lowering F-350 4X4

[Russ]

I know you 4X4 guys are cringing, but is there a good way of lowering my new truck? I'm having clearance issue with my 5er(typical) and I already have the axles flipped on the 5er but it still sit nose high and little bed rail clearance. I see the 4" blocks on the rear of the 350 but what about the front? Is is it possible to pull leafs out of the spring pack or have new leafs made to lower the front? I don't want to lower the rear without lowering the front. Would there be any clearance issues between the front differential and the chassis? Truckis a 97 F-350 CC 4X4 long bed. Thanks

 

[XTrmXJ]

The only other way is to flip the axle on the front but that will then cause it to lower 4-6 inches and have other cleance issues with the motor, You cant take out leaves becuase then you make it unsafe with that much weight up front... The only other way that I can think of is to get a Kelderman air bag suspension that you can raise or lower the truck to any hieght

 

[94f450sd]

it might be easier/cheaper to have the trailer lifted to match the trucks hieght.but i dont tow trailers so i wouldnt know how to do that

 

[Maintain]

I second that ^

Also, just lower the rear by using F250 2" blocks... then you should be fine and your truck should sit ALMOST level while driving down the road unloaded (will 'sag' under the load like normal just 2 inches lower). You'll still be sitting slightly higher then the 250 since your front suspension is higher due to a solid axle I do believe. I was just adding that in case you thought your front would sit higher then the rear, which I do not believe it will.

 

[psdan000]

hey Russ, check your messages!

Dan

 

[stroked 350]

i took out 4" blocks & put in 3" blocks seemed to help a little .guy at rv shop where i bought my 5er told me to put bigger tires on the trailer.

 

[94f450sd]

you could run taller tires on the trailer as was mentioned above or run a smaller tire on the truck.

 

[Russ]

I talked with my tire guy and the best we could come up with was with going to the stock truck tire and the tallest trailer tire he could get we would only gain about 1.125" difference(truck lower by 1/2" and trailer up 5/8" I'm looking into getting 16" rims for the trailer. Right now I have about 6 1/2 " between the trailer tandems. What would be the min. distance? AS I sit right now, sitting on level ground I have 4" between the bed rails and trailer. the trail sits 2" higher in the front than the rear(measured from bottom of frame before it kicks up to the hitch). BTW trailer is 26' long. I may raise the hitch one more hole(1 1/2") and see how it reacts. I played around with photoshop tonight and came up with this idea. Maybe cost prohibitive but I wanted to see what it might look like.

 

[95_stroker]

Dumb question here, but I am a TT guy and have never pulled or owned a 5'ver. Cant you get hitch extensions for either the 5'ver plate in the bed OR the pin on the trailer? I know I've seen some pins on the front of 5'vers that hang down more than others.

For the love of Ford, dont cut your truck box up.

 

[MUDWHISTLE]

Prolly a dumb dumb suggestion, But what about air bags on the trailer?? How mut lif or lower do you need to make it level?