i can understand the being broke, hell i just got out of college and had a baby and there are no jobs around here, even the factories are laying people off. just have to be patient, unless you guys can make a solid body lift, hell if you guys make a solid body lift for you truck you could probably make some money selling them but you always want to make sure your doing things safely; i've seen bad things happen when people try and get away with short cuts like cutting springs to lower trucks and then said spring would fail when they could have saved a lot of headaches and spent some money even if it was for no name ebay stuff.

check out some online stores and see if they have the specs of their body lifts and use that as a basis for the project, like i said, it could turn out really well for yourself

 

i do have solid rod, so ill just use that

 

that's twice you've called it that. it's called "bar stock".

 

You're taking mine and everyone else's comments the wrong way. I understand you're only young and are strapped for cash. Trust me, I know the feeling. I'm sure a lot of us are a lot less strapped for cash then you are since we have A LOT more bills to pay then you (including myself). I've been on the brink quite a bit in the past year to flat broke, which is scary when you own your own home and have all kinds of bills to pay. We weren't calling you cheap, we were saying if you plan on doing a cheap body lift then go about it in the manner we suggested, not using tubing as it would be extremely unsafe.
With that said, I agree completely with what Phil is saying. You're maturity level is kind of showing in regards to this project as you clearly want to do this lift regardless of your current financial situation or how long it's going to last. You just want it to look good without caring about the quality or safety of the build. From what I can tell you haven't been taking our suggestions or advice into consideration, which is annoying to all of us because we are ALL telling you how to do this safely, but you're not seeming to care, you just want it done to look "cool" and "rad" lol.
Read what Phil said and take it STRONGLY into consideration. Why not WAIT and do it properly when you can afford it. Save some cash and before you know it you'll have to $200 to buy a proper kit. There is no need to rush into putting a lift on improperly using unsafe and improper materials. It more then likely won't last you, and then you're looking at a very large repair bill or have an accident writing your truck off and injurung yourself and even worse injuring other drivers. Hell, I want a body lift on my truck too. I can do it for 20$ by going to Walmart and picking up a set of hockey bucks and new bolts. Am I going to? Hell no. I'm going to wait to do it properly and safely when I can afford it.

Now that my rant is done, I want you to know this was in no way a shot at your fathers work or skills. I'm sure he is a very skilled and capable machinist. Since he is, he should know that using square tubing is unsafe and just a ridiculous idea. I also wasn't trying to offend you or call you stupid. I was simply pointing out that there shouldn't be any rush to jump into doing a lift. You should be more concerned about doing it properly and listening to the very skilled and very knowledgeable people here on the forum. A few of the people that replied are either mechanics or machinists, so they know what they are talking about. Don't take this long winded post the wrong way. Take it for what it was meant to be - an eye opener.