Sport Trac Spindle Lift

[The Breeze]

Well I had previously installed some off brand ranger edge spindle on my 04 sport trac and it turns out htey are crap. The upper pinch of the spindle is to big and the ball joint just wiggles. Turns out the company went out of business but they are being sued for something else of theirs breaking and they just gave me my money back and didnt even want the spindles back.

So now I am going to install the fabtech ranger edge spindles on my ST and keeping my fingers crossed, I hope this is the last time I will have to do this. ( I have had the spindles off 2 times, now will be the 3rd )

Here they are with the steering stop and all new hardware along with thread locker. I am kinda impressed..

 

[LONO100]

oh mama, i want a pair! how much did you end up paying for those?

 

[The Breeze]

At 4wheelparts they were 536 and some change out the door. I have heard a lot of bad things about their prices being too high but thats about what everyone else is charging for a pair. There is also a store close to me so if anything is wrong with them I can take them back and get new ones. I dont have to worry about them going out of business all the sudden :/

 

[The Breeze]

So halfway done... Here are a few pics. If you want instructions on it, Fabtech has a great set of instructions on their website.

On the last pic you can see that you have to grind the lower a arm a little bit to get the clearance. Fabtech explains all that in the instructions very well.

 

[LONO100]

is there any way to make the pics bigger? i cant really see whats going on in them.

 

[The Breeze]

Yea I know. This should do it. If you have any question just lemme know.

This is where you have to grind off the lip. I ground a little bit to much and actually welded up some support under the a arm



Old on the right and new on the left



Old on the left and new on the right. The fabtech spindle actually has a lot more clearance so you might now have to grind that much. The old spindle I used did have as much space where the lower a arm curve fits in the spindle.



All installed

 

[The Breeze]

You can see here the final result. The apex of my front fender well sit at 40" and the rear with 38 1/2" with the warrior shackles, I will be adding a leaf soon to level it all out because they are supposed to give you an 1 1/2" so that works out nicely.
The spindles also widen your front track by 1 1/2" on each side, total of 3" so to even it all out I will be getting rear 1 1/2" spacers.

 

[DirtJunky]

not a fan of sport tracs but must admit looks very clean

 

[The Breeze]

Thanks. Before, and even when I first bought mine, I didnt like sport tracs but once I saw what they looked like lifted I fell for them.

 

[smoke8169]

what was the brand of the off brand spindles that had the hole too big for thr pinch bolt? doestche tech? i have those and have the same issue.

 

[The Breeze]

No, it was a brand called Spring Tech I believe. They are out of business because they got sued for crappy products. I lucked out and got my money back though. I would say Just get the Fabtech spindles. The kit has everything you will need and then some. I love them. you do lose some turning radius but you can still make decent enough turns. Make sure though that the movement isnt a bad ball joint. One side I had a bad ball joint and I replaced them and it helped a little with the play but the spindles were still crud.

 

[2TimingTom]

So the point of lift spindles is to get a lift while keeping the IFS angles to a minimum and therefore prolonging their life? And not having to crank up the torsion bars thus resulting in a worse ride while compromising on front suspension travel?

So going this route with the coilover conversion would yeild a pretty awesome setup, huh?

I'd like to do SOA to get the spring perches out of the way of rocks, but that is too much lift for TT to match, right? Plus I like what I've read about the coilover conversion improving the ride drastically (I'm assuming on road and off road).

 

[DirtJunky]

Yea if you do a SOA you need to do coilovers, spindle lift, or SAS pretty much. Or you'll sit ass side high if you don't.

After I saw the first lifted sport track in person (on 35s) looked way better then any stock one I've seen. Nice post

 

[The Breeze]

Yea all a Spindle lift does basically is mount the tire lower on the spindle itself. You are just putting the mounting point of the tires lower which will raise the front end. The spindles dont change any geometry of the suspension which is nice, the only thing it does change is the driveshaft and if you lift it much more with the TT it puts some stress on the u joints and could cause them to go out which happened to me. I am not sure how much it really affects the u joints but I know that about 5 months after doing the spindles my u joints went out.

A SOA will give you 4"-6", from what I have heard and with the spindle lift giving you 3" and doing a TT will get it within a couple inches but the back will definitely sit higher. The TT does make the ride kinda stink but if you only go an 1' or so it wouldnt be so bad.

My plan was to do a coilover conversion and get rid of the T-bars but thats gonna cost at least 1000-1500 depending on the brand plus the fab work I would have to do to make them fit. I am going to go with a set of bilstien reservoir shocks for now. That will make the ride good enough for what I want to do with it but yes coilovers all around would be on heck of a ride. Just costs a lot.

 

[danwaters]

So the point of lift spindles is to get a lift while keeping the IFS angles to a minimum and therefore prolonging their life? And not having to crank up the torsion bars thus resulting in a worse ride while compromising on front suspension travel?

So going this route with the coilover conversion would yeild a pretty awesome setup, huh?

I'd like to do SOA to get the spring perches out of the way of rocks, but that is too much lift for TT to match, right? Plus I like what I've read about the coilover conversion improving the ride drastically (I'm assuming on road and off road).

Spindles keep the factory ride and increase ground clearance and due to the spindle being a little taller and changing the location of the spindle on the upright to a lower point they will also add about 2.5" to your overall track width depending on what wheel combo you choose to run. They are designed to run factory KPI (king pin inclination) so this is where the width comes from. Thats the only way it changes the suspension geometry but doesn't add or take away any wheel travel.

As far as SOA, it's a waste of time if you wheel at all because anything spring under was designed to run that way only. The springs will go too far into negative arch and thrash the springs way prematurely if you run them any other way.

 

[J_Train]

Looks good, now get Dixon brothers racing long travel control arms and some fiberglass prerunner fenders and you'll be set lol. I'm sure you'llneed more parts other then just the long travel suspension.

 

[The Breeze]

Yea that would be pretty sweet. Its a daily driver for now but once I get higher into the miles and retire it to a toy that is definitely the first thing that is going on

 

[The Breeze]

For anyone that is reading this later on and considering doing this be careful on how much you grind off. I talked to fabtech and they said to only grind off the lip and no more. I went overboard and even though I welded a gusset underneath my lower control arm cracked. Luckily I wasnt driving and I noticed it while looking under my truck at another problem.

 

[J_Train]

Do you happen to have a pic of the cracked area.?

 

[The Breeze]

This is the crack. I just got way to carried away on the cutting. The first set of spindles had way less room for the lower a arm and I barely had to grind any on the new a arms that I installed.