i have an 08' Dak 6spd 3.7L
i want to put a 2or3 inch lift but im worried about running into stick problems...

 

Unless your referring to body lift. No mod is needed for any type of suspension lift.

 

yes i want to do a body lift fit some bigger tires under her

 

With a body lift and a manual transmission in almost any truck, you'll have stick issues - the greater the lift, the greater the issue. To deal with this, you have 2 choices - you can modify the "hump", or modify your drive train mounting. For the hump, you can either lower it to allow you to shift without hitting the edges (this allows you to use the OEM boot, covers, etc.) or you can modify the "shift hole" to give yourself the shift room that you need (here, you'll need to make your own boot, weather seals, cover, etc., as well as to possibly lengthen or re-bend the stick). You can also lift the drive train, which means that you need to buy or fabricate new mounts for your drive train components like the engine, t-case or transmission, and anything else that has a mount (radiator comes to mind). With a 3" body lift (that's the only size they come in - if you want shorter, you need to cut the standoffs and buy new bolts to compensate for the difference), I would choose the drive train lift - it will give you more belly clearance and bring the engine back up to a level with the fenders where things are easier to reach.

 

if i buy the 3in cut in down to 2in will i still haveto mod everything?
do you know anyone that made mounts or know where to buy them?

 

How hard would it be to make or have brackets to lift the drive train made. Or does anyone already make them.

 

There are a few other things to consider other than cutting down the spacers when modifying a body lift kit, but most of them are fairly trivial in terms of fabrication difficulty. If you look at a blow-up picture of a Dakota body lift kit, you'll see that most of it consists of the spacers, washers, and bolts, but there are a few other things, like:

• Radiator relocation brackets. These are usually just some pieces of flat steel that have a couple of holes in them drop the rad down the same distance as you lifted the body. If each of these strips have holes spaced at 3" and you only want to raise the body 2", then you need to drill another hole in each strip to give you 2 holes at 2" spacing.
• Front bumper brackets. These allow you to move the bumper UP to fill the gap that happens when you lift the body. Some of these brackets have slots instead of holes, so if you get this type, you don't need any mods - if they have holes at 3" spacing then you'll need to make similar mods to these as you would to the rad brackets.
• Intermediate Steering Shaft extension. This one, I'm not sure of for the Dakota kits, many such kits have spacers that fit at a joint and some have a replacement shaft or shaft section, so I'd need to know the kit that you're interested kit so I can look at the installation instructions to see what parts that manufacturer supplies & then I can comment on it. In my experience, I've found that the intermediate steering shafts have a reasonable amount of movement in their slip joint that allows you to spread it to fill any small changes in installation geometry.

For drive train mounts, the 2 easiest ways to go are - when you do this, you won't need to move the radiator:

• Buy aftermarket mounts and replace the original with the taller ones - sometimes these aren't available.
• Fabricate a pedistal that's the height of the lift you want (the engine lift height will be the highest and then the t-case/transmission mounting will be slightly lower to give you the slope you desire. Normally this slope is applied to minimize the U-joint angle, but if you aren't worried about that, the pedestals can be the same height). Next, you cut the mounts off from where they're currently welded, weld the pedestal to the mount and then that whole thing to the original spot where the mount was. If you don't have experience in welding/fabrication, a good welding shop will be able to either do what I've described or make a taller set of mounts for you and weld them on.

See my comments above, hope all this helps.

 

Don't get jkearon here with that word trannt lol

 

dont cut the puck just check at the floor if some minor mods are needed...i did a cheap bodylift on a mazda b2600 and it was super easy to mod the floor very minor trimming and flex the stick a little with a torch

 

The standoffs can be very easy to cut depending on what they're made of. The hard, black variety that I see most of them made from (it looks like ABS & probably is) is easy to cut, but care needs to be taken to trim both ends equally (there's a section at the vertical center that keeps the standoff from spreading and sagging) and the cut needs to be square (I use my bandsaw for these cuts). For body lifts that don't need anything special, I've made the spacers/standoffs from billet alluminum, and then fabbed the brackets from .125 flat or plate mild steel. As I mentioned earlier, the only part that would need to be looked at closely for a modified or completely DIY body lift, would be the steering shaft - if this doesn't need much, it's a relatively simple process. I'll be looking into the Dakota lift issue in a month or so - I'm waiting for the weather to warm up first so I don't need to roll around on a frozen driveway.