hey everyone just purchased a 1996 dodge ram 1500 van a/t w/ v6 ! it has 161k on it and is in like new condtion for an unbelievable price $ 1,600.00

any how ... i bought this van to go on surf, snowboard, mnt bike trips and the clearance will be an issue on the beach. has anyone here lifted one of theses vans ? are the front lift components the same as the 2wd 1500 trucks ?

not looking to go more than three inches and will be running a bfg t/a ko all-terrain tire


thanks in advance !

captsurf

 

Im pondering why you would take a 2wd onto a beach, especially a RWD one. Big tires not withstanding unless by big, you mean wide, but then you wouldnt nead the lift.

As for the lift, any lift kit will lift the body, and the components that have the low clearance will stay where they are.

If you are doing the lift to put larger tires, you are probably better off trying to make the room in the fenders first. A 3" lift wont gain you much in the fenders. The top of the fender maybe, but the constraint is actually on the front and rear edges of each well. Especially on the front tires where they constrained on the rear of the well by the door.

A 3" lift alone may gain you couple of inches in tiresize. Only half of tiresize will raise the low components. so you get maybe 1.5 - 2 more inches of clearance. Thats not really that much. The body lift would help the attack angle on a hill, but again this is a 2wd, a rather long one, and you will be dragging the butt of van well before the front clearance comes into play.

Also raising the CG will make the top heavy nature of a VAN really bad.

It sounds like what you really want is a Jeep, not a van. If you really insist on a van, and this will be expensive and tough to find, but try and locate one with a Quigley 4x4 Conversion vehicles - Fedex is one customer of theirs. mostly for midwest delivery routes.

 

thanks for the reply igadget ! just to give ya an idea of what is in store for ol'blue :1) winch mounted in the factory front bumper2) secondary roof rack w/ cargo basket holding a spare, hi-lift jack, two shovels, and 5gal gas can, a ****** anchor ( for the winch ), and last but not least KC lights across the front ! 3) pre-runner bar w/ more lights up on the front bumper !

i have a set of roof racks for my boards mounted toward the rear of the van now.

as far as the lift goes......i talked w/ my dodge parts guru yesterday and there are several sizes of springs that will give me the lift i want in the front. as far as the rear goes i may add some shackles for more articulation.

i picked up ol'blue for a little of nothin ( 1,600.00) to be my trip vehicle ! i like the look of the 4x4 vans i have seen. and figure that a set of 31-32" bfg all-terrains would look and perform very well i am not goin for huge on the lift just functional for what i do .

mainly i was courious to see if anyone had done a this on a two wheel drive van

i have a 4x4 tacoma that gets abused in the offroad area ! heres a pic of my other toy

[IMG]local://upfiles/48887/DFB4AE5986C449D8A5BF2A8144676484.jpg[/IMG]

 

I could share alot of the concerns and frustrations with lifting the two wheel drive van. I converted my 92 2 wheel drive to a 4x4. A couple things to keep in mind are that you are not working on a truck, so parts are difficult to come by just for the simple fact that there is really not a market for van lift kits. If you have seriously looked into lifting your van, then you would know that a body lift is out of the question, since the Dodge vans are UNIBODY! To cram bigger tires, you need alot of lift, because vans typically don't have big tires, the wheel wells are smaller. I have about 12 inches of lift on my van, and I am running 33 x 12.5 tires. I custom built the entire front suspension and steering, because I switched from the independant coil spring suspension to straight axle leaf sprung front with crossover steering. I'm not sure what 3 inches of lift would do to your front suspension geometry, but it wouldn't get you alot of tire room. If you are interested, I can get you pictures, and let you know how I did mine.
MY PHILOSOPHY: GO BIG OR STAY HOME!

 

sweet check your pm bro !

 

1989 Dodge RamVan B250 2.5 in suspension lift and 31 in AT tires.

 

Hi plz email me and explain wat i need to lift my van a few inches. ur van is awesome... xxxxxxxxxx@yahoo.com

 

It's best not to post your email in an open forum. Have someone contact you through a private message (PM) and trade information there.

 

That, and the thread is 13 years old... ;-)

 

oh, and you can get away with coil spring spacers and rear lift blocks... but I'm not sure on one of these how much strain it will put on an already somewhat anemic front suspension... (ie it might wear things out quite a bit faster..). I had no problem fitting 32's under mine and it drove just fine... but I didn't drive it tat way a long time...