Salvage towed away my 1999 Blazer last week and I picked up a 2000 Jimmy on Friday.

Cosmetically it needs some touch up, but it seems solid and not abused.

The rear springs are the 4-leaf pack and the truck sits about 1" higher at the top of the wheelwells than my old '99. That's with 235/70s on the Jimmy and 235/75s on the Blazer. Good.

So.....now on to the mods I was about to do on the Blazer which had a very tired suspension.

Swap the lock-rite from my old S-10 truck into the Jimmy.
DynoMax cat-back
tow hooks (doesn't have ANY)
31x10.50-15 Firestone destination ATs or Mastercraft Courser CTs
2" Rough-Country suspension lift

I can hear the grumbling now.....

My argument for it -
4 new shocks
2 new front ball joints
2 new front control arms (with bushings) that correct the alignment.

If the suspension wasn't in such good shape and sitting high I wouldn't, but the time and $$$$ invested verses the payoff in the end justifies this kit over a body lift + add-a-leafs + new ball joints + t-bar crank + new shocks.

this should give me the lift I want with less modification and time. Both the tires I'm looking at are really 30.5" or so and not the widest, most-aggressive out there. Right now the truck has street-tread (but in good shape) tires on it and struggle to keep the truck moving forward on easy stuff.

In short - I need tires and in order to put on tires I need lift. I can do the rough country in a day with no help and run it to town for alignment and tires. With the weather we've been having I can't wait long on this.

Okay......cut me up.....tell me how dumb I am for opting out of the common formula.

I may still do a body lift later on, but that would be years away.

Pictures of the new toy/commuter coming soon. This thing has some good headlights and fog lights. I need to find the how-to for the allowing fogs and highs to be on at the same time.

 

Why would you waste your money on a 2" SL? They're overpriced and not worth it for only 2" of lift. You can get a $40-50 set of 2" shackles, put them on in a hour or so, crank your tbars for free and voila, you can fit 31's. I just don't get why you would want to spend extra money on something like a 2" SL...

 

I think I saw a 400 dollar kit for a 2in lift that included shackles and the normal keys and shocks etc....

But seriously, if you want 2in of lift for more than 100 bucks... do this... Buy a cheap shackle lift kit and send me the difference LOL... same effect

A body lift would be more beneficial for the money but to each his own...

 

The point is I buy the body lift ($200) and then get new shocks AND 4 new ball joints. If I still need to tweak the t-bars then it's possible I can't get the alignment right.

With the new upper control arms, 2 of the 4 ball joints, 4 shocks and shackles....monetarily I don't know how I can go wrong right now for what I need. It's $429 and I only need to add two ball joints to the mix.

Just a T-bar crank and shackles might get me enough height with a little less money, but I'd still need to buy 4 ball joints and shocks.

 

ohhh....i understand your reasoning now lol. That makes sense. Have you priced out the ball joints and everything separately? It might still be cheaper?

 

I know I'm hijacking... but how hard to install, and how expensive was this? I'm so fed-up of the one wheelie peelie I get going on when I go to merge into traffic. Is the axle ALWAYS locked? Or does it lock when the wheels start spinning at different speeds for too long? I'm just a little worried about turning radius, not that losing a it of that would make THAT much of a differnce.

Thanks and looking forward to those pics.

 

sounds like an alright setup to me
and i hear ya about the weather
good to see another kentuckian on here
what county you live in?

 

It's not. The $429 is the cheapest route and shortest path to the height.

The body lift is more involved, takes more time, and requires some modifications that are permanent to the truck.

The other issue I haven't discussed is that this thing has been in a collision, front and driver's-side, that was substantial. I don't perceive any structural weakness, but there is a tweak on the B-pilar I don't like. Playing around with the body supports and such could cause an issue I can't reverse. If there is weakness and I jack the thing up and things shift or buckle I am basically screwed out of my new DD. I am planning to go over all this stuff and try to identify weakness, but I'd rather not take the risk of tweaking anything I personally can't fix (I know my skill set and major body structural work isn't one of them).

 

I'm in NE Scott county. I can almost throw a rock and hit Harrision Co.

Where are you...?

 

Questions about the lock-rite -

I don't have the instruction sheets with me and I did the install on my old S-10 more than a dozen years ago. I put it in, at that time, for autocrossing.

Anyway, the lock-rite replaces the spider gear assy in the stock differential. It employs dog-tooth clutch gears with springs to lock and unlock the mechanism. Everything is coated in this anti-friction, anti-wear stuff and the last time I looked at stuff there still weren't any marks. I used full syn fluid.

The most annoying part of it is in moderate to hi-speed cornering w/o throttle you get chatter as the dog teeth are skipping across each other on the inside set. On ice and other slick (I do mean slick....not just wet) surfaces there often isn't enough resistence on the inside wheel to overcome the spring pressure and thus the diff remains locked in a turn, spinning the inside tire. It acts a lot like a tight detroit locker in that sense. Off road guys have used them a lot and like them for that very trait and just deal with its road manners, which for the most part aren't bad at all. Mine had over 125,000 miles on it and lots of laps at the autocross. It will have an easier life in the Jimmy. We've got a spare diff girdle for the 7.5 I'll probably throw on there too just for good measure.

That 'splain it well enough...?

Oh...and my old S-10 ext-cab 2wd sitting in the barn....it's coming back home. Plans are to repair broke stuff from my brother-in-law's term of ownership, lift, and throw some ATs on the front and MTs on the rear for a decent farm truck. Its got headers, intake, bunch of turbo-city 4.3 stuff, afpr, flowmaster, MSD, trans-go kit, etc. Doesn't make a bunch of HP, but the torque would chirp 3rd gear. Lots of grunt.