so i have a 94 s10 with a 3 inch body lift 3 inch shackles and t bar crank. i have 32 inch super swampers. they rub a little. any ideas for getin the front a little higher? or and truck leveling kits that might fit a blazer. any ideas?

 

the t bar crank is it. If you got 3' shackles i'm assuming you cranked the bars up as far as possible.

There arn't any leveling kits...the only way to level it is to do a minor tbar crank! So...for more lift you're looking at a bracket lift. I'd say take the tbars down, loose the shackles, then do the the BDS 5 or the TM 5.

 

So, I hear a lot about the maximum tbar cranking. 1.5" Have you found this to be true, or did you crank it up even further?

And...what about the CVs? I don't fully understand the whole CV thing. Are these the flexible joints that act as bendable drive shafts?

If you have to replace them, how do you know what you need to get the right angle?

And, do you have to adjust or replace other parts if you crank em way up?

 

yeah i went to 1.5 but i havnt had any trouble. i can go father but i think it was mess with the ball joints. i recomend 1.5

 

The CV joints are the front axles. It just gives you the ability to transfer power across a joint smoothly. It uses a ball socket type joint:
(green axle is from the differential, red is going to the wheel. then there is another joint facing the other way to re-angle to the flat wheel)


When you get them new, they are in a straight line. They just conform to the needed angle of your suspension when you install them, and provide the ability to move with the suspension travel. Just like any other axle, when you replace them, the length and overall size is what matters...so as long as you buy a Blazer CV, you're ok.

As far as the tbars go...the most lift you get out of a crank is 1.5' with stock torsion bar keys. If you get the 2', you probably had sagging bars to begin with, or it was lowered to give a softer ride. The other parts you risk are balljoints and shocks (you top out your shocks with a full crank, so too many top outs = new shock). You can also get more than 1.5' of lift with new torsion bar keys. These are reindexed (re-angled) to give you 1' of lift with the adjuster bolt in the same position as stock...so then you see how cranking the bolt in for the normal 1.5' of lift gives you a total of 2.5'-3'!

anything else?
(and sorry we missed your post...6 days late isnt too bad is it?)

 

No, 6 days is perfect. lol

1. So, are there higher-end CV's that a person can buy that will put up with the tbar crank better?

2. I noticed in your signature that you cranked your tbars 1.5" and you installed 1.5" rear shackles. So...apparently your front end must have already been level with the back. Seems to me that most blazers sit a little lower in the front than the back, possibly the stock setting.

3. If this is stock to set the front a little lower, how do you get a level look with 1.5" crank and shackles?

4. Are you using wheel spacers or are your rims have a wider inset to get the tires to stick out a bit on the sides of your truck? I like that look and want to get my wheels out a bit. I'm thinking of billet aluminum wheel spacers front and back.

 

You can get custom made CVs that are better suited to the angles, but those are pretty pricey and probably not entirely neccesary for our application. The problem with the crank and the CVs seems to be that the boots pull with the higher angle. This causes the grease to fly out, leading to dry joints, causing failure. I've seen people get after market boot kits that can handle the higher angle and reseal/fill. That might be a better solution.

As far as my lift, I've actually got 2' shackles in the back, and only went up 1.5' on the tbars. So I still have a bit of forward rake, but I like how it looks. Before I installed the shackles I cranked the bars up ~1' and it was kinda odd looking. Something about the flow of the body lines...it just looked odd [8D]

And yea my rims have a lower backspacing than the stock rims, giving me a wider stance. Mine are 4.5' backspacing, so it'd be like running 1.5' spacers.

 

Aaahhhh, so it`s the boots leaking, not so much the actual angle of the CV that causes the problem when cranking and adding lift kits.


Hmmm...when I look at your ride, it looks level with equal spacing between the top of your front and rear tires and your fender wells. Maybe you didn`t have as much of a rake as I do. Who know. But I see what you are saying...if Chevy made these with a slight stock rake, then changing that angle to "straight" would offset the angles they used to make the truck look the way it was supposed to look.

Hey, at least my truck isn`t raking as much as my very first car when I was 16. But then I did that on purpost. A 1970 Ford (barf) Fairlane. HUGE tires in the back with a rear lift comprised of 4" shackles, air shocks and 2" shock extenders. I got pulled over by a cop and he accused me of having a muscle car. heh, if he only knew...my stock 302 was shot! lol

Ah, OK. Am I OK adding spacers? Will this cause any stress on anything else?

 

Wolfpack, who makes some of those higher grade cv boots, because i just did a t-bar crank last weekend (up 1in.). The passanger side cv in now throughing grease. I need to replace the boots andIam a big fan of using anything better then stock.

Marcus inNebraska

 

I dont have a specific manufacturer or link for ya, but do some looking online I'm sure you can find some reboot kits...then just compare the design and the install.

Although I did read somewhere the safe/max/some sort of largest recommended angle is 25* on the stock CVs? Anyone else back that up? Beyond the 25* it's not just the boots that give you problems, but the axle itself will see abnormal wear from the extended travel [&o]


As for your grease issue...clean it all off, and keep an eye on it for the next few miles. If it continues to throw grease, you probably pulled the boot off its seat. If no more grease comes back, you just lost a little and should be ok (or you only had a little and youre in trouble ).