Hey Guy's,

 

body lift is the cheapest ($200), but you dont gain any added ground clearance for the frame, cheapest way to do a suspension list would be to buy shackles (2 inches of lift in rear about $50) or axle under leaf conversion (About 4-5 inches gain). withthe front a T-bar crank will give about a 1.5 - 2 inch lift but front A-Arms are extremely expensive (about $300-$1000)

if it were me, i would stick to shackles and a t-bar crank and a body lift, that will give 2 inches of frame height and an additional 2 inches of body height, with the final proudct being the body lifted 4 inches for about $300

 

how hard would it be to do the shackles and t bar crank? is there a thread on this?

 

Many threads on how. If you did a search on mine you'd read what I did and didn't do and the pitfalls I encountered. I lifted mine back in March. I've got threads in this area and in Builds and both have pictures.

There are sticky threads in here and in tech on the how-to. Lots of info here. Not much I have done to my Jimmy that I didn't pick up on this board.

 

https://blazerforum.com/forum/article-submissions-discussions-47/how-2-shackle-torsion-lift-discussion-thread-43925/
check this link. has a step by step guide to the tbar crank and shackle lift

 

Ya i've heard about these one's however i've also heard that the shackles will cause a "swaying". Whats the pro's and con's of shackles vs. add-a-leaf's? And i've heard that if you go more that 1.5" using the t-bar's that the chance of breaking and wearing things out increases dramaticly.. i've read posts about leaking cv's and having to replace them??

 

its much easier to put shackles on. cranking the tbars will were out ball joints as well. pro's for the tbars is that its free and shackles are less than $50 and are fairly simple to put on. it is also reconmended when you crank the tbars to get an allignment afterwards. I have driven almost 10000 miles with my tbars cranked with no problems. it all depends in how good of shape your parts are

 

What kind of crazy person lifts their truck? lol

 

Crazy person....?! There ain't no stinking crazy person here.... Just us fools.

The shackles I got are 10x more beefy than the stockers. If you are using cheapo metal strap shackles then I'd think that wouldn't be the most stable. As for wear with the t-bar lift....the wear you will have with that is the same as the RC lift. The RC doesn't drop the diff and it doesn't make the ball joint angles less.

I put new ball joints and CVs in when I did mine. It has almost 150k on the odo and had never been done. I used MOOG parts so I'd have the best chance of parts surviving. I'm not at all worried about this setup. I'd like all the angles and stresses to be nominal, but I'm not going to shell out $1,500+ to get a 5" lift that I really am not interested in (higher than my kids/wife could get in). With the other chassis mods my truck is more stable than it was stock and the only other thing I need to do on the chassis right now is add a steering stabilizer which if my truck really were a ZR2/Hi-rider it would already have.

There is no reason for anyone NOT to do the t-bar crank and shackles if they ensure their suspension is sound beforehand.

 

Alright i've set aside just over $700 to do this lift. I figure 200 for the body lift, 50 give or take for the shackles and around 400 for tires. I have one more question though. Everything i've read says about 1.5 - 2.0 inches on the t-bars. But what is this? I know its 1.5 inches of lift but compared to what?? Stock?? The bars all the way down or what?? Im just trying to figure out exactly how much i've gone? Also would it be worth it to invest in some new ball joints and new or heavyer duty cv's?