would i safely get a bit of lift on my front by adding longer shocks up front or coil overs? I have a 4wd so springs and spindles are not an option

 

Neither are coil overs as far as i know

Camburg has a "kit" for 4x4 (i guess RWD too). It includes longer Bilstein 5100 shocks, limit straps and mounting brackets (i think). This will allow to safely (because of the straps) increase your travel up front. But I dont think it will lift the truck. Cheap lift on these trucks would be to crank you torsion bars.

 

ive checked and you can fit a small diameter coil-over in there safely and i dont want longer travel, just a few inches of lift. so if coil-overs fit, would they lift the front if i got longer then stock shocks? I'm a little skeptical of doing the torsion crank cuz ive heard some bad things and would only do an inch which i dont think is worth it.

 

Coils are springs...you already have torsion bars which are the springs on the front of these trucks. If you had a Tacoma or even a 4x2 XLT Ranger (coil bucket) then I guess you could use coil overs, but not on an Edge or XLT 4x4 (torsion bar suspension).

You're talking about these right?



They are for trucks with coil spring suspensions. Not Torsion bar suspensions.

 

Wouldn't any 'lift' via something like that put the front half-shafts at an angle too?! That will certianly effect the lifespan of the half-shaft too. Especially on our late model trucks w/ live axles..

 

anyone know of any cheap ways to lift a truck with IFS? I hate the idea of a body lift and i think they are useless.

i saw a lift kit for a 2wd Gen V Ranger for somewhere between 200-400. could i mod that to fit my Ranger (4wd)?

 

a lift that cheap is probably a spindle lift, in which case you can mod for a 4x4 lift. the only ways to do an actual suspension lift on it is to space down the whole torsion bar setup, or junk the setup completely, for instance the RCD lift

i like body lifts myself, much cheaper and dont mess up any factory suspension or driveline angles. and they are pretty tough too off road, just ask ryan (pinecone)

 

NOOOOO u have to understand something , the newer suspensions are NOTHING like the older trucks, those kits for my years are acully drop brackets for the I-beam suspension. Now your IFS is completely different, if your only looking for a 1-2" just crank the torsion bars this has been done more times then anyone can count. You could look at it and go o but the will wear out the ball joints quicker well yes and no, the way the trucks are designed they are going to go anywho, and the stocks one's just plain sucks because you cant grease them, now T-bar sag, this will happen also BUT it happens even if you dont touch them so there is no point, heck look at the older years like mine, the front coils sag after a while its normal. so when they do sag you know around like 3-7 years if you dont beat one them to much go get explorer t-bars there stronger, no biggy. so no i dont see a bad reason, I have personally cranked many trucks and NOTHING has happened to them, a buddy of mine has had his MAXED for over 2 1/2 years now and not crap has happened to his truck. now if your alignment isnt off from the get go, it wont even through it off eather. so get a socket get underneathe and crank, look back be happy then go get some 33's, have a beer and call it a day.

 

you confused me here. where did older trucks get put into this arent Gen Vs the newest Rangers? If not then that was my fault. I meant the new trucks.
are explorer t-bars stronger then 1 torsion bars on the Ranger. so now this is cleared up..could i get this lift to work with my truck?

now the torsion bar crank. i wouldnt mind doing it but it only lifts the front. my truck isnt a heavy offroader and wut i want is the look of a couple more inches. i also heard that it makes the ride a lot harder since the "spring" is tighter. my ride is stiff even for me and i dont think it needs to be any stiffer

the spindle lift: how is this modification done? i have quite a selection of tools here in the house and may have access to an auto repair shop for free.

sorry if i sound like im whining but when i got my tires put on they had the truck up where the suspension was at full droop and the tires looked like they were touching the ground and i was actually taller then my truck. it was a beautiful thing and i thought the truck looked so frickin awesome. this is what i am trying to acheive.

 

Rcd 5" lift coilovers.... not inexpensive though

 

like i said before, you cannot spindle lift a 4x4. there is no cheap way to lift without a torsion crank other than a body lift.

the torsion crank does not make your springs stiffer, it simple raises the height of the range of motion. basically it limits your wheels downtravel, youll hit the bump stops sooner

if you do crank and would like to get the rear to match, you could always use a set of $35 add a leafs, i had a set on mine, they lift the rear about 2 inches or so

 

^^^alright. i may just go with that. i had forgotten about add a leafs and i wasnt thinking about keeping the stock look just two inches higher. i only wanted to go 2-4" anyway. thanks for the help guys and stopping me from having to put my truck in the drive due to having to make repairs.

been searching around a bit and everybody makes you search your year make and model and then they all come up with "No Match Found" or something to that effect. so, which add a leaves fit a 2002 Ranger?

 

if i remember correctly, explorer pro comp has a set for around $35, part number 13120, but you should wrap some hose clamps around the leaf pack after installation so it doesnt twist out. but thats another story..

 

dont most add a leafs come with new centering pins to make up for the now thicker spring pack?

still no help on the t-bar crank

 

the leaves do come wtih new centering pins, however the factory clamps that wrap around your leaves do not hold the add a leaf. so youll need to put one in to keep the leaves in line. what else do you want to know about the torsion crank?

 

It is technically a preload adjustment, that's what you are affecting when you "crank" the spring. It does not change the spring rate and it is not a ride height adjuster. It will put more preload on the spring and it will ride much stiffer. It will also eliminate most if not all of your suspension's static sag and will cause it to perform much worse. You will lose ride quality and traction because the suspension will not be able to move downward into holes and maintain grip on the road. Adjusting the preload does change where the suspension sits when static in its cycle, which is similar to a ride height adjustment. However, a real ride height adjustment has zero effect on spring preload so we cannot call this adjusment a "lift" or ride height adjustment because it most certainly does affect the preload on the spring. Since all you have changed is preload and nothing else, the bump stop is still in the same location and the suspension parts still have the same arc so it has no bearing on what size tire you can fit.

In summary, it works like crap but looks cool. So I would guess it is something a lot of you would like.

 

It doesn't pre-load EXCEPT when the bar is not loaded yet! It is a ride height adjuster as well and Ford uses it as such. Just because it's called a pre-load adjuster doesn't mean much.

When you crank it, the spring is under NO MORE TENSION THAN IT WAS WHEN IT WAS AT THE OTHER HEIGHT. The spring is under the tension required to support the weight of the truck, and no more. The changes in ride come, as you suggested, from the difference in up and down travel.

The only time that adjuster is used for "pre-load", is when the WHEELS ARE OFF THE GROUND. That's what "pre-load" means: putting tension on the spring when the wheels are NOT doing it.

And it does get the cross member and front bumper up off the ground more, Dave, so your sarcastic comments about looks are, as usual, superfluous. I know you don't like t-bar cranks, but you can leave off that stuff, it's unnecessary to insult these guys, even though you apparently delight in it.

It is still a useful thing to cheaply get some more front clearance.

Your bump stop comments are well founded -- but I didn't do it to fit bigger tires, I'm running 31's which are factory-fit on some Rangers.

 

I agree that a torsion bar crank is not the hot setup for suspension performance or torsion bar life. However, cranking the torsion bar does not make the ride stiffer by increasing the preload. Within its elastic working range, a Ranger torsion bar is a constant rate spring. Unless you can somehow jack the adjusters enough to top out the suspension, the torsion bars' static preload is the same on a cranked adjustment as it was from the factory (ignoring tiny angularity errors). That's because it is being deflected by the same mass (again ignoring tiny angularity errors). Adjusting the bar merely changes the static position of the front suspension within its travel. The only place where it will ride stiffer is in at the bottom of travel where the spring force has increased due to the increased deflection.

The roughness associated with cranked Ranger suspension occurs when the suspension tops out against its upper limit.

With regards to the statement that it is not a ride height adjuster: the factory shop manual disagrees. It gives factory ride height dimensions and a procedure to adjust the torsion bar position to attain those numbers.


EDIT- John, you outdrew me again!

 

he-he! Beat you, Bob -- though I like your description better, lol!

 

Yes when u crank it your getting less upward travel and more down, vise versa. thus making it a crappy ride feeling, BUT if you put like 33's on it, it helps and doesnt ride so bad.

 

In cranking the bars, the spring's infulence on the suspension is increased and the suspension moves downward in it's travel as a reaction. Technically it would be a preload if the suspension could not move in reaction to it. And technically it would be a ride height adjustment only if it didn't affect preload.

 

But because the suspension does move in reaction to it, doesn't it become ride height? Now that's true up until you reach the end of the suspension's range of motion. So until you adjust to the point of hitting the stop you are adjusting ride-height, not pre-load, after that you are just adjusting pre-load and not ride-height anymore.. I buy that!

Still sounds like a bad idea for us 4x4s. If you put the half shafts at an angle I would bet you wear the universals faster. Especially w/ our live-axles w/ hubs that are always engaged.. Although this is a non-issue for the 4x2s..

 

I'm just saying that a real ride height adjuster has a mechanism for changing ride height in a way that changes nothing about the spring.

If you look at your motorcycle manual it calls the collar on the shock a preload adjustment, even though it is doing the same thing we are talking about on Rangers. Some motorcycles have compression and rebound damping, preload and ride height adjusters. If preload was always used to change ride height, why would they have both?

 

Dave, of course you can have both if you want to change the vehicles stance INDEPENDENT of suspension extension. But guess what? THE PRELOAD IS STILL AFFECTING THE VEHICLES SUSPENSION EXTENSION and would have to.

No reason the "pre-load" adjustment can't be both, you just don't have independent control. Are you seriously arguing about what it's called, regardless of what it DOES?

And again, it's ONLY PRE-load for the point in time where the suspension is NOT loaded. After that, shall we call it a "post load" adjustment? Would that make you happy?

 

all this is confusing me. does a t-bar crank really work? will i gain 1-2" if it is performed? i read somewhere that the truck should not be on the ground when the crank is performed, is this true? i need to know a set of pros and cons (in english preferably) about doing the crank. and how bad does it make the ride exactly?