Hey guys, I am sure this question has been asked multiple times.. yet I am unable to find a sound solution for my particular setup. So please be gentle and bear with me.
I am from Australia and have a 85 F100 (from what i can gather is the same as your F150, there is not a great amount of info here, nor trucks)
It is a quad shock coil TTB front end.
Currently has a 3" body lift and no suspension lift, standard pitman arm etc.

I am after a full suspension kit to fix the camber issue i have, and want to fit 35's (currently running 33's)

I have looked into the complete suspension kits from skyjacker or roughcountry.
Do you have a recommendation as to which is better, is it advisable to remove the 3" body lift? or will the 4-6" kit pitman arm provided be enough to allow for the BL also?
Looks like the skyjacker kit provides bolt in bits for the arms where as the RC has complete modified arms? I'm not too sure, the websites don't really delve into too much conformation.
Thanks in advance. Hopefully I haven't missed anything or overly complicated a simple question.

 

I have a Skyjacker lift and a body lift.
Note that the body lift does not change steering angles so the pitman arm drop is not needed. The drop pitman arm is only needed to compensate for a suspension lift.


On my 3" body lift I did need to replace the stock steering shaft to gear box with one having u-joints, but you already did the BL so you are past that.


In my opinion the Skyjacker lift is better (heavy duty). Also look at Superlift.


It sounds like you have stock suspension so if you have camber issues now, then it should just be a matter of getting an alignment.


A body lift will not affect camber. Tire size does not affect camber. A suspension lift can affect camber which is why you need to have the TTB pivot drop bracket match the amount of spring lift you add.


Before you change to bigger tires, be aware that going from 33 to 35" tires is like going from 3.91 to 3.54 gearing. There may be a noticablke drop in performance.

 

Adam - Interesting truck. But why do you have two snorkels rather than just one? And, how are your running boards attached - frame or body?

 

I love the style of that truck, so cool. Personally I'd ditch the body lift, they don't do any good getting your critical bits above the water or increase ground clearance. I would convert it to a Dana 44 solid front axle and do a 4" lift or thereabouts. The TTB lifts are fine up to 4", but it's still a TTB. Either way is better than a body lift though. A TTB lift to maintain alignment will include TTB arm drop brackets and radius arms to suit the new suspension angles. Replace the TTB pivot bushings and ball joints if you go that route.

 

Thanks for taking the time to reply in full detail. Makes sense in what you are saying. I will check out the lift options some more. Not sure why my camber is so bad...unless someone has thrown in some lifted springs at some point.
Also no idea on what the gearing is atm, but 4th gear is only good to me on a straight or going down hill..seems pretty gutless really.
Ill take some pics of how the side steps are attached tomorrow for you.
Snorkels are there i guess to stay symetrical to the dual stacks.

 

A body lift will let you run larger tires, and larger tires will give some extra ground clearance. The ttb is not that horrible a frontend design, most 4x4's are now independent.

 

IMO....the TTB cannot tolerate more than a 2" lift without issues. Body lift is a different animal. With quad shocks, when folks start adding spring spacers, etc.
the coil springs bend/bow towards a shock. Steering is based on geometry and when folks mess with that geometry...bad things happen.

 

thanks for that.. I quite like the TTB front end.. the geometry side is why i was asking about best complete kits, ones that take all of that into account to keep factory like handling.

 

Here are some great threads on the TTB, look at the alignment thread (named "Steering Tech ...") in particular.


https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/1...tb-thread.html

 

4 inch is easy with the right lift kit, no issues. You cannot lift it without a kit.

 

That's right Franklin.. I guess that's why i wanted input from you guys with experience with lift kits, which ones are the ones to choose from.
So I am with SkyJacker, Superlift, RoughContry in that order as far as quality kits go.
There is no where in Aussie that sell complete kits, and no one that I know of that has a F-truck.
Cheers

 

I've never been that impressed with Rough Country. Their springs are way too stiff and their parts seem rather crude in quality.