lift kit?

[tjf]

Hey guys. I bought my 86 bronco a while ago and was planning on upgrading from 33's to 35's. Just wondering how do you tell if you have a lift kit or not? Not many broncos here in australia so not really able to compare. Back springs are sitting 1.5" off the axle on blocks. Rear tires are 12" clear of the wheel arch while the front are about 8" clear. Thanks!

 

[vincendebbie]

Hey guys. I bought my 86 bronco a while ago and was planning on upgrading from 33's to 35's. Just wondering how do you tell if you have a lift kit or not? Not many broncos here in australia so not really able to compare. Back springs are sitting 1.5" off the axle on blocks. Rear tires are 12" clear of the wheel arch while the front are about 8" clear. Thanks!

Look in the rear wheel well and find the bushing between the frame rail and the body. If it appears to be only an inch or so then it is stock. This is a round bushing. Shoot me an e-mail address and I will send you some pictures of suspension lift and body lift. I am currently in the process of taking both a suspension lift and body lift off of my 94. Hope this helps. --Vince

 

[Yardape]

33's are pretty much the largest tires you can fit stock, so if you have 12 inches of clearance at the rear you probably have a at least a 3 inch body lift. take a picture of your body mounts, your ttb drop brackets and your rear leaf springs where they mount to the axle. with those pics we can most definately tell you what you have for lift.

 

[jsomedaysoon]

yea my 86 has 33's on it and its got less than 3 inches of clearence in the front and just less than 6 inches in the back. so you've got some kinda lift.

 

[tjf]

yeah sorry i meant 12" in the wheel well. The rear tire only clears the fender by 5" and the front by 4". So that means id have to either get a lift or trim the fenders to fit 35's on?

 

[jsomedaysoon]

afraid so... i'm no pro but everyone here will tell ya that 33's is as big as you can go with no modifications. i've got 33's with no lift on an 86 and if you get offroad and it gets to bumping around they will scrub the fenders so imagine what 35's would do. if you decide to trim the fenders though let me know how it goes i'm thinking about doing that with my 84.

 

[vincendebbie]

If you are wanting to clear 35's you can do it with 3inches of body lift and slight trimming of fenderwells. If you want to do it the right way without the trim job you can put just 6inch suspension lift. Me personally, I have both and have no problems with 38's. --Vince

 

[tjf]

yeah i think i will just cheap out and go for the fender trim. Do you think i will get away with just a fender trim? Any tips for trimming?

 

[shift1313]

its pretty rough looking i know but this is a stock lift 85 with 33x12.50s on it

sorry there is not much fender left in the rear but the front you can see the space.

 

[tjf]

yeah that looks very similar to my truck.

 

[Justshootme84]

tjf, welcome to Bronco Zone!!! One of the quickest ways I use to tell if there's a suspension lift or not is measure the height of the front coil springs. Stock height installed is 12 inches (~310 mm), so a 4" kit would have 16" tall coils. AS MK posted, a body lift will have a 2" or 3" tall spacer on top of the stock body mount bushings. There's a few post on trimming the fenders, too. The way I like to do the 80-86 style is follow the line on the fender that's about 3" from the wheel opening. You'll still have slight rub on the radius arms at full steering lock. JSM84

 

[BIIBomber]

33's are pretty much the largest tires you can fit stock, so if you have 12 inches of clearance at the rear you probably have a at least a 3 inch body lift. take a picture of your body mounts, your ttb drop brackets and your rear leaf springs where they mount to the axle. with those pics we can most definately tell you what you have for lift.

what are ttb drop brackets?

 

[Justshootme84]

what are ttb drop brackets?

lengthened mounting brackets for the ttb (twin traction beam) front end parts like the radius arma and axle pivot ends, needed to keep the geometry and alignment correct with a suspension lift, JSM84