I am looking to order some new rear axle u bolts for my 2001 Ram 1500 ORE with a 3" lift from an add a leaf. Do you guys know what size u bolts I need to order?

 

Probably stock size, unless your add-a-leaf is substantially thicker than the rest of the leaves.

 

M14 is the OEM size, but you may have a hard time finding them at your local spring and tire shop. 9/16" is a hair larger and will fit through your stock spring plate holes just fine.

I recently did an axle swap and had some problems with my axle being corroded under the OEM spring plates that cup the bottom of the axle, so when I tried to torque things down, they just wrapped around the axle and bent the U-bolts outward. You can find decent quality top plates for 2.5" springs all over ebay and Amazon for $35-$40 for a pair. I ended up fabbing my own, since they were more difficult to find for 3" springs (HD spring width). See the end of my post here.

I would HIGHLY recommend going with round U-bolts and spring plates on top for the "U-bolt flip". If you end up doing that, you'd might as well upgrade to 5/8" u-bolts, since I think most of the aftermarket plates accommodate that size.

 

Thanks for the help. That gives me a good idea of what to look for. My u-bolt plates are also starting to show some rust which is what I'm actually changing here. I want to replace the u-bolts while doing the plates. I ended up just ordering some oem plates instead of going for the u-bolt flip, although I'm starting to think I made the wrong decision.

 

No problem. As long as your axle hasn't rusted/pitted to the point that its diameter is effectively smaller, you should be fine. Mine was rotted out BIG time....so much so on the RH side that I debated having the axle re-tubed. If yours isn't that bad, you should be fine.