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Sidekick - Tracker - Vitara - Escudo - Sunrunner
TRACKER All pages currently under construction and updated daily.
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3.25" Body Lift
My tires had worn down and needed to be replaced before the snow covered, the ground. My reasoning says, why put new tires on unless it improves the vehicle. I drive about 20,000 miles a year, and almost all of that is on the interstate or a little around town. Doing research on tires, I just had to try out the new Wrangler AT/S from Goodyear. Granted they aren't the most aggressive tread but they are excellent in the snow and rain and are very quiet on the highway. This was very important with daily commutes of 1 hour each way, past experience has proved that after a few months of that kind of time per day the characteristic "HUM" of mud type tires starts to annoy you. Well, anyway, my budget was tight and I couldn't afford to buy new wheels. I had the factory steel wheels which are only 5.5" wide. This being the case I decided that the largest size tire I wanted to fit on the rim was a LT235/75R15. This choice was made because I didn't want to have problems with the bead rolling when the tires are aired down off road which I have seen happen when too wide of a tire is mounted on too narrow of a rim. As most of you know, 235/75's will fit with the vehicle stock and will only rub on compression. But as we all know, when off road, articulation can be just as important as clearance, maybe even more important as it can mean the difference between staying on all four wheels or your door or top! I made up my mind that I wanted to have at least as much room for the tire to move as with stock tires. The problem though, was my budget, a suspension lift was definitely out of the question. Knowing my vehicle well I knew that it would be easy to install a body lift but I have never been a big fan of body lifts, usually the tire clearance that you get is offset by the raising of the center of gravity. Remembering though, how often I have gotten hung up in sand and loose dirt because I was trying to not just drag the frame rails but also the rocker panels and floor pans I decided that maybe a body lift wasn't such a bad thing for these vehicles. When you look at the finished product after the lift, the vehicle actually looks stock, because in stock form the body sits lower on the frame than the majority of trucks and SUV's both 2wd and 4wd.
The end product with the 235/75R15's and the lift was a huge surprise. The vehicle was actually more stable on the road because of the better grip of the wider tires and sway was improved also, because of the taller sidewall I could run a higher pressure in the tires without sacrificing ride quality. The off road performance increase is what really surprised me. I had no idea that only 2" taller tires, and getting the floor pans and rocker panels out of the way would make such an improvement!
To find out the details of the lift and how to build one yourself (it's easier than you think) simply to to the next page.
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Page last updated 11/12/00 04:14 CDT Copyright ©2000, Zuk Tracker, All Rights Reserved |
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