lowering a '12 ram 4wd

So ive read up on this as much as I could and asked as many questions as I thought I could.

This will be the thread that Ill update, so follow along to see if it really works or not.

I decided to go w/ the mcgaughys 2/4 deluxe kit that consists of the 2" spindles and the 4" springs. Now I knew that this spindle is designed for 2 wheel drive but I also know of other people that are using it on their 4wd, only problem is none of them have been long term use so far (maybe this thread will even find some others that are using this setup that we haven't heard from yet).

My boxes arrived to day and so far were of to a bad start,


The bold print says 2wheel drive ONLY
Now for some reason THIS made me wonder why. I mean for them to put that in print, there has to be a problem they know about, right?
(Charonblk, Do you remember if your papers said that?)
There was also a phone # on the paper (and it was different than the others I had already called), so I called
a nice guy said...... the 4 wd truck wont align properly w/ them.
I ask.....is it a toe problem or camber?
nice guy says...... well, we just don't want them on a 4wd
I say........... Um um um um?
Ok thank you for your time?

I really don't know what that meant ,I was kinda lost for words, LOL
Tomorrow is Christmas eve and I have a lot to do but I already know that it will be a sleepless night and ill be in the shop early to try and get these on!

The rear should be a pc of cake , so wish me luck on the front tomorrow!!!!


jeff

Good luck!!

I don't remember if my sheet had 2WD ONLY on it since I honestly just threw everything but the spindles away. I can understand their alignment worries, my caster and camber are out on the 4wd, but the toe had no problems being aligned. I'm not concerned with the caster as a higher positive number will only make low speed turning harder but improve high speed maneuvering, and it was cause by bringing the rear down so far.

The camber can be fixed by getting a set of adjustable upper control arms, but nobody makes a kit, so you'd need to get them custom made and I know Mike at L&M has made a few already. My MMW ones didn't work out for that and I was a little disappointed, but I bought them mainly for the uniball joint.

You may need to take a grinder or die grinder to the back side of it to clear the CV shaft on the hub, but I didn't need to on mine. I also had to chop the lower balljoint stud to clear the 17" winter wheels, if you plan 18" or larger you'll be fine.

so far im not impressed :-l

After a 4 hr thrash in the garage, I got the new spindles on (man do Hate ball joints, if it wasn't for them it would've been 1/2 that time)
w/ the new spindles, it looks like im only seeing a 1.5" drop, Im thinking thats hardly worth the effort and For that little, and cutting the coils may have been better.

heres some pics

this is w/ everything stock:


then for reference later:


this is the only altering that had to be done, trim the backing plate:


and the side by side comparison:

If you read anywhere that 2wd and 4 wd spindles are the same, they are not! My stck alum spindles are marked 4x4 on them and after just looking up on all mopar, there are two different listings.

heres the before:



and just the front drop:



Now I have no idea what I want to do????????

Charon blk, Do you still have stock front coils to sell?

jeff

jcs64 said:

so far im not impressed :-l

After a 4 hr thrash in the garage, I got the new spindles on (man do Hate ball joints, if it wasn't for them it would've been 1/2 that time)
w/ the new spindles, it looks like im only seeing a 1.5" drop, Im thinking thats hardly worth the effort and For that little, and cutting the coils may have been better.


If you read anywhere that 2wd and 4 wd spindles are the same, they are not! My stck alum spindles are marked 4x4 on them and after just looking up on all mopar, there are two different listings.

Now I have no idea what I want to do????????

Charon blk, Do you still have stock front coils to sell?

jeff

Click to expand...

That sounds about right for the spindles for the amount of drop, it does vary a little bit between vehicles but generally around 1.5-1.75 inches of drop. The advertised drops on most drop kits are never exact, the GF drop springs tend to get most people 1.5-1.75" so the comparable drop with spindles isn't bad.

I know the balljoints were a ***** for me as well, one of the reasons I went with the upper uniball joint and I had to cut the bottom of the lower stud off.

4wd spindles and 2wd spindles are different, so I don't know where you heard that they were the same. The 2wd spindles are about 1" shorter compared to the 4wd spindle. They're also good for ~1" drop on a 4wd, so you're already lower than with jusst the 2wd spindle swap.

And I do have a set of OEM fronts if you're interested.

charonblk07 said:

And I do have a set of OEM fronts if you're interested.

Click to expand...

Ill shoot you a PM and see what we can work out.

Im really not sure what I want to do right now ;-(
I may want to try some cut stock front springs and see what the angles look like that way and see which would be the lesser of the two evils.
did I read someone here figured out how many coils equal 2"s? Ill have to look into that.

Man-o-Man, so much to think about!

today was BUSY day in the garage!
The plan was to return the front suspension back to stock until I could figure out what in the hell I was doing.

Well, that was the plan anyways.................




theres no turning back now!!!!
Because the front springs are tapered on both ends, there is only so much you can cut off before the diameter of the spring gets to big to sit on the retainers. Little my little I cut off pcs and would put the shock back together and check the drop.
I ended up removing 1/2 a coil from the top and bottom

w/ the one coil removed (1/2 from top, 1/2 from bottom), it gave me the same drop as the spindles, ~1.5"
Plus, my passenger side sat ~.25"s higher so I was able to grind small flats on both ends of the coils to dial that in. Im now ~3"s from the top of the tire to the fender lip on both sides.

coil ended up at 13.5"s from tip to tip


sense things were going good I figured I would push my luck and try the rear drop.
That part was almost to easy!

Tada!!!!


right now, measurements show that from the tire tops to the wheel wells, the truck is sitting dead nuts level all the way around.
I may take the front apart again and see if I can get just a little bit more drop out of it because if the new rear springs do settle it will look like butt.

Jeff

That looks HOT!
Hope you are able to dial in hair of rake; I think you're on the right track with the stance.

Looking very good now.

Looks good Jeff!

thanks guys

I m going in for an alignment Monday morn so ill report back w/ the results.

I still would like a 1/4" to 1/2 " lower in the front but I pushed my luck by cutting the coils as much as I would like.
Turblown, If you (or anyone reading this) can come thru w/ some extra lower spring perch cups from the shocks, I will deffinetly be able to make it happen. I looked into that area the last time I had mine apart, and You wouldn't be able to get a lot of drop the way I was thinking since that area is crowded by the cv joints shaft, but ~1" is doable. (and I only want 1/2'' LOL).

jeff

and the results are in:




Just like everyone else's, my camber is maxed out but very close to being w/in tolerance. If I do try to get the front ~1/2" lower, I would just be putting the alignment out of reach :-(
Ill have to think about that and see what my choices are.
The only other thing that was odd was that my toe was so different from one side to the other, Makes me think it was out before I even did the drop.

Later,
jeff

I cut my springs all the way around using the coil math provided from this site on my 13 ram express 4x4 and then trimmed a little more to get my stance which I like on the 20x9'' rims. was going to go 22x10 in back to close the gap and give me a bigger foot print. I have "bounce" issue in the front. if I get the bilstien shocks for the front will it correct that? If not what can I do to not lose the font stance and correct the issue.

since your dealing w/ 4wd, you cant run different size tires on the rear, they have to be the same size all the way around.
As for front end bounce, im not sure what your dealing with. How much of the front coils did you cut?
Did you cut so much that your now sitting on the bump stops?

jeff

trimmed top and bottom to the point where it still had bite on strut. I am not bottoming out. when I hit a series of un even road the front will hop up and down like a low rider. hope that helps. thanks for the rim info prior to me buying them 22's

not too sure then. I know I took 1/2 a coil from the top and then 1/2 a coil from the bottom plus another 2" of length from the bottom. I also made a spacer to go around the shock body to help keep the spring centered.

one stupid question, but I have to ask, did you get the nut back on the top of the shock?

jeff

yeah while in the spring compressor.

well if anyone has a stock set they have laying around im interested in buying them or will take them for shipping cost.

jcs64 said:

since your dealing w/ 4wd, you cant run different size tires on the rear, they have to be the same size all the way around.

As for front end bounce, im not sure what your dealing with. How much of the front coils did you cut?
Did you cut so much that your now sitting on the bump stops?

jeff

Click to expand...

Jeff, this is not completely correct, you can still run different sized tires front/rear as long as the overall diameter is the same or at least within 1/4" diam. The PCM/ABS does allow for some difference between the front/rears to account for new/used tires. It's just easier to have the same wheel/tire combo all the way around as trying to find matching diameters can be a real PITA. I found one 22/24 combo in NT420s that would work, they're only .13" different in diameter.

There are no bump stops on the front of the 4wd, only on the 2wd. OP you probably have issues with the front shocks not liking their new position, a new set of shocks at stock length should solve the problem. If you replace them with a set of Bilstein 5100s then you can actually machine a lower groove for the retainer and use a stock length front spring rather than cut the spring again.

spring compressor?

I didn't even need one. even w/ the spring at stock length there was less than 1/4" compression. After you cut anything off them (the springs), they should rattle around like crazy until you get the whole assembly squeezed between the a arms.
Do you have a pic of the front suspension (maybe w/ the wheel off or turned full tilt) so we can see what your dealing with.
Im wondering if they changed anything from 2012?


jeff