Drop Radius questions
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Junior User
Joined: Jul 2005
Posts: 74
Likes: 0
Drop Radius questions
When a truck is lifted, the radius arms have to dropped. It seems to me that they would just about everything when your out on the trail. Im am considering putting a lot of money into my truck and i dont want to spend all that money and have bad results. So if anyone knows anything about the radius arm drops affecting my offroad or if their is another alternative, id like to know.
Thanks,
Will
Thanks,
Will
Lead Driver
Joined: May 2000
Posts: 9,236
Likes: 12
From: Senoia, GA
dropping the mounts is a good way to solve the problem quickly. which isn't a bad thing but it can create problems when looking for maximum ground clearance. building/buying longer radius arms helps tremendously. even if you drop your mounts you might as well get longer arms since you have to pull the mount anyways.
-cutts-
-cutts-
Post Fiend
Joined: Jun 2002
Posts: 13,873
Likes: 3
From: Atlanta GA
The mounts sometimes will hit things, but, the worse thing is dropping the mounts means dropping the arms and the arms will hit things more often when trying to crawl over things like logs. What is worse is being high centered on your radius arms with your wheels off the ground especially while going up hill. I have never had that happen to myself, though I have seen it happen to others.
I have never been rock crawling, but, I imagine it would be much worse on rocks
I am talking the brackets that drop it 4-6 inches and not the ones that drop it an inch or so. If you have a late 80s or so, then the radius arm brackets are tied to the transmission mount cross member which provides stiffness. You loose a lot of that, imo, when you use brackets that drop down without any left to right bracing.
I have never been rock crawling, but, I imagine it would be much worse on rocks
I am talking the brackets that drop it 4-6 inches and not the ones that drop it an inch or so. If you have a late 80s or so, then the radius arm brackets are tied to the transmission mount cross member which provides stiffness. You loose a lot of that, imo, when you use brackets that drop down without any left to right bracing.
Senior User
Joined: Sep 2004
Posts: 265
Likes: 1
From: Canada
I have a 6 inch suspension lift, 3" body, and running 38.5's with 4 inch drop brackets from i believe trailmaster. having the front end alignment kept in check is great, up till putting on the boggers, it drove better then stock on the highway. They are stout, and im glad i went with them. Ive wacked the radius arm bracket a few times here and there, but nothing that hung me up, and the bigger the tire, the less this will be apparent. I may ditch the body lift and go with a 9" suspension, in which case the brackets will be perfect. If your lifting your truck enough to need these brackets, the size of tire should be large enough that you'll be happy.
Brian
Brian
Freshman User
Joined: Sep 2005
Posts: 44
Likes: 0
Hello everyone this is my first time here and I have a similar question. I don't have a whole lotta money, and someone in my shop class suggested we make a homemade deal to set the coil springs over to lift the front up maybe 3-4".My question is will I still have to drop my radius arms with that amount of lift. Thanks for your help.
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Lead Driver
Joined: Jul 2005
Posts: 5,967
Likes: 7
From: Eccles, WV
Trailcat, If you do not drop the brackets with the lift, you will not be able to get the front suspension in alignment, especially when you go over 2 1/2 inches. I had an alignment problem brought to me that took me a while to figure out. The truck looked fine, had the but in the air about 1 1/2 inches more than the front and I could not see any changes. After looking over it I found that the owner had swapped the front coils for a taller set and added a leaf to the rear. In doing so, the caster and camber was off so far that the alignment machine could not read it. In order to fix the caster and camber, I had to modify the brackets by welding spacers bewteen the brackets and frame and redrilling the side mounting holes. Needless to say, the owner paid dearly for that alignment.
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Brett Foote
Lead Driver
Joined: May 2000
Posts: 9,236
Likes: 12
From: Senoia, GA
3" is a personal choice and i'd say 4" you really need the drops! you can run it like that but you may have problems! also if you dont wanna drop the radius arms you could pretty easily make a set of extended arms which would accomplish the same thing!
-cutts-
-cutts-
Post Fiend
Joined: Nov 2001
Posts: 5,871
Likes: 0
From: Coutts Canada
Building a new set of radius arms will be (i think anyway) easier than building new drop brackets, as 1 you can reused the radius arm brackets for the new arms, 2. in reality the arms are nothing more than 1/4-3/8" thick tubingthats trianglated and probably around 30 inches long.