Hey Guys, I'm new here to DF and have a few questions you guys may be able to help me with. I have a 2001 Dodge Ram 1500 Sport Off-Road edition with a 5" Rough Country Suspension lift on 35's. I also have bushwhacker fender flares and unfortunately my tires rub slightly when cutting the wheel real hard. I would like to raise the truck a little bit and was looking for suggestions. Skyjacker has a 4" Add-a-leaf kit which sparked my interest. My questions about that are, because I have the 5" lift blocks in the back and the U-Bolts that came with the suspension kit will that leave enough room for the add-a-leaf or would I have to buy new U-Bolts? Second if I don't need new U-Bolts would I have to get longer brake lines, or longer e-brake, etc? In the front I've been looking for a 4" coil spacer. I've found a couple but my questions with that is, do I then have to adjust anything else? (Sway bar, tie rods, etc?) Or am I totally over thinking this and it is actually as simple as using the U-Bolts that came with the suspension kit as well as just mounting up the spacers in the front? Any info would be helpful.

Thanks!

 

The spacers and AAL is way too much lift without more parts. It's almost doubling your kit already and you'll need suspension parts, driveline parts, etc. as you are approaching 10" of lift. Is that what you really want? If your tires are rubbing a little, look at different tires or wheels as they are all made different. Maybe just a 2" spacer up front might do it too. But 4" is a whole 'nother animal.

 

I wanted to go much larger than 5" but at the time I didnt have the $$ to do so. I would ideally like to go bigger all around, I just wasnt quite sure how to do so. I couldn't find any kits much bigger than that. Skyjacker has the 7" but even that isn't quite where I would like it. I considered a body lift but then people started telling me you'll need to extend this and that, and that wont work, etc. It just sounded like too much of a pain. Then I looked into spacers. I thought about the 4" add a leaf and 4" coil spacers but then started to question what else would need to be done (as I did so here.) I would ideally like to be able to run 38-40" tires in the end. The 35's look a little small to be honest. Any ideas how I could squeeze another couple inches in without having to make major adjustments? Maybe slightly bigger coils in the front with the add-a-leaf in the back?

 

There she is. The only addition that was done recently is the roll bars.

 

You really can't get much more lift easily. Steering geometry and such is going to suffer. AAL's in the rear should be fine, but, you should replace the u-bolts anyway. (suggested practice.)

Do you have long-arms up front? If not, going higher, you are going to need them.....

Also, much bigger than 35's on the half-ton axles is going to be pushing it......

 

Well my mechanic had told me my axle seal is leaking and would need to be replaced but said it is a pretty costly job. I was contemplating foregoing the axle seal and seeing about doing an axle swap instead to kill two birds with one stone. If I were to get the 1 ton axles, new shocks, longer drop pitman arm, and 4" bigger new coils would that be a way to forego getting a whole new kit? If I could do the 4" AAL that would give me 8" in the rear and if I could somehow get coils to put me at 9" it would even itself out. Obviously an alignment would be needed, but what else? Steering extension? E-brake line extension?

 

I do not have long control arms either. They are slightly longer than factory which came with the 5" lift but nothing crazy.

 

I would go with a whole new kit....... That way, you KNOW it will be right.

 

Do you know of any kits bigger than the Skyjacker 7"? I would have bought that one but at the time money was a little tight and I couldn't spend the almost $3k on it. But now I would like to go bigger anyway lol

 

To be honest I'm not against a body lift at all. I was just told they're a pain in the you know what because you have to raise the gas tank, extended the steering, raise the bumpers, etc. If it's truly not that difficult I would probably just go that route. I would ideally love to do a 3" PA BL and then maybe 2" coil spacers and AAL for a total of 10" of lift. Think that would work?