[dave in australia]

If by a tight ride you mean it hardly moves up and down, you may have a rear spring set up for a commercial, which means it is has enough leaves to support a load. If you rebuild the rear spring, you can remove one or two leaves to make it ride a bit softer. There is a spring leaf application chart floating around on this forum, if you find it, copy it and print it out, or if you don't find it, ask, someone will paste it here for you. It's a good reference, also, the rear spring gets discussed here often and a lot of good advice is here, including what between leaf lube to use etc.