getchajesta
Member
- Joined
- May 16, 2005
- Messages
- 31
- Reaction score
- 0
- City, State
- Groveland, MA
- Year, Model & Trim Level
- 1998 XLT
Success lowering my 98 XLT! Lowering the front was easy, raised the front, put jackstands on the frame, removed the torsion bolts. I achieved a 1.5 drop immediately, and im sure more will come with time. the rear however, was a nightmare! I jacked up the rear diff, and placed jackstands on the frame, then removed the stock U bolts and hardware without much trouble. (the nuts were 3/4" by the way). The nightmare began with trying to line up the holes and the pegs on the 3" block with the stock holes/pegs. Since this was a universal drop kit (thank you AutoZone), the holes were a little too small, but the top pegs were just right. I cleaned the pegs on the top of the leafs with 10w-40, and wirebrushed them clean. they fit all the way down to about 1/8" gap, which, just recently, finally lowered all the way down. Then the U bolts. UGH. I was able to get the first U bolt on after about 1 hour of convincing. upon realization that the kit that i baught was previously returned, (the threads at the bottom of one of the U bolts was messed up) I returned to my local AutoZone (seabrook, NH, EXCELLENT STAFF!!!! THANK YOU!!!) for a return. No dice. none in stock! So, the manager offered to have his brother (who works the stratham, NH store) to drop off a kit he had in stock to replace my one bad U Bolt. I started at 4:00, and this was at 7:00. So I Picked up the bolt at 7:30, hammered the HELL out of the bolts to convince them to sit on the top of the axel. once all the bending, twisting and swearing was done, the nuts went on like a dream. tightened them up with a pipe for some extra force, and let it back down. my ride is SLAMMED. the rear strikes the bump stop on almost every moderate sized pothole (living in MA, theres plenty), but im still using the stock shocks for the time being, so im pretty sure (read: hopefull, optimistic) that lowered shocks will help me out in that department. As for pics, my digital camera is DEAD
So I will put some before/after pics up tomorrow, maybe the next day. But if anyone has ANY questions regarding this type of drop, please let me know, I probably experienced it tonite. Thank you ALL for your help on information regarding this drop, let it be known, before I went ahead with this project, I printed GOBS of pictures that you guys all supplied. Thanks MUCH!!!!!
