hey yall. i have a 95 f150 flareside, it is 4x4, and has the 300 with a mazda tranny. i want to put a lift on my truck, so i can start runnin some 35's. i hear a bunch of stuff that if i go bigger than 4'' then i would have to deal with all kinds of problems, and a lot of driveline vibration. is this true? i am just a lil confused on this subject.. with that being said i was gunna do a 4'' suspension with a 2'' body lift....and now i heard all of the negative things about body lifts so i am not even gunna mess with it and go all suspension. everywere i go says i need atleast a 6'' lift to get 35's to work. the lift that i had planned on getting was a bds, or a skyjacker stage II lift. if yall could clear it up for me it would be much appreciated.

 

I had an 89 F150 with no lift and 33/12.5's. Only had slight rubbung at full lock. Now most sites say that I need 4" of lift to clear those tires. I personally think 4" would be plenty enough room to clear 35"s.

 

I thought long and ahrd about my reply to this question, and most of the time I stay rather quiet, but felt that this would be the prefect opportunity to share some experience and throw a concept out that would otherwise be overlooked or considered too exotic for such a simple lift question.

You want to run 35's and have a 1/2 ton truck.
Considerations are what type of off roading you intend to do and how you think the stock drivetrain will hold up?
You already believe that you may have some issues just lifting this truck to clear the tires that you want, but still want to do it.
Have you considered what you will do about the gear ratio? You will have some costs associated with this, so lets do some quick calculations.

Lift kit:
BDS 6" kit approx 1,400 bucks (US)
this uses a block for the rear and is not an all leaf kit, but lets go with it.

Just over 2,000 bucks (US) if you consider all leaf and radius arms.

Gears for taller tires:
Approx 1500 bucks (US) if you can find a deal and have a good shop

Tires wheels, brake lines etc......... This is not going to be considered because my idea will require the same products so this is a wash.

Ok, before you consider the TTB lift, understand the pitfalls and the probelsm associated with them. Camber problems equal excessive tire wear and often the TTB is known for failures. Stock radius arms ar weak, and known to be less than desirable.
Now lets understand that the upgrade to larger components are considered costly and not within reach of most weekend warriors.

I seem to believe that this is not true, and this is the best time to upgrade you rig to make it stronger, more reliable, and an all around better / more capable rig.

What am I suggesting? Well, I am suggesting that you consider a solid axle swap right now, and forget the idea of lifting the truck using the stock components.

IN recent weeks I completed a similar upgrade and swapped in 1 ton axles. This was the best move I could have done, and I performed it in the driveway at home using normal hand tools, and just about the same time it would take to install the regular lift kit.

Most would say that the Dana 60 front was too expensive to even consider this, but I would argue this, since it will not break anytime soon, and well, the very forst time that the TTB D44 did break, and you had to replace something, you would now be pretty equal in costs.

Dana 60 front (KP front axle): Approx 1000 bucks
Sterling 10.25 rear axle: Approx 150 bucks
Shackle reverse kit: Approx 300 bucks
Stock spring hangers: Approx 25 bucks from salvage yard
Stock 99-04 Super Duty front leafs: Can be free, or as much as 100 bucks
Misc u-bolts and bolts to bolt up your new lift. Approx 150 bucks (really this much but you can get this for less) This includes consumables for grinder. Flap wheels, cut off discs etc.
Steering arm for dana 60: Approx 100 bucks
Drag link and chebby TRE's: Approx 250 bucks including required machining to accomodate the required Tapered holes.
Front u-bolts: Approx 40 bucks
Spring plates: Approx 100 bucks
9/16" lug nuts for new axles: Approx 36 bucks
Shackle flip for rear: As low as 40 bucks
Shock mount: Approx 25 bucks
Shocks: This is up to you, and since you have money left over you can splurge

Ok so right now you have about 2500 bucks in 1 ton gear, and you are just about ready to go.
Compare this to the 3000 plus dollars that the kit above will cost, and then consider what you are getting. You are not upgrading anything, you are just lifting the truck.
My concept get you some killer parts and the wow factor that anyone is looking for.
You get mad respect for having a truck like yours with 1 ton gear.

Once you have all of you parts together, you are pretty much set. This isa bolt on deal, and you will have enough room for 35" tires. If you are patient, the axles that you buy will have 4.10 gears which will be about right for you 35's. 4.56's might be more desirable, but this can come later as the 4.10's will be an advantage over your stock ratio and little tires.

Spend the weekend with some friends and tear all of the old stuff off. Immediately put the old stuff on some for sale type add, and make some money back. Sell you old wheels and everything. You might get 25% of you money back. This is not an option with just a lift kit. This means that your overall investment is even less.

Ok, so you will need new tires, but you were going to buy them anyway, and you were going to buy wheels I assume, so now you will just buy some with 8 lugs. Not a bad deal. Actually you have money left over to do this so if you did not plan on it, you can now do this.
Brake lines would have to be changed anyway, so this cost is also a wash.
Dollar for dollar you can beat my deal. If you can install your own lift kit, you too can pull this off. You may have to make some driveline changes, or modifications, but these are minimal. Depending on the lift configuration, you may get away with zero driveshaft mods.
Its better and in many cases cheaper to do this:

 

wow 75F350....you really opened my eyes a lil bit and made me see that there is a better way to do this... thanks man.. i had also seen the stuff for doing a SAS, but didnt want to do the D60. if i was to do it i would probally go with the D44.. other than weight and the D60 being tougher, are there any other things that make the D60 better? i saw on JBG that they had a complete bolt up kit for the SAS. it did seem a lil high priced though... i saw on here were people did the SAS and they did it all with other parts, as opposed to buying this kit. and to answer your question, yes i did know that i would have to get new gearing, and i do work at a tire shop so i can get all my tires at cost. that helps out alot. i did notice that you had the leaf front end on that beast of a ford. is it easier and more bennificial to install vs. the coil spring set up? i was wanting to do the D44 so i could still run the same rims on the front and the back without having to swap the rear axle as well. another factor is this would have to be something that i could do in a weekends time. im a full time student with a full time job. i am fairly mechanically inclined, have access to a welder and all the tools that i would ever need with the exception of a puller. i had planned on doing the gear swap myself on the diffs. as i know what im doing when it comes to that. as far as local junkyards where i can go and pull all my own parts...around here they are plentiful.

 

I used the front leafs for simplicity and strength in the mud. Since I was in experimental mode, I removed some of the variables by using front leafs.
My first intention was to use long arm radius arms and a coil over shock. This would have required a compound bend in the arms and this would have brought out some strength issues. I was not willing to do this, plus I wanted to tie in the front end from side to side to eliminate any potential problems or weakness in the crumple zones.
There were a few other reasons, but the main reason was cost effectiveness. While I am no stranger to spending money, I am conscious of budgets and what it takes to stay within them.
By all means, if you want to install a D44 up front, then do it. This just makes the cost of this idea even less. I have seen D44's for almost free, and nowhere near the cost of a D60F so go this route and save.
Unfortunately, not a single one of my trucks will ever see a dana 44, so this is not an option for me, but can be for some.
Should you decide to keep the coil springs up front, then again, more power to you.

I guess the entire point is that you may invest in a lift kit that may not satisfy you in the near future, and you will spend money twice.

With proper planning you will or can have a far better idea of where you intend to be when the dust settles. Proper planning will save you time and money. Spend it once and contunue to upgrade.

After my Bronco upgrade, a buddy of mine was left kicking himself. See after the forst day of wheeling our rigs (the shakedown run for the black bronco above) my buddy broke his front end in his Bronco and the ring and pinion in the rear gave up.
Total destruction. This was only months after he installed a 6 inch lift, 3 inch body lift and new tires.
He has over 4 thousand bucks in his set up, and it is pretty much scrap now.

When we discussed the amount of money I had in the Black Bronco, he just put his head down in shame. Little did he know at the time that he could have built an identical 1 ton Bronco for less than he had in his lift kit.

 

well, that being said, are you saying that if i could find a D60 for a decent price in a boneyard and rebuild it it would be more cost effective and tougher than the D44? i know that if i do the D44 that i will have to get a lot of little odds and end parts here and there as compared to the D60. and what rearend did you say that you had put in there so you could have 8 lug in the rear as welll? did you need to get any new drive shafts when you swapped out these axles due to their size. also what year is your bronco?

 

Bronco is a 94.
Parts requirements for a dana 44 sold axle and a dana 60 are almost identical. If you move to leaf springs like I did, then the requirements are almost exactly the same.
The dana 60 is stronger, there is no doubt about that. You will have to put a pretty penny in a D44 to be anywhere close to a stock axle. You may not have to re-build the entire thing. Heak if it holds oil, and the bearings look good, I would run it. The use of the Dana 60 also makes steering a piece of cake. See the dana 44 does not have provisions for a pass side steering arm on top of the knuckle, so the knuckle will have to be machined. This is not super expensive, but not cheap, and adds to the over all cost. 35" tires would be just fine for a dana 44, but I have broken them with this size tire.
I was forced to use a sterling 10.25" rear axle with mine because (just like you) I have an auto trans that requires speed reference from the VSS located at the rear differential.
Since the 10.25 axle has this, it was a plug and play deal No issues, and no modifications.
These axles are cheap and bolt right in. Use the small blocks and u-bolts from the donor vehicle, and you will have enough lift to be just aout right. Add the shackle flip and you may be too tall, so you can eliminate the small block. Thats up to you.
Odds and ends will be exactly the same. You will require brake lines and so forth, but the equal brake lines for a 1 ton truck of the same year bolt right up and use the same fitting sizes so this minimzes effort. Just bolt up some new staniless braided lines designed for the same era F350 and you are done.
I also did a disc brake conversion on mine, and even the hard line from the small 8.8 was used on the sterling rear axle. It had to be cut down, but the ends threaded right to the chevy brake lines and calipers with no modification or adapters.

The most exotic tool I had to use was a 4 inch angle grinder. Well, I did weld my parts together, and I did fabricate them, but these parts are available for the prices I listed above.
I just finished this project about a week ago, and it was a snap. Truly a conversion that can be done in little time. Make sure you have all of the parts ahead of time, and you can knock this out in a weekend.
If you cant and need a ride, rent a car for a week. With the money you save by doing this thing this way the first time, you can rent a car for quite a while. This way you dont have to rush, and the quality of the finished product is much higher.

Your truck could probably use the stock rear driveshaft (u-joints may be the same, some had larger ones, but most had the 1330), and the front driveshaft was about an inch too long. The larger ring gear and overall size of the front diff required a shorter shaft. Overall length required a shorter total dimension but also needed a longer slip joint.
I have since limited the travel and use a stock shaft, I suspect that you could do this too.

 

4" lift will clear 35's with any luck i will have pics for proof soon, my 35s are sitting at the border right now...4" will not require extensions of anything, but extended brake lines up front is a good idea, rear is no problem, and 4" is the min. lift needed to clear a SAS (d44 coil sprung at least)...

thing about SAS is unless you plan on actually USING the truck why sacrifice the highway ride quality? a solid axle of any setup (leaf or coil) will make every little bump in the road feel like a damn canyon...the SASs have MANY advantages over the TTB but fot a highway truck or even the light offroader they are not necessarily the best way to go...lifting a solid axle is way easier and cheaper, but to put a solid axle in place of a TTB AND lift it, that might not be as cheap depending on your location and availability of parts

the TTB you have will hold up to the 35's if they are less aggressive and you do not offroad hard it will be fine and you CAN get drop brackets for it but that is not the best idea, you can have the beams cut and angled to correct the camber if needed (ive heard TTBs are okay with 4" or less lift no experience though)


p.s. any SAS store "kit" is B.S., stay away from that
and unless you have 450hp (its a 300 like me so not bloody likely) and boggers like 75f350 does you will probably NEVER break that d44 either, so why pay 4x as much for a d60 then you have to upgrade the rear end also (unless you want a mix matched truck) plus with the d44 lots of the stuff is a straight swap from the TTB which is also a d44 (hubs, gears, even coils although this requires some fab) and the only real fab work on a d44 coil spring SAS is the trac bar bracket, the steering is really easy and rather inexpensive cause you do not NEED to build any of it, i did, but there are links that will fit fine without modification you can get in any junkyard

i did the SAS on my 95 and even though my SAS sucks (so im told) i would still not go back, i am running 35x13.50 ground hawgs...nuff said

i am not trying to convince you into or away from SAS of any sort, i am simply putting more options out there to think about...there is more than one way to skin a cat

 

https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/8...wap-guide.html

a basic guide to a D44 solid axle swap...if you are fairly mechanically inclined this is actually fairly easy...just plan lots and buy everything you need first, i didnt, then i found out the hard way parts are really hard to get around here, 6 months later it was finally driveable

with the amount of time i was actually able to spend working on this truck i could have done the same swap in a 3 day period like i had planned to, but the parts took weeks and months to arrive, so i was left sitting for 6 months

 

again thanks yall. all this input from people that have done the SAS on their truck makes my life a whole lot easier. i do believe that i will end up goin with the D44. im not gunna be doin stuff that requires some heavy duty stuff like the d60. as far as the swap goes, it looks pretty straight forward, and easy to nock out in a weekend assuming i have all the parts.(and dont drink too much during the install) really the only thing that i am a little unclear about, and somewhat leaves me scratchin my head is the whole steering setup. i have helped buddies swap axles, but the steering, yet relatively simple is kickin my butt right now. i have searched everywhere on this site and numerous others on the d44 SAS, just trying to get a feel for the whole project, and some people are cutting that crossmember up front, while others arent. needless to say thats throwing me a curveball. got any good pics of your steering? also, whats this im hearing about the coils up front not lineing up properly??? i noticed everyone had that coil spring bow. any way to combat that, or is it ok?

 

That coil bow is a problem because the frames on the later trucks are wider than the earlier trucks. Mounting points being slightly different, the coils bow some.

Anyway, most of my steering systems look like this:

 

ok...thats a lot clearer...is there anyway to get away with not having to notch that crossmember, or takin a chunk out of it.?

 

Since I run leafs, the axle moves back under compression, combine this with the fact that when the wheels are turned all the way to the right, the drag link gets closer the axle. That means that II have a slight clearance problem with the x-member. Not a big deal, perhaps I will fab up a tube x-member in the future.
Since you plan to run a D44, you probably will be running inverted "T" style steering so this will not be an issue.

 

well on my SAS i will have clearance issues almost guarantee it...but to avoid this, lift it more LOL

my steering has not contact issues at all, on the D44 i lifted 4" and im thinkin the diff will hit the x-member under compression on the driver side...and the trac bar will likely come into contact with the x-member during suspension cycles also

most guys just cut the x-member for clearance, the only reason why that thing is so damn big is because of the TTB axle, scrap that axle and you can afford to lose much of that x-member, i would still find a way to reinforce it though

if you go the d44 coil spring SAS if you lift 6" i believe you will have enough clearance without cutting...but 4" you have to cut somewhere, and i intend to after the inspection

some coil bow on a d44 SAS is normal like 75f350 said, it can be fixed but it is not an issue that will cause problems so there is no point in fixing what aint broken...as long as the coils dont bow too bad or bow forward/backward they are fine, they will always bow slightly outward

this is my steering

 

ok guys..thanks alot again...now when it comes to that steering, will it have to be fabbed up, or is there a company that makes the setup ready to go? if there is fab work reqd, what all do i have to fab?