I mainly wanted to lift because the front of the explorer kept dragging in the sand where it had piled up from other vehicles. Also thanks for tip about airing down the tires, I knew about airing them down but i didn't know how much. Thanks!
Depending on where you drive sometimes you really do need the lift, sometimes it's to help overcome the loss of height from airing down.
Where
I drive on sand it's miles of firm damp sand up from the water line but not right up into the soft stuff so I don't air down much. I just have to make it the first 50 - 100 yards then after that it's almost like a highway.
As an experiment I once drove straight off the road onto the sand leaving the tyres aired up and in Auto, it did fine.
That wasn't a dune though.
That's not how I would usually drive.
I had a HiLux (Tacoma I think) dual cab with a LSD and standard 215R16 Bridgestone Desert Doodler tyres, I just aired them down to 28psi, I had to use low range on the soft stuff is all.
Wranglers would be good but I really don't like them on the road unless they've improved sometime in the last 20 years.
Generally the tyre needs to have a softish sidewall and
not aggressive tread, mud tyres are out.
If you're going on the beach spray underneath with either fish oil or lanolin depending on whether you want to be followed around by cats or Welshmen.
This will prevent rust.
I don't understand why people in the rust belt let their cars fall apart the way they do.
