These days, the hottest truck trend seems to be the 88-98 Chevy trucks. These trucks are commonly referred to as “OBS” trucks, which is short for Old Body Style. I’m not really sure when that became a thing, but it has certainly stuck. In truck form you can grab one of these in a plethora of combinations, all the way from a standard cab short bed up to a crew cab dually. The body style of this truck carried over into the blazer/ Tahoe and Suburban models as well.
When I was thinking of my next small project, a big factor for me was the ability to take the family along for a cruise or even grab my boys from school. My last project was a 1950 Chevy 3100 truck, and it was super nice but it had its draw backs. I wasn’t able to put more than one person in it, my boys are too young to really ride up front, and it was so nice I didn’t really want to worry about them making a mess in it. With all that taken into consideration, I was scouring marketplace for a nice new cruiser that would accommodate the wife in kids. I stumbled across a 1997 Chevy Suburban few weeks later and ended up making a deal on it.
Since I own a custom shop, there’s no way I would be leaving this truck alone. First and foremost, would be the stance of the truck. Since I don’t want to go all out with this build, I made the decision to do a pretty simple lowering kit. There are plenty of all-inclusive kits on the market for the OBS platform trucks, but I decided to piece one together myself and I will explain why in the photos. The amount of drop I am shooting for is right around 5” in the front and 7” in the rear. After hopping online and making some phone calls, all the parts I needed to lower the truck were on their way. However, since I will be under the truck, I decided to replace all the wear items while I was there as well. When we’re done with this stage of the build it should handle and ride way better than the day I brought it home.
