, ensuring to keep pressure off of the brake line.
Remove the tie rod end from the spindle and push the tie rod out of the way.
Unbolt the lower control arm from the spindle.
Unbolt the upper control arm from the top of the spindle to install the lowering for a Chevy Silverado
Unbolt the upper control arm from the top of the spindle.
Remove the three bolts from the top of the strut.
Unbolt the bottom of the strut from the lower control arm and remove the strut, but set it aside, as it will be used with the lowering kit
Remove the two bolts holding in the upper control arm.
Before removing the upper control arm, now that you have access to the sensor bracket, remove it and push the lines to the side. It will be reinstalled on the new upper control arm.
Install the new IHC lower control arm and bolt it in using the factory hardware from the factory control arm.
Install the supplied ball joint into the upper control arm.
Once the ball joint is installed, bolt in the IHC upper control arm using the factory hardware.
Reinstall the factory strut and bolt the stock spindle to the new lower control arm.
Bolt the new upper control arm ball joint to the factory upper spindle mount.
Reinstall the brake caliper bracket and torque all bolts to factory specs. Once you do both sides the same, the front end is ready to have the wheels installed.

REAR

Remove both stock bump stops to allow for more clearance. With the new helper bags, you won’t need them.
Cut off the bump stop brackets and grind them smooth.
Unbolt the rear leaf spring hangers.
Unbolt the front leaf spring hangers. Thankfully, GM decided to flip the front driver-side bolt, so the gas tank doesn’t have to be removed like the previous generations did.
Making sure the rear axle is supported, unbolt the U-bolts that hold the leaves to the axle.
As you can see, the new IHC rear shackle (on the left) is shorter than the stock one. Installing this will give you the extra drop needed that flipping the rear leaves need to get you to the 5-inch drop.
Make sure the leaf springs are securely clamped together, and then remove the center bolt and stock U-bolt bracket.
The factory spring perches have to be removed since the leaves will now be below the axle.
Install the new leaf spring center bolt and the lower bag bracket on top of the leaf pack.
IHC axle bracket
The new IHC axle bracket bolts to each leaf pack to center the axle to the leaves.
Bolt the brake line brackets in the supplied holes in the axle brackets using the factory hardware.
. Install the lower leaf pack bracket and bolt the stock U-bolts to it. This secures the leaf packs to the bottom of the axle, giving you most of the drop needed.
Press the shock bushing sleeves into the ends of the supplied shorter shocks.
Bolt the new shocks to the factory shock mounting points. The factory hardware you removed when removing the stock shocks.
Bolt the upper bag brackets together on each side. They sandwich the frame and secure the mounting point for the top of the helper bags.
Bolt in the supplied air bags and run the airline that’s included with the kit to your desired accessible location. For this set up, the truck owner opted to run them to the rear bumper. Use shop air and a Schrader valve any time he needs to inflate the air bags. When this is done, the rear is complete and ready to install the wheels.
an alignment was done on the truck, it was ready to go. As you can see, it now sits closer to the tires and eliminates the wheel gap. It also sits level and has a much classier look than it did at stock height.
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