spanishmack
Well-Known Member
- Thread starter
- #1
So when I bought my Gladiator new, the dealer had already installed the Mopar 2" lift and 37x13.5" tires on TIS Offroad wheels. It had a pretty severe front rake to the tune of about 1.5" lower in the front. I have a pretty heavy 13.5k lb winch I'm going to install and after looking at lots of posts here and other places, there seemed to be lots of folks running the Mopar 2" and the TeraFlex 1.5" levelling kit up front. So, I decided to go that route and had 4WP install one when they were replacing my ball joints. Based on me not doing any hardcore wheeling I thought I'd be good. After this install, the steering wobble I had only been experiencing very rarely became a true, big boy death wobble, that was happening so much, I parked the Jeep and didn't drive it til I did some work on it.
In my quest to solve the DW, I replaced the stock steering components with the Steer Smarts XD adjustable front trackbar, draglink and tie rod. I also upgraded to a Fox TS steering stabilizer. After much realigning, re-torquing and fiddling with the drag link, I think I've got the death wobble licked, but my steering is way sloppier now than before. I went ahead and ordered a full 8 control arm set from Core 4x4 to try and get ahead of the stock ones wearing out and after LOTS more reading, I think my sloppy steering is probably due to my caster being out of spec since adding the 1.5" levelling kit. So, now for the real question:
I've seen lots of folks saying they actually get anywhere from 2.5-3" of lift from the Mopar 2" lift. The install instructions for the control arms come with a chart of suggested starting lengths based on your lift height. I thought I'd use 3.5" for the front and 2" for the rear to start, but how can I know how much lift I actually got out of the Mopar kit? Is there no way to do it, since it was already installed when I purchased it, since there's no way to do a before and after measurement? And if so, is my original thought of starting the front control arms lengths based on 3.5" for the front sound? Or split the difference and start at 2.75" + 1.5" = 4.25" total nominal lift In front? Or since the leveling kit got the front and rear lift height equal, go with an assumed 3.5" overall?
Man, I didn't sign up for the hard mods like this. I'm way more at home on electrical and electronic stuff.
In my quest to solve the DW, I replaced the stock steering components with the Steer Smarts XD adjustable front trackbar, draglink and tie rod. I also upgraded to a Fox TS steering stabilizer. After much realigning, re-torquing and fiddling with the drag link, I think I've got the death wobble licked, but my steering is way sloppier now than before. I went ahead and ordered a full 8 control arm set from Core 4x4 to try and get ahead of the stock ones wearing out and after LOTS more reading, I think my sloppy steering is probably due to my caster being out of spec since adding the 1.5" levelling kit. So, now for the real question:
I've seen lots of folks saying they actually get anywhere from 2.5-3" of lift from the Mopar 2" lift. The install instructions for the control arms come with a chart of suggested starting lengths based on your lift height. I thought I'd use 3.5" for the front and 2" for the rear to start, but how can I know how much lift I actually got out of the Mopar kit? Is there no way to do it, since it was already installed when I purchased it, since there's no way to do a before and after measurement? And if so, is my original thought of starting the front control arms lengths based on 3.5" for the front sound? Or split the difference and start at 2.75" + 1.5" = 4.25" total nominal lift In front? Or since the leveling kit got the front and rear lift height equal, go with an assumed 3.5" overall?
Man, I didn't sign up for the hard mods like this. I'm way more at home on electrical and electronic stuff.
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