Why lifting your truck with spacer blocks is a bad idea
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From: Massachusettes
Why lifting your truck with spacer blocks is a bad idea
Hi everyone,
Ive been a mechanic all my life, since i was a kid taking apart a broken microwave or toaster, to working at a garage from 16 to 20, to going to collage getting my associates in electromechanical, and now working as an electronics technician. (which is both elecrical and mechanical) I work at a grinding wheel manufacturing plant, and i fix all the various machines associated, some absolute junk, some brand new(but still junk) we even got a coupple robots. So working on my truck or 4 wheeler, is kinda fun for me, even thou my wife hates it, it saves me an assload of money, and is entertaining for me.
I put the Rough contry 4" front 2" rear block kit in my truck about 2 years ago, and just did some major reconstruction to the front of my truck last month. For starters, when i put the kit in, i noticed the extreme angle it put my stock ball joints on and the angle it put the sway bar end links on. It also put stress on the front struts, cause when your tire is at max down travel, it is putting sideload on the rod and strut mount it never sees with stock suspension.
My truck's front end was toast, slamming hard, and the struts were making noises equivelent to chewbacca on his wedding night. So i bought a set of Rancho 9000 ES struts and went to town. Trying to separate the upper ball joint, the ball separated from the socket, and i could see it was completely wiped out. I may had waited too long to do this, so i was expecting something else other then the struts to be junk. After i put it all back together with new Moog ball joints (which are awesome, have grease zerks and a lifetime warranty) i noticed, they weren't on such an angle for whatever reason, but my sway bar end link on the passenger side was toast.
So in conclusion, i still have more work to do, and i gotta get the angle out of the new end links, with an angled shim i suppose, and my front passenger side wheel bearing is gone too, makin a mint squeaking noise when i hit bumps. Good thing is the bearing is under the manufaturer's recall for lack of grease. And i think im gonna buy movtech end links, they have grease zerks in them. Also the stock suspension in the Ram's are junk. They suck and are poorly made, i replaced the outter tie rod ends at 30K with moog and haven't had a problem. Everyone at my work with dodge ram pickups have had the struts replaced, cause the stock monroe ones are junk, by the way, the Rancho struts ride awesome, and are adjustable, which i just set in the middle, and they work fine.
I enclosed a picture of the new struts installed, I don't know if the stock parts are to blame for being such pieces of S#1T or if the lift kit's angles messed them up, either way, im gonna keep the lift in it, cause i like the way it looks.
Ive been a mechanic all my life, since i was a kid taking apart a broken microwave or toaster, to working at a garage from 16 to 20, to going to collage getting my associates in electromechanical, and now working as an electronics technician. (which is both elecrical and mechanical) I work at a grinding wheel manufacturing plant, and i fix all the various machines associated, some absolute junk, some brand new(but still junk) we even got a coupple robots. So working on my truck or 4 wheeler, is kinda fun for me, even thou my wife hates it, it saves me an assload of money, and is entertaining for me.
I put the Rough contry 4" front 2" rear block kit in my truck about 2 years ago, and just did some major reconstruction to the front of my truck last month. For starters, when i put the kit in, i noticed the extreme angle it put my stock ball joints on and the angle it put the sway bar end links on. It also put stress on the front struts, cause when your tire is at max down travel, it is putting sideload on the rod and strut mount it never sees with stock suspension.
My truck's front end was toast, slamming hard, and the struts were making noises equivelent to chewbacca on his wedding night. So i bought a set of Rancho 9000 ES struts and went to town. Trying to separate the upper ball joint, the ball separated from the socket, and i could see it was completely wiped out. I may had waited too long to do this, so i was expecting something else other then the struts to be junk. After i put it all back together with new Moog ball joints (which are awesome, have grease zerks and a lifetime warranty) i noticed, they weren't on such an angle for whatever reason, but my sway bar end link on the passenger side was toast.
So in conclusion, i still have more work to do, and i gotta get the angle out of the new end links, with an angled shim i suppose, and my front passenger side wheel bearing is gone too, makin a mint squeaking noise when i hit bumps. Good thing is the bearing is under the manufaturer's recall for lack of grease. And i think im gonna buy movtech end links, they have grease zerks in them. Also the stock suspension in the Ram's are junk. They suck and are poorly made, i replaced the outter tie rod ends at 30K with moog and haven't had a problem. Everyone at my work with dodge ram pickups have had the struts replaced, cause the stock monroe ones are junk, by the way, the Rancho struts ride awesome, and are adjustable, which i just set in the middle, and they work fine.
I enclosed a picture of the new struts installed, I don't know if the stock parts are to blame for being such pieces of S#1T or if the lift kit's angles messed them up, either way, im gonna keep the lift in it, cause i like the way it looks.