A bit more lift

One of the discoveries I made on the wheeling trip around Big Bear (especially on Jacoby Canyon, the roughest of the trails we traversed) was tire rubbing.  I knew that I was pushing it with 32" BFG's on only four inches of lift (five really with the body lift), so I needed to get a little more vertical so that I have better articulation without body contact.

Rather than throwing money at new springs front and rear, I went with a simpler and cheaper approach.  I went with 2" lift blocks from Rusty's Off Road in the rear (real solid cast iron blocks with new u-bolts) and a 1" shackle lift in the front.  No blocks in the front (only morons do that), but out back they are plenty safe if you exercise a few moments of thought and precaution.  First, new and heavy blocks are better in every way than used and/or aluminum blocks.  Get them from a reputable source like Rusty's, and get them for your specific axle and vehicle so that they help keep the pinion angle in the right ballpark, at least.  These get the job done right:

Installed:

The front shackles are a different matter altogether.  I've heard of some Ford rigs coming from the factory with four or even six inch blocks in the rear, which seems nutso to me.  The shackles, however, can only go so long.  In order to get a 1" lift, the newer shackles have to be several inches longer than stock, and with that length comes a need for thicker/heavier gauge materials.  Here are the new ones compared to the old ones:

The old:

The new:

It took a bit of finagling to get both blocks and shackles installed, requiring some BFH persuasion, but all in all, an hour or so from start to finish.  Here's a pair of shorts, before and after in the back.  If you following the body line of bedliner, you can see how much of a lift there is:

Before and after in the front:

Just as before, if you follow the bedliner body line, you'll see how the tire before were slightly higher, while the "after" image shows how it's now even with the body line.