O.R.D. 4" Lift

[WARWAG]

Thanks TCUCV. Well I am still home and may not leave for a day or two. Fine by me! Hopefully my drop pitman will arrive. Anyway I was bored today so I went ahead and installed my front 2" spacers and 36" Wranglers. Man does the truck look good! Its getting harder to get into! Im gonna have to do some rock runners with a built in step after the 4" lift is installed! So I installed the tires and went out and beat here pretty good. OK so I didnt beat her but I did put her through some paces. If anyone says you dont need to trim with 36" tires, THERE WRONG. They rub pretty good or is that bad. Anyway they rub when you turn and when you do any four wheeling. Only the front though. After the 4" lift I "think" they wont rub. here are some pics.

 

[Terracoma]

Those 12-bolt HMMWV wheels are mean... Lookin' good, WARWAG!

 

[WARWAG]

Thanks. I cant wait until I get the lift done and install my 37.5 inch Pittbull tires!

 

[WARWAG]

UPDATE!

I have since moved to Arizona and put the lift on hold. That was until now. When I get home in the next 3 weeks or so I will be finally installing that 4" lift! Ive been going stir crazy every time I went home and the kit was just sitting there in the garage and no time to install her. The movce is done and the time has come (just about) to get her installed. I will of course post TONS of pictures.

 

[WARWAG]

Finally the lift install has started! The drive to LA was uneventful. I averaged 15.71 mpg at an average speed of 65 mph with 34" tall tires from AZ to CA and the trip took just a bit over 6 hrs. I had a lot of thumbs up and a few not so nice looks from people who had Obama stickers next to the Cali license plates. Lol. What ever.

So the lift is underway. Had one hiccup so far. The Tough Country front springs have the locating bolt in the center of the pack. The bottom head which sits in a recessed hole in the leaf pad are to big in diameter. No big deal. Removed the first one and ground it's diameter down so it would fit. The next pack we were not as lucky. The threads stripped out. They must have been seized. Anyway a quick run to Napa had another bolt in hand and a quick trip to the grinder had it sitting pretty on it's perch. NAPA had only two left in the box. Everything else has been going pretty good. The frame bushings just popped right out after my brother showed me a trick. I have heard horror stories about people drilling and torching them / burning them out. so far about 80% of the front is done. Need to finished a few things like cutting down the drivers side U bolts and torque them to specs. Install the steering box frame brace/reinforcment. Then we need to adjust the steering rod from the drop down pitman arm. After that we need to install the new front brake lines and bleed. I hope the rear will go much faster........... Oh yah and install my new 37" BFGoodrich TA MTs mounted on factory new 12 bolt HMMWV wheels! Pics on there way.

 

[WARWAG]

Pics from todays work,

 

[WARWAG]

Last group of pictures from today (Saturday).

 

[WARWAG]

Love this

 

[twomorestrokes]

I was having the same issue with the centering pins. They would not simply drop into place in the perch holes and I didn't think they were going to work. However they did draw themselves in as I tightened the u bolts. I like the tight fit because I know there will be no slop to allow any movement.

Keep the pics coming. I'm looking for a set of 12 bolts and tires too. Love the look!

 

[ODdave]

Strokes, what tires?

 

[WARWAG]

The centering pins were larger than the factory stock ones on the original leaf packs. There is no play in them as they were checked several times during the process.

I picked up a set of BFGoodrich Baja MTs from a friend who lost his crankshaft on his M1031. He got a new engine I got the tires. If anyone wants a completely new set of BFGoodrich Baja MTs on new factory 12 bolt wheels I know where 6 are. Cheap too! Not my sale just know where some are if anyone is interested.

Off to work on the truck. Pics later tonight.

 

[WARWAG]

The centering pins were larger than the factory stock ones on the original leaf packs. There is no play in them as they were checked several times during the process.

I picked up a set of BFGoodrich Baja MTs from a friend who lost his crankshaft on his M1031. He got a new engine I got the tires. If anyone wants a completely new set of BFGoodrich Baja MTs on new factory 12 bolt wheels I know where 6 are. Cheap too! Not my sale just know where some are if anyone is interested.

Off to work on the truck. Pics later tonight.

 

[twomorestrokes]

Strokes, what tires?

Dave, been looking at the surplus combos with the Goodyear radials but I'm open.

Mike

 

[WARWAG]

The lift is done. Finished up Monday and drove home Tuesday. I must say the ORD 4" lift is just about perfect. There were a few small issues but nothing that was not easily taken care of. The new Brake lines are trully pieces that should be on display in some art museum. The new front brake lines really improved the braking of the truck. The older brake lines expand as you apply the brake and there for reduces the amount of pressure. Not so with steel braided lines (no expansion). The second issue I had was trying to remove the old brake lines. Two of the three fittings were frozen completely. I had pre lubed them with Sea Foam and PB Blaster for three days prior to removal With vice grips I was able to get one of those frozen connectors apart. Even my flare wrenches were stripping the head! The rear I was not successful. I will need to also replace the hard lines on the rear as they are also completely frozen solid. If I could have found some KROIL im sure they would have come right off. So for now I still have the original rear brake hose still connected. There is still plenty of slack in her but I wont be rock crawling any time soon. That will be done after I get some new rear hardlines as well. The other hiccup which was no big deal to me was the passenger side rear shock mount. With the Tough Country shocks the main body of the shock hits the axle tube and pushes out the eye bolt alignment. The shock bracket needs to be knocked of and pushed up about 3/8 of an inch. Better yet I would just reccomend going with the Bilstien shocks since Bilstien has the main shock body on the top part and the shaft side down. This is a better design anyway as you dont have the main shock body weight added to the unsprung weight of that wheel. With the rear shackle flip it drops the rear of the leaf pack 8" The front remains at the same point. This gives you 4" of lift in the rear. The axle though drops downand slightly roatates the pinion up and thye shock mount gets slightly rotated under the axle. This is why the fat shock body hits the axle tube. Again get bilstiens.

The ride! The ride with the new suspension is unbelieveable! In fact its even better than my 2011 Dodge 3500 diesel 4x4! On rutted roads its barely even noticed! The ride is silky smooth. The Baja TAs are super quiet and the ride of the tires is very very smooth. The side rumble strips are barely noticed! IF you are on the fence about getting the ORD lift the hope off that fence line and land on the side of ORD. I cannot say enough goods things about the lift. This is the single greatest mod you can do to these trucks. It changes it from a rough beat you to death ass end hopping around on rutted roads to a smooth better than factory new ride. OK enough gabbing. Heres the pics.

 

[WARWAG]

Pictures:

 

[WARWAG]

Pics:

 

[WARWAG]

A Special thanks to my Brother Dave for all his help!

 

[twomorestrokes]

Wow, looks great! And familiar. I haven't changed my brake lines yet because I know it's going to snowball, but everything else is done on mine. No drop pitman arm as I plan on xover steering. The truck drives fine w/o it but with the bad angle of the drag link and the axle forward, a common maneuver turned into a 5 point turn yesterday! I haven't changed the rear shock mounts yet either so the rear shocks are upside down right now.

Thanks for posting photos. Love the looks of the H1 wheels on there! Did you use 2" spacers?

Mike

 

[WARWAG]

Thanks! Yes changing the front brake lines almost snowballed on me. My brother came to the rescue and was able to get the rear nut held with vice grips after the flare wrench even spread and started to round out the head. I couldnt believe how hard it was. He did it but we became gun shy after the rear started to strip even with the vice grips on. I will redo the entire brake lines on my next upgrade. There are a few other items I didnt have time to get installed let alone fabrication of my spare tire mount. Next Phase will do for things like that.

 

[twomorestrokes]

What are you doing for a spare tire mount?