I'm going to go look at an '86 F150 with a new FI 302/clutch with some new body panels (the heavy kind I'm told) and new custom paint. It has 31" tires on it with plain black rims and a 2" lift kit. I'm not a big fan of lift kits and the big tires. So my question for you all is:

How hard are lift kits to remove? I have an new set of tires and OEM alloy wheels on my '85 that I'd swap over if it isn't a pain in the rear to remove the lift kit. I'll probably need to get it alligned after removing the kit, right?

And suppose I like it with the lift kit, will the 31" tires fit on my OEM 15" alloy wheels? I've put a lot of work into polishing them when I bought them and I'm too proud of them to let them go.

 

You can put 10.50" wide tires on 7" wheels, though they fit better on 8".

Removing the lift kit will involve swapping the front springs and removing the rear lift block or add-a-leaf (or swapping rear springs if the lift was done with new leafs or a re-arch) and put the bump stops back at stock height if they were changed. You should remove any dropped brackets that may have been used (axle pivots and radius arm ends), swap to the stock pitman arm if a dropped one was used, and re-align it. I 'magine on a 2" lift, they probably didn't bother to use drop brackets or a drop pitman arm, but you never know 'till you look. Shocks may or may not need to be swapped, depends on how long they are.

If the truck is steering straight and the tires are wearing nice, I would just leave the lift in it. Seems like alot of work to go through just to decrease the height by 2 inches, but that's just me .

 

are they the black rock crawler rims? if so, you wanna sell em? let me know.

 

I'm not sure what kind of rims they are. I haven't seen the truck yet. The guy's had it for sale for over 2 weeks with no nibbles and he's getting antsy about selling it. I guess you could say I'm stringing him along and to get it for what I want to give for it. He asking $2750 and already on the phone said he'd let it go for $2500. I'm thinking lower. I'm not really in any hurry and am contemplating whether I want to invest in something newer or stick with a fixed up older truck. It has some sort of custom paint job with silver on top, orange on the bottom, and air brushed purple in between that fades into the other colors. Sounds horde looking but it may be sharp. I just haven't had time to look at it. It's a 40 minute drive to see it and it starts getting dark after I get off of work and I wanna see it in the daylight.

Sorry, I'm rambling....anyways, thanks for the advice on the specifics of the lift kit.