How to determine what kind of lift/leveling kit my truck has?

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BolletuH

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Tallest I have seen springs thus far for leveling has been 3.25” from Thuren. Everything higher usually comes from a full suspension lift. You probably have around a 2.75”-3.25” front lift. Backend probably hasn’t been fiddled with if there are no spacers on the air bags. You are at the point of needing radius arms or drops to correct the axle angle and the bow in your springs.

Either drop the suspension down with less of a lift in the front or get the necessary parts to supplement your axle angles. Shocks on all four corners should probably be replaced to improve ride and would recommend King steering stabilizer from Thuren as it won’t induce a pull left or fine. I would bet your caster is fairly low even with the setting maxed out. Does the truck appear to have aftermarket radius arms or drop brackets?
 
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vhmike73

vhmike73

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Tallest I have seen springs thus far for leveling has been 3.25” from Thuren. Everything higher usually comes from a full suspension lift. You probably have around a 2.75”-3.25” front lift. Backend probably hasn’t been fiddled with if there are no spacers on the air bags. You are at the point of needing radius arms or drops to correct the axle angle and the bow in your springs.

Either drop the suspension down with less of a lift in the front or get the necessary parts to supplement your axle angles. Shocks on all four corners should probably be replaced to improve ride and would recommend King steering stabilizer from Thuren as it won’t induce a pull left or fine. I would bet your caster is fairly low even with the setting maxed out. Does the truck appear to have aftermarket radius arms or drop brackets?

No; nothing looks to be added to the suspension at all: just that 'extra tall" spring the the shocks on all four corners. All the brackets seem to be mounted on the axles as they would be from the factory, but I don't have any good "here's what baseline actually looks like" to reference.
 

BolletuH

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No; nothing looks to be added to the suspension at all: just that 'extra tall" spring the the shocks on all four corners. All the brackets seem to be mounted on the axles as they would be from the factory, but I don't have any good "here's what baseline actually looks like" to reference.
So I'm pretty confident that you have a 3 1/4" lift up front and nothing in the rear. I just measured 26 7/8" up front hub to fender and 28" on rear. This is with Thuren 2" coils up front and Thuren OEM ride height springs in rear (lift maybe a 1/4"). Your rear axle shock insinuates it's a factory air suspension system and it controls hop since there would be too much rebound otherwise. Not sure why the shocks are different, but owner may have went one way then another with his setup.

Regardless, you need to decide what you want to do with the truck. 3 1/4" lift with no radius arm brackets or aftermarkets arms leads me to believe caster is most likely around the 3ish degree mark maxed out. This will cause twitchiness in the steering wheel with lots of feedback. You should be in the 4 to 4 1/2 degree range for best results. You will only achieve this by using drop bracket or aftermarket arms. I have ones from BDS that are made specially for 2-4" lifted trucks to pivot the axle back into a better geometry and will give you plenty of caster adjustment back.

Rear axle would benefit from Thuren's rear track bar. Would help stability and tracking especially with your rear air suspension. I believe it works for both air and coil sprung suspension types.

Finally get 4 new shocks with appropriate lengths... once again I would recommend Thuren as he has different types of shocks for different length profiles. You can keep your current springs if you want or replace them as well, but that's up to you. You're looking around $2K all said and done and maybe a bit more if you have someone install everything for you. You can always attack things one piece at a time as well if necessary.


BDS would be my next choice if you want to go for a complete kit and not put a whole lot of thought into it.


Don't forget you can always go back to stock as well. Sometimes the whole lifted fad can be a headache to deal with and just going back to stock, while boring, is decently engineered and works.
 
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vhmike73

vhmike73

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So I managed to get the broken passenger side shock off the truck after cutting through the top washer and rubber mounting isolator. Since it wasn't connected (the top of the body screws into a small nipple on the underside of the shock mount. Those threads, both on the shock body and the nipple were shot, so the body was loose, as seen in earlier pics.)To all the the guys who've commented that it's "a 20 second job to cut off the shock bolt" in various posts here on the forums, A) I have to assume the stock MOPAR shocks must not use hardened metal shafts, and B) I really need to know what blades they're using to get that job done!! I wore out at least 6 metal blades in the process of removing ONE shock. Granted, there was no chance to try to lock onto the shaft since the body separated from the upper mount, but still: what a PITA! At least the driver side, despite that bolt being rusted in place, went a bit easier: I cut the top washer, pried it off and then pried off the top rubber bushing: that allowed the the shock to drop.

Since Bilstein 5100s for my rear application are out of stock until late June at least (so far as I have found), I installed KYB MonoMax shocks (per the KYB site, it's a stock replacement, meaning not for a lifted truck, and is geared toward towing/hauling use.)

I will say that simply adding a functioning shock to the passenger side has cleaned up a lot of the rattling/bouncing I was getting over rough pavement, so that's a good thing. I did the shocks on two nights, so I had the one Icon shock running today. Now that both MonoMax shocks are on, the rear feels firmer than with just the one, but the jouncing and rattling around the rear end was doing is gone. I will be towing this weekend, so I'll find out how well the truck handles my 7K trailer with the pair of MonoMax shocks (and two actually functioning shocks period!) for the first time this season!

My next issue is of course the front suspension. I'm intending on replacing the springs and shocks in the beginning of July: I need to line up time with a buddy (who's got a lift) to make that happen, and pick his brain on options to replace what was stuffed up front.

I'm considering using the Bilstein B8-5112 Suspension Leveling Kit: does anybody have any insight on this kit? Frankly, I'm perfectly fine with just going back to stock front springs and stock-height shocks as long as the 35x11.50/R20 tires I currently have will fit (there will likely be some rubbing on the inside edge of the mudflaps that are currently installed, since I've noticed it on full-lock turns on the driver side). Thanks to forum Parts God Benny for hooking me up with the proper PN for stock shocks for my truck!

Honestly, a couple inches lower would be great for my GF getting in and out of the truck as well. I wouldn't mind using the Bilstein kit to gain a bit of front end level, but I'm not in the "must level" camp so the front rake that stock parts would give isn't a bother.

Thanks for the insights so far. Hopefully in a couple weeks, the saga will be over and the truck will be "right". Finally.
 
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vhmike73

vhmike73

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I know this is an old post, but the issue is closed. Here's what I found once the truck was up in the air:

First, the front end was "leveled" or by the use of springs only. The springs on the truck when I got it (and that were present in my original post) were about 4" taller than the stock front springs I got. I had Benny from AllMoparParts give me the proper part numbers for front springs, and per my truck's VIN, the "stock" springs were clearly 4" inches shorter then what was on the truck. So the front end was restored to stock, and I used KYB shocks both front and rear (the rears were done earlier, as one of the Icons that were on there failed: the threaded insert on the top side of one shock was ruined, so the passenger side Icon was useless) . However the back end of the truck seemed pinned to the max level of the airbags. The problem was that apparently the original owner who "leveled" this truck installed Icon's rear level kit- so the rear air suspension sensor links are about 1.5" longer than stock to raise the truck. I replaced the sensors (because MOPAR decided not to sell just the links anymore) and had the ASCM recalibrated so the truck is now back to "stock" levels of height. Haven't towed with this yet, but the truck now feels much less "jouncy" than it did, it's easier to get in and out of and I think it looks better. But bottom line: there was NO lift kit installed, no leveling blocks either. The "level", which lifted the truck a bit, was done simply with front springs (and perhaps Icon shocks up front originally, but were cheapos by the time I got it) and longer-than-stock air suspension sensor links. At least all that junk is gone, and I'm back to a "known good" state- and should I choose to do something, I know I'm working off all stock starting points.
 
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