How much lift do you think is required before you need radius arm drop brackets? Because places sell a 5.5" kit with out the brackets and you can upgrade and get the brackets? What do yall have and how does it work?

Well to get your caster right with that much lift, you will need the radius drop brackets. You can only correct up to 7 degrees with the c-bushings. The thing that sucks is the brackets are around $150. You could make your own if you can fab, but I would buy extended radius arms, which usually come with new brackets anyway. If you're looking to fit 35's, go with BC Broncos 3.5" coils and then cut the fenders and quarters to clear them and slap on some Gorilla Flares. If you're looking to go higher than that even, go with a body lift, coil/leaf pivots, or the 5.5" suspension. The higher you go, the more expensive...not only the lift but the new driveshafts, radius drops, etc.

If going 5" in lift and running 35"or higher tires you really need to do something or you'll be all over the highway. JMHO. You can add an extended arm like broncobsession said to fix the caster but then they hang down in the middle of the vehicle which I don't like (Hang down...Less for James Duff...more for All4fun).

Use the drop down brackets and they aren't as near the middle of the rig, but most I have seen hang down and are bulky more than I like.

What's the answer...? Custom link, I guess. Frankly, someone needs to make an after market arm that resolve all these problems. I have yet to see it and don't see why it can't be done.

My opinion...do the Duff arms for bolt on fix. Decent price and they do function well. Otherwise fab it.

PS...you don't have to do anything. Plenty of rigs out there with messed up caster flying down the road. Coil shim help a bit.

I'm running 35" tires and a BC 4.5" suspension lift without drop brackets - drives quite well on the street. Using 7 deg bushings and off-set radius arm bushings with stock radius arms for now.

any other experiances????????

Why not move your coil buckets? If your not opposed to cutting and welding, just move the buckets down a couple inches to get a little more lift, it shouldn't change your geometry too much!

Why not move your coil buckets? If your not opposed to cutting and welding, just move the buckets down a couple inches to get a little more lift, it shouldn't change your geometry too much!

Huh? Moving coil buckets down does gain lift, but does nothing to affect the radius arm issue. ;) His question was about when a lift requires/most recommend drop brackets.

There are plent of ways to get lift...



:D

How much lift do you think is required before you need radius arm drop brackets?

Was really just commenting on this part of the post. Though dropping the coil buckets was a much better option than using any type of drop bracket.

Droping the coil buckets wont help for caster problems. Droping the radius arm bracket will....

i just want to put coil springs and run it..... with 7* bushings and I think i should be alright but i'm just wondering.....

People run 5.5 lift with no drop brackets all the time. Just learn to drive it )

I have 5.5" lift with no drop brackets and the 7 degree c bushings. Drives sort of lousy. Caster is off far enough where there is no return to center on the steering. Not much fun to drive on a windy road. Its a real handfull. I have thought about the drop brackets, but I don't like the thought of them hanging down. Seems like they could catch on stuff. maybe I am wrong. I am going to have to find someone or some shop to cut and turn the knuckles for me. I wish I had a welder cause it doesn't seem too hard to do.

So If you were to swap in a D60 and welded the Bushings on the axle at such an angle that the knucles were parrellel to the ground you wouldn't loose your handleing characteristics

You don't want your nuckles parrallel to the ground it will make your caster off therefore messing up your handling characteristics like return to center. That is the whole reason lifting with out radius arms drop messes up handleing because it messes up the caster. The nuckle is actually supposed to tilt back. When you put bigger coils on, it pushes the axle away from the truck moving in the same arc as the arms which rotatess the nuckles forward. This makes them flat taking away all the caster. That is why I just asked about the factory pinion angle on a ford D60. So when I weld on my axle wedges I will make sure my nuckles are at the right angle, therefore correct caster. So far I have been able to figure out your caster needs to be around 4*-7* back.