mikelehmann:
jetjock is right. i run 38s on an 11" lift and during minor wheeling the tire comes within an inch of the body.

BigDawg54:
just did some searching on google (they cut off my access to bart )

jaygos:
the looker gets awfully upset when he runs a cool looking tire and causes himself thousands of dollars of damage by hitting a speed bump at the mall!!

 

"speed bump at the mall".... now that defines funny.. im still grinning..... that should be are new answer..
when a dude posts.. "will it fit?" instead of CWB saying "just dont jump it".... one of us needs to say "sure, just dont jump the speedbumps at the mall"... thats awsome... ha ha ha
JJ

 

Beware of speed bumps!!! That's a good one.. For me I just don't understand
spending all that money on something you can't use. Don't get me wrong I like
things to look good but I'm hard on vehicles. They need work to

 

That's funny. At my local strip mall they have these speed bumps that are 10" high(I measured) and about 6.5' long and if I hit those at about 30 (or 50)I can get the front end off the ground pretty well. Good thing my tires aren't any bigger.

 

Something I see being overlooked in this thread is bump stops. You can make a 36" tire rub with 8" of lift if it flexes enough. Example would be if you have enough articulation to make your axles touch the stock bump stops then you could make almost any bigger tire rub with any amount of lift. Now if you put the proper size bump stop extensions on then you can run 38" tires with an 8" lift and take it off road fine. I have the Superlift 8" with 38 radial swampers and I can drive up an incline sideways with the front tires turned until it picks a back tire off the ground and cycle the front tires from stop to stop and they don't touch a thing except the front leaf springs.

Granted I don't have much articulation with the Superlift supplied bump stop extensions but I don't rock crawl so I'm not worried about it. If I hit a big hole or mound at high speed I'm sure it would compress the stops and make contact. I don't wheel at high speed though because I think the tires would come off with these weak front hub bearings.

I just wanted to remind folks that there's a right way and a wrong way to do things that also makes a difference in what will fit.

 

Ok Big Dawg I need you to explain this to me. I went on the Pro Comp tire website, tire conversion chart. Here's what I found. The 285/75 tire is 32.8" dia 11.2" wide. The 305/70 tire is 32.8" dia 12" wide. The only difference between the two tire sizes is .8 of an inch in width. I know 3/4 of inch is a lot.

15000 miles so far on my 305's and no rubbing.

 

hey RR, the amount of flex you see when your truck is parked on the incline ramp.. is not where you want to assume your tires max travel is at..... when you flex the truck, at some point the back tire comes off the ground and your supporting all the weight on the fronts and opp. rear.. but if your front compressed tire were to hit a hard bump it would compress further than the trucks weight alone can.... of course bump stops could control that.. but then if your using bumpstops to limit travel, than your taking away from your trucks ability.. the bumpstops should only stop the very last portion of the travel so metal parts dont come together.. not meant to fit huge meats on less lift for looks... allthough they work well for that.... 8" lift with 38"s is a great example of using bumpstops to stop travel without very much effect on flex..... But ive seen show trucks with tires bigger than the well, with bumpstops limiting the travel to like 2" of movement..... that is getting the job done, but not the way they were designed to be used.......
bottom line is your right.. it will work you can EITHER limit travel or go bigger.. both will work...as always some things work better than others.
JJ

 

What are bumpstops? Is that something I should have?

 

i dont have any...

 

Let's hope you don't have the kind were you hit a bump and the finder stops your tire..

 

I mentioned in the post that if I hit a bump fast the bump stop could well compress and allow the tire to hit so I don't do that. Mostly around here it's just mud and ruts and articulation is not at a premium for me. It's all about tire size. If I were to do more high speed wheeling or crawling around on rocks and stuff that was either going to compress my stops or cause me to need to remove them I would run a smaller tire.

I took this quiz in peterson's one time and the only question I missed was about this very thing. It asked: If you have 31 inch tires stock what size tire could you fit with 4" lift?

The answers were
A) 32
B) 33
C) 35
D) 31

I chose C and was wrong according to their quiz. The correct answer is D. It said unless you lower the bump stops you can still make your axle move to the same point in relation to the frame that it could stock (if you hit a big bump hard enough) and thus you could make any of the oversize tires hit.

I know that's a wild proposition with stiff SD suspension so it's unlikely but the only thing that absolutely limits axle movement is the stops. I know there's a limit to how far you can really compress an arched leaf pack without crazy long shackles but I'm not going to get into all that. Anyway the point was that you should have stops that hit the axle just short of where the tire would meet sheetmetal at the closest point and then they won't rub

 

i would say that you got it right beacuse assuming you put on the lift, would you not have moved the stops?

 

I think it said something like "we didn't mention moving the bump stops so only the 31 inch tires yada yada yada" or something to that effect.

 

Yes but " Lift kit" implies that so tell them you are a lift guru.

 

i missed the question... darn.. well im wrong plenty.. never doubt that... good points RR.. some applications like your example.. taller tires could be much more usefull than travel..
JJ