STRYKER
NAXJA Forum User
- Location
- Leesburg, Va
I just took a day and dropped the Comanche back to 8" of lift.
Last week, I was out in the "back twenty" and got a little too top heavy for my liking while traversing a particularly steep part of the property. The very back corner of the property is all rocks in a wash gulley that hosts a wet weather stream. It's seen it's fair share of water this year with all of our rainfall. I backed down into the section and loaded up the bed with rocks to build my entrance walls on the front of the driveway entrance.
When I was coming up the grade with a full load on, the truck pitched to the side pretty roughly and I will swear that the front right tire probably left the ground for a second a couple of times on the way up. Now, I've been on three wheels before, but there was always a spotter outside of the truck to assure me that all was well. This felt way worse.
It was enough to make me reconsider the amount of lift and the radius arm angles.
I had some custom spacers made that offset the stock Comanche coil stalks by about 11 1/2" per side to accomodate the stock coil buckets of the full sized Ford axle mounts. They worked great in straightening out the coils, and my security was also boosted , as they are bolted thru gussets in the framewall. But the planned dimensions were off by about two inches. This lifted the front of the truck more than the rear, so I had added 2" steel blocks out back. (from old habits...you never remove free lift) This required longer shocks all around, as well as dropping the radius arm mounts an additional 2" to keep the springs from bowing in front.
Add to this the fact that the disconnects had to be made longer, the steering was getting rediculous (even with hi-steer knuckles and arms) and the trackbar needed to be dropped (again ) on the frame.
I lowered the coil spacer design by 2", (cut them right off) and removed the rear blocks and the radius arm drops. My track bar came back into phase, as did my steering. All this....over a mere two inches.
The truck is a joy to drive and wheel again. I never realized how different it was when I was lifting. Must have been a "lift-i-tis euphoria" effect.
With the wider axles, it now corners on the highway better than it did when it was stock. I'll go back in there this week and retrieve more rocks, and I'm pretty sure that the bitch won't tighten my spinchter this time.
Last week, I was out in the "back twenty" and got a little too top heavy for my liking while traversing a particularly steep part of the property. The very back corner of the property is all rocks in a wash gulley that hosts a wet weather stream. It's seen it's fair share of water this year with all of our rainfall. I backed down into the section and loaded up the bed with rocks to build my entrance walls on the front of the driveway entrance.
When I was coming up the grade with a full load on, the truck pitched to the side pretty roughly and I will swear that the front right tire probably left the ground for a second a couple of times on the way up. Now, I've been on three wheels before, but there was always a spotter outside of the truck to assure me that all was well. This felt way worse.
It was enough to make me reconsider the amount of lift and the radius arm angles.
I had some custom spacers made that offset the stock Comanche coil stalks by about 11 1/2" per side to accomodate the stock coil buckets of the full sized Ford axle mounts. They worked great in straightening out the coils, and my security was also boosted , as they are bolted thru gussets in the framewall. But the planned dimensions were off by about two inches. This lifted the front of the truck more than the rear, so I had added 2" steel blocks out back. (from old habits...you never remove free lift) This required longer shocks all around, as well as dropping the radius arm mounts an additional 2" to keep the springs from bowing in front.
Add to this the fact that the disconnects had to be made longer, the steering was getting rediculous (even with hi-steer knuckles and arms) and the trackbar needed to be dropped (again ) on the frame.
I lowered the coil spacer design by 2", (cut them right off) and removed the rear blocks and the radius arm drops. My track bar came back into phase, as did my steering. All this....over a mere two inches.
The truck is a joy to drive and wheel again. I never realized how different it was when I was lifting. Must have been a "lift-i-tis euphoria" effect.
With the wider axles, it now corners on the highway better than it did when it was stock. I'll go back in there this week and retrieve more rocks, and I'm pretty sure that the bitch won't tighten my spinchter this time.
Drop it 2 more and maybe you will have a decent COG. I'm not getting into this again.
