anyone with a lifted 98-99 Sport?

[BonesDT]

anyone have pics of a lifted 98-99 Sport with the sport flares?

i plan on doing a body lift soon and i need some more information on size of tires and rims and rubbing problems.

after some research it seems as if 33's will def not fit, but i also read of someone getting rubbing problems with 32x11.5 on 15x8's with 3" BL and TT/Shackles on a four door without the sport flares!!!! this concerned me a lot cuz i figured 32's would fit without a prob with that kind of lift and i really dont want to deal with trimming. any ideas?

id like to put on some goodyear or BFG mud-terrains and pref slightly larger than stock.

 

[Sherwood]

About the only way to get 33's under your truck is to put a 4" suspension and 3" body lift on it. There is a few of us with the later Ex's that have this setup. I have no rubbing problems at all. But you encounter front driveshaft problems.

 

[BonesDT]

where have you been hiding!!! im so happy, i have been looking for pics just like yours for so long. it looks incredible, i really want to do that to mine.

let me ask you some questions. your driveshaft problems, did you lengthen your driveshafts? it seems like it is highly recommended and the rear one too for the shorter sports. what size and backspacing rims are those? and my most important question, any rubbing or trimming?

 

[Sherwood]

Well thank you very much first of all. As for the driveshaft. I still dont have a front one since I blew it out at Attica. I need a longer one plus it needs to be a dual cardon style. No sure on the price. The rear driveshaft hasnt given me no problems at all. Its a slip spline driveshaft, so there still is a little play in it.
My rims are 15x7 and I believe the backspacing is the same as stock which I forgot what it is.
As for trimming, I got ahead of myself and got antsy before I put the suspension lift on, I had the body lift on and wanted to put the wheels on first. So I trimmed a little behind the front wheels. Bad idea, still rubbed when I turned. But after the suspension lift, no problems at all. I did all the work myself including the lifts. Its not hard, just time consuming. But very worth it. As long as you have access to a good garage and lots of good tools. Your set. Hope this helps. Thanks again, Eric

 

[BonesDT]

this is very good news. i was right about to give up and just throw some factory or 31's on. everybody was tellin me that i would have to lose the factory siding which is half the reason i bought my x. but 15x7's??? what size width are those tires? wow, if i could keep my factory 16x7's too, i would be the happiest man alive!

 

[Sherwood]

I'm sorry, i mean 15x8 rims. In order to go a bigger tire like that, I had to go to a wider rim. My tires are 12.5" winde, but the tread pattern is like 10 or 10.5

 

[BonesDT]

your not running a front driveshaft? i was thinking about that. i never go offroad, at least yet, so i dont need my 4x4 for a while, so i figure i would save some costs for now and just remove my front driveshaft all together until i got around to lengthening it, but i wasnt sure if you can just do that especially since i have auto 4x4. do i have the same rear driveshaft as you? do you recommend that i lengthen it? i found a good price about $200-250. as far as tools, all i have for now is a screwdriver . i was going to buy a 151 piece ratchet and socket kit, torque wrench, and jackstands.

 

[BonesDT]

i wanted to get some mud terrains, im guessing they are more street friendly than the claws. this is interesting, you had no rubbing with a 33x12.5? what kind of rims do you have? im confused about this tread pattern, would that mean that the claws fit better than other 12.5's?

 

[Sherwood]

No, im not running a front driveshaft. I havent had it in since last fall. I heard that going to a dual cardon style driveshaft is better anyways. But thats up to you. I havent done anything yet so I cant give you my opinion.
On the rear driveshaft, im sure ours are the same. Im not going to lengthen mine unless something goes wrong or a driveshaft man tells me to.
Now the tools. You will need a torque wrench, one that goes up to 150 ft lbs or 175, not sure. Heavy duty jackstands are really nice. A torch so you can modify the front crossmember a little to accomodate the differential cover. Hydrolic jacks are nice too. Pry bars, drill, and of course your basic tools. I had access to my sisters boyfriends parents poll barn. They own a trucking business so you can imagine the setup they had. It was really nice. It took me a week to do mine. It was about 30 hours by myself for the suspension lift. The body lift has to be modified a little bit because they dont have one for our years of Ex's. You have to use a Ranger body lift. It will work but you have to modify the bumper brackets a bit. It was ok.

 

[Sherwood]

The Claws I got are the Radials. They arent as loud as the regular Claws. They wear fast. I had mine for almost a year and they have definatly worn a lot. The rims i have are the Eagle Alloy 589 I think.
As far as the tread pattern, they told me to go with 15x8 rather than 15x10. Reason being is, with the 15x10's, it would spread the tire out more thus possibly causing rubbine when you turn and bounced the truck. You dont have as much tire in contact with the ground at once but you wont rub either.

 

[BonesDT]

whats a dual cardon? wont the driveshaft put stress on the transfer case. but then again it doesnt look like you put shackles or soa so you only have 4" on the driveshaft instead of 5.5" like other people.

a torch??? you mean, a welder? i dont know how to weld. why do i have to modify the crossmember? im a city kid and ive never done big work on a car before and i only have access to the tools i choose to buy for this, so i need to make sure i am prepared for anything. this is also why im so concerned about grinding. if its not perfectly bolt on, i need to be prepared and make sure i have the tools. plus, even worse, i dont have shops around here that know anything about this stuff or ones that will let me test fit tires. so basically i got to sac up and order $1000 tires and rims and hope they fit.

a week? wow thats a long time, i heard its 2 days work. i can get lots of man power to help me but they dont know anything about cars at all. its my everyday driver and it will be rough to lose it that long. but if it has to be, i can deal. this is another reason i want to be prepared for any problems, because i dont want to have my truck stuck on jackstands and be rushed to find a solution.

most people recommend the superlift over the trailmasters, do you? what does the special alignment for the susp lift cost? ive been trying to price everything.

 

[Sherwood]

I dual cardon is basically two u-joints at one end of the driveshaft. It helps the extreme anle put on the driveshaft. The torch I was talking about is not a welder, no welding involved. It is used to heat up the front crossmember to bend it inwards to make room for the front differential cover when you drop the front driveline. You wont be able to beat it in with just a sledgehammer, you need to bring it to a red glow and then beat it. It will move. If you have friends to help, it will definatly cut the time down quite a lot even though they dont know what to do. If you can read directions and know the basics of tools and mechanics, you should be ok.
People like the Superlift because of two reasons, one is they dont like the secondary steering slide. It is just a bar in a tube that is connected to the steering which is inside the crossmember I talked about up top. It is 4" below the stock steering. The Superlift uses steering knuckles rather than this difficult setup on the Trailmaster. I would prefer the Superlift on that one. The other one is that the torsion bar brackets arent dropped down as far as the Trailmasters. People who do a lot of off roading dont like it cause they get caught up on the brackets when going over rocks. This one dont matter to me because I will not take mine rock crawling.
When all is done, you have to take it in and get it aligned. Mine cost $150 because the have to put different spacers in the a-arms and align it. It takes a lot of time I guess.

 

[BonesDT]

i just looked up some tires. it seems like a section width of 10.0 is common on all 33x12.5's but they do say the recommended width rims are between 8.5-11. is it safe to squeeze it on an 8. also, the tire/rim packages from places like desert rat and so on seem to save a lot of money and trouble. they all advertise 12.5's on 15x10's. will they be willing to squeeze the tires on 15x8's especially since its not recommended. i know how companies are afraid of lawsuits.

 

[94EBexplorer]

look at lizardtrac's rig.... 98 sport on 35's

 

[Sherwood]

Yeah, they say the recommended rim width is 8.5 on mine to but National Tire @ Wheel recommended 8". I bought my whole suspension lift and rim and tire package from them. I havent had any problems with mine at all.

 

[BonesDT]

ahhh. ive seen those driveshafts on some mega trucks. i wondered what those were called. exactly how long would the driveshafts have to be lengthened? 1 inch? what do you do, just add that cordon extension to the end of the existing shaft? it seems like it would add about 2-3" would that be too much? is it on both ends or just one end of the shaft? id rather spend some money now than a lot of damage later, unless you think it really isnt necessary especially for road driving.

ive read both TM's and superlifts instruction books. how come they dont mention this crossmember issue? how much is a torch? how do i use it, do i need safety stuff like gloves and big metal helmets?

i thought the t-bars are dropped 4" on both lifts. how is superlift able to not drop it as far? is the steering slide a lot harder to install?

94eb, i think ive seen lizardtracs, but he did a lot of trimming i think or he didnt have the factory side moldings. but ill take another look

 

[BonesDT]

are there any mods to the PA-883 besides the bumper brackets that i have to do. i dont know what ill do with the bumpers but i dont need them to drive, i just want to make sure i can get my x back on the road fast. then i can take my time making it look nice.

 

[Sherwood]

I heard that you have to lengthen the front driveshaft 1". Everybody that I heard of in here has had one built from scratch. All under $300. The dual cardon will end up going on the transmission end of the driveshaft since that is the end that already has the spicer type u-joint. The other end which is the transfer case end has the flange.
In my instructions for my lift, it does tell you that you will have to dimple the front crossmember to fit the differential cover. It also says that you may need to use an acetylene torch to heat it up and dimple it in. With the trailmaster lift, you have to be careful how far you dimple the crossmember in because the steering slide shaft goes inside that crossmember and you dont want that dimple in too far and interfering with the slide shaft. With the Superlifts, you dont have to worry about the steering slide since they use the better method of steering knuckles. Trailmasters steering slide is harder because you have to install the slide into the crossmember and use the auxillery cooler bolts to bolt the slide in place and then connect the slide to the stock steering gear. That is also a pain in the butt.
Using a torch is rather easy once someone who knows how to use one shows you. You dont have to use goggles if you dont want to but it is recommended as with anything like this. An acetylene torch has two bottles. One is the acetylene and the other is oxygen. The oxygen is what makes it cut through steel. So you dont want it that hot. Just a nice hot flame, enough to make the steel red in the area to be bent. Also be carefull because you are around gasoline. You may want to find someone that has one or you can buy a little setup like your normal household plumbers torch but with acetylene. I seen them for about $50.
The torsion bars are rather loose up front, so if you installed them up front first, they would just dangle there, so you can just drop them a couple of inches and it wont hurt the performance of them. Mine were pain in the rear putting them back in, had to modify the brackets a little to fit them.
There isnt any other mods on the body lift besides the bumpers. If there is, its really minor stuff. Like the instructions say, when you lift the body with a jack, lift a little and make a run around the truck to make sure nothing is being pulled out of place like wires and hoses. When you are all done with the body lift, make a very thorough look through of the engine compartment to make sure nothing is in the way of the belts and fan. I almost started my truck up when i finished mine just to find out that my radiator hose was pulled tight right around the crankcase pulley. That would have been ugly. I dont have any plans on how to do the bumpers. You just have to rig it up in there. It took me several hours to get mine looking like stock.
You see, i bought my suspension lift before Superlift came out with theirs. Otherwise I would have probably went with that. I just don like the steering slide.

 

[BonesDT]

Originally posted by Sherwood
I heard that you have to lengthen the front driveshaft 1".

so will the dual cardon add that inch, or will it add too much? can i install it myself?

Originally posted by Sherwood
transmission end of the driveshaft since that is the end that already has the spicer type u-joint. The other end which is the transfer case end has the flange.

i thought the driveshafts went from the transfer case to the differential.

Originally posted by Sherwood
I almost started my truck up when i finished mine just to find out that my radiator hose was pulled tight right around the crankcase pulley.

so what did you end up doing, lengthen the hose? how? im guessing you have to lengthen the brake lines especially with the combo of both lifts. do any of the kits come with the extensions?

do you think you would be able to fit 35's if you did a TT/shackles as well?

 

[Sherwood]

Sorry for taking so long.
The dual cardon will add more than an inch. Everybody that has this much lift went ahead with a a brand new driveshaft up front. And your right about the transfer case to the differential, not the transmission. Brain Fart.
As far as the radiator hose, all I had to do is pull it away from the pulley. I may be thinking of the transmission hose. Because if i remember correctly, when I pulled it away, it stayed because it bent like it was part metal. Either way, just watch out for these things when putting the body lift on. Crank up a little on the jack or whatever you are using to lift the actual body and go look for anything binding around the truck. The brake lines will need to be pulled from their plastic harness in the engine compartment and straightened to provide length for the lift. Just bend them carefully so you dont kink them. My kit did not come with any extensions because they tell you to bend them.
With a total of 7" of lift you wont be able to get 35" tires underneath your Ex. You could try the TT and shackle lift to aid in getting those 35"s underneath but I dont know if it will work. You also should check and see what gears you have. If you have 4:10 gears, you will be ok putting the 33"s on. Not sure on the 35'S. 3:73 gears may not work because the excess strain on the motor and tranny. I got 4:10 gears.