Last weekend I attempted to take the Dakota on what I thought was a Level 3 trail. However, once we got there the sign said it was a Level 5. I thought I'd give it a try so I aired down the tires a little and set off. I got about 500' up the trail, crested the hill and then saw a huge problem. Deeeep woops and ruts. I walked up and looked things over and decided there was no way my stock height Dakota was gonna make it through those. It would have high sided for sure. If I had 2" - 3" of lift and some bigger tires I knew I would have made it.

With 2" of lift F/R and the 3" body lift and pruning of the front splash guards, inner wheel wells and etc I should be able to fit 33x12.5's depending on the tire chosen.

My question is for those running the 2" spacers and going four wheeling; Have you had any issues at full flex and full compression? Any binding of the drive shafts? Any steering issues?

The reason I ask is because a lot of the wheeling that I want to do will require a lot of flexing. It will be a lot of steep, loose rock hills, lots of deeps ruts and woops, big rocks and etc.

Thanks!

 

My suggestion is for you to buy a jeep!!! Our newer Dakotas are not for that. No one makes the right equipmentfor it yet- susp. lift etc.- so we are S.O.L.!!!

 

I think our trucks do better than alot of people think. A lot of the trails that I go into fishing lakes on are pretty gnarly. I don't think that they are level 5 trails, but close. I think that even with the lift you described you would want to go very carefull. Just be prepared for ball joint failure if you are going to be doing a lot of wheeling. I have never had any ball joints fail, but it may happen.
On a note of the tires, I would not recommend going any wider than 285 as it gets very tight in the fender when you start flexing. The 285/70-17's I am running are 33" tires about 11.5" wide. Major trimming will be needed to run 12.5's especially when you are going to go wheeling.

 

Get a locker, flex is overrated..

 

I'm going to be having 4.10's installed hopefully before the end of the year. I already have the LSD but maybe I'll throw in a better locker in the rear.

As for the wheels and tires, what about running a new wheel that has about 1" less backspacing so that the tires stick out just a bit more? I need to go out and turn the wheels lock to lock and measure how much space I have between the tire and the plastic liner. It's hard to envision without first seeing what causes the problem.

Oh, and I do have an '87 Wrangler but it won't make it that far away. The trans is on the way out. We're working on that too.

 

The offset is what becomes a problem. The further outside the wheel well you go with the tires, the closer it gets to the bottom corner of the fender when you are turning. You would have to do major trimming to the fender (mud flap, etc) and with wider tires this is acsentuated. If you do a negative offset, then you will be rubbing on the frame, something I am already doing at full lock.

 

its nice to know that some of still see the potential just a thought I had cause I wanna be able to get a 15" rim on I was thinking spacers behind an offset rim would that help with the rubbing also I've had my truck down some real knarly trails its kept up with a rubicon and a pathfinder on a 6" lift (side note sleds you ever been to brule)

 

Damn. I guess I'm going to have to be creative. I guess I'll stick with 275x65x18 or 285x65x18. I guess it would also depend on the tire because not all 32" tires are actually 32".

I work from home so I don't drive the truck much. And with family life it would only get wheeled once or twice a month (sometimes if that). I was just afraid of getting up on a trail and having a u-joint snap due to it binding or snapping a ball joint. I wasn't sure if anyone had experienced any problems while running the spacers on some trails.

On a side note, I haven't taken a look underneath it yet but I think I want to come up with a way of fabbing up some disconnects for the front sway bar.

Thanks for all the help everyone. I think these trucks are very capable. It's just still early in the game for companies to come out with big modification parts.

 

I wheel my truck whenever I can. The biggest problem I ran into was the front sway bar end links. They were the factory ones, and were trashed fairly quickly. I have the "new" factory end links (revised) and havent wheeled. If you would like, PM me and we can go wheeling some time.

 

Thanks for the tid bit on the end links. Maybe even a better reason to get some sort of disconnect worked up.

And yeah, I'd love to go see what this truck is actually capable of. I just want to get these SR-A's off before going.