2WD lift question

[RamAirZ]

Hey guys, gotta question for you. I know you can't do a big lift on the 2wd without getting new i-beams to correct for alignment etc. But how far can the alignment be adjusted? Like could yuo lift the fron maybe 2-3in and get alignment within reason? Me and a buddy are building a budget truck for him to drive. I showed him the autofab kit and he about had a heart attack . I told him for the budget he is on, you could do a small body lift and possibly a 2in spring spacer or maybe even a 3in lift spring and still get alignment within reason but I'm not familiar with the total alignment adjustments on these trucks. Any info would be great guys!!!

[fordman]

alot depends on if he wants a body lift or a frame lift. a body lift woudl be easy. just some spacers and your done. a frame lift you could get spring spacers for the front and possible some sort of shackles for the back. as far as alignment you are not suppose to bend the ibeams some guys say. but then if you think about it you are suppsoe to to make the alignment correct . how else would you make it correct if you didnt bend the ibeams? alignment shops do it all the time. how much can you go would depend on alignment specs. i guess. here is what i have in a chiltons book caster range is 3 1/4 to 4 1/2 prefered 4. camber is 1/2 to1 1/2 perfered 1 these are for 67-69 trucks. the 70 and up trucks are different. caster is 1/2 to 5 1/2 perfered is 3 camber is 1/2 to 2 1/2 perfered 1. this covers 70-73 f100 and f150 2wd.

[71 LONG BED]

Too bad boots wasn't still around, he did a nice job on his lift.... He fabbed up new beam mounts...

[averagef250]

Offbeat question, but has anyone tried to install a pre-64 solid axle to lift thier truck? Either that or maybe buy a Ford disc 44 from a 1/2 ton. Cut the C's off and press them on some plain 2 3/4" steel tubing just like the old mail jeeps did. You could re-use the diamonds off the 4x4 axle tubes, put them in the right spots, use 4x4 radius arms and I bet just the stock 2wd front springs would give a 3" or so lift with a straight axle over the I-beams.

It'd be like building a gasser truck of sort.

[71 LONG BED]

That's a damn good idea Dustin!

[averagef250]

I would never lift a 2wd truck myself, I love the I-beams personally, but I can't imagine a lifted 2wd handling for crap anyway so might as well eliminate all the issues inherant to modifying the ride height of an I-beam truck and get rid of the beams.

In addition to what I wrote I think you'd also have to add a panhard bar to locate the front end. You can pull the stub axles out of the 4x4 front spindles and get some freeze plugs that will pound in or just weld a plate over the hole. Find a pair of the chrome hub delete dealies that came on all the fulltime 4x4 trucks in the 70's and you can get rid of the locking hubs so you don't look dumb with lockouts on a 2wd truck.

[RamAirZ]

If your going to go that far, why not weld in some leaf spring mounts and run leafs up front? It should be easy to get all the parts and run a 4x4 steering box etc

[averagef250]

Probably more work than it's worth. The thought just popped in my head.

I was thinking steering would be a huge pain to figure out, but then what if you switched 4x4 knuckles side for side, redrilled the caliper brackets to sit in the right spots and ran the 4x4 tie rod/drag link in the rear just like 2wd? You could keep your 2wd steering box so it would save a ton of work and not really change anything significant of the chassis (you could always put the beams back under it).

To me, it would seam building a plain tube front axle would be fairly simple in comparison to revamping the entire front suspension for leaf springs and a forward steering box.