I hav a 1990 f250 4x4 7.5 5speed and I was want to lift it pretty decently. Strictly off road won稚 be driving it to work or anything (tractor tires and such) but how high can I go before I hav to start changing drive shaft lengths and pitman arms and things of that nature. I was going to fabricate a front shackle and then just do blocks in the back. (Since I don稚 really wanna spent a ton of money on a full lift kit with springs and everything. And maybe a 3 body lift on top of that. How high can I go before I hav to start changing major stuff. Thx

 

about 6 inches and then you will start to see decreased universal life.
But if you "clock" the transfer case, you can get pretty high and still have fairly level drive shafts.

 

With the TTB front suspension of a '90 F-250 you really can't lift the front at all unless you're willing to do a lot more than a longer shackle. You really need a lift kit for even 2". Or better yet for your purposes, a solid axle.

And while I think Tom might be about right on 6" for U-joints, I doubt you can go that high with stock length driveshafts, at least without have trouble with the slip joint coming out occasionally.

For the drop pitman arm, I had a 2.5" lift on my '95 F-150. With the stock pitman arm I had some weird steering issues (bump steer, alignment problems). But if you don't care about stuff like that you can go higher.

 

the reason i did not mention the drop pitman arm or any other need stuff is because they most often come with lift kits.

 

Yeah, but he's trying to get by without spending any money:

 

But the OP wants tractor tires? Just don't see this happening without spending money. All block in the rear will just wrap the axle up, tractor tires on a TTB should be equally exciting. At minimum for this to go right the lift should be step two on the list, a solid axle swap would be step one because the OP wants to use shackles and you can't on a TTB.

 

i missed the make it himself part Bob.