How's your 100 Series Body Lift?

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95Fantasma80 said:
How has your experience been with the 1" on the LX? Did you come across any issues? all you needed was the trail tailor kit no other mods to make this work?

I am looking at 1/2" vs 1".

Thanks!
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No issues at all, and no additional mods needed.

Well...maybe one issue. One of the bolts loosened up on me once, and made a hell of a racket on accel/decel for a minute there. I thought for sure I screwed something up during the SAS project...took us a minute to figure out what it was. Just double-check tightness I guess :bang:
 
95Fantasma80 said:
How has your experience been with the 1" on the LX? Did you come across any issues? all you needed was the trail tailor kit no other mods to make this work?

I am looking at 1/2" vs 1".

Thanks!
Click to expand...
I would also like to know this. I'm looking to do the body lift as well.
 
saucebox said:
No issues at all, and no additional mods needed.

Well...maybe one issue. One of the bolts loosened up on me once, and made a hell of a racket on accel/decel for a minute there. I thought for sure I screwed something up during the SAS project...took us a minute to figure out what it was. Just double-check tightness I guess :bang:
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You didnt have to do anything with the radiator at 1 inch body lift?
 
Biga27110 said:
You didnt have to do anything with the radiator at 1 inch body lift?
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Good question—yes, the radiator has to drop by the same amount.

But now that I'm thinking...I did have to pop two holes in the front sheet metal (behind the grill). The stock holes on mine are super dodgy—like someone just couldn't quite get a radiator job right some time before I owned it. 2 years on, I don't recall if that was part of the kit instructions or a workaround for my specific truck.
 
Does raising the body an inch crest an inch gap between bumper and front grill? I’m confused. Need more pictures!
 
jackhossross said:
Does raising the body an inch crest an inch gap between bumper and front grill? I’m confused. Need more pictures!
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The top of the bumper covers are attached to the body, the bottoms are attached to the frame. With a body lift the covers will “stretch” some, with my 1/2” lift this creates a slightly wavy gap between the two but if I didn’t tell you it was there you probably wouldn’t notice. The more body lift the more it will become noticeable.

1/2” BL combined with 3/4” AHC sensor lift in N height and 285/70/17’s:
3CD6C1B9-1F1A-4990-B9D9-1E1A691915B4.jpeg
 
Very noticeable gap with 1” BL at front bumper. I cut my own plastic cover to cover the gap, but it was not a quick job. Took quite a few hours, but ended up looking pretty good.

I ordered the coastal off-road dual swing rear bumper to accommodate the 1” BL and they did very good job constructing the bumper for a natural, no gap look.
 
@GTV at 1/2 did you have any other tweaks that needed to made with your radiator, shift linkage, or steering shaft? I've read through the thread and looks to be a bit of a mixed bag on info. Ordered material for 5/8 and already second guessing myself.
 
I had to do the shift linkage on my 1”
Just loosen it before the lift and tighten it after
For 5/8” I doubt it
 
a_traut_man said:
@GTV at 1/2 did you have any other tweaks that needed to made with your radiator, shift linkage, or steering shaft? I've read through the thread and looks to be a bit of a mixed bag on info. Ordered material for 5/8 and already second guessing myself.
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I loosened the slip joint on my steering shaft before starting, after the lift was in gave it a few taps with a hammer while my buddy steered back and forth, then tightened it back up. May have been unnecessary but I figured it couldn't hurt. My parking brake was very loose before the install, afterwards it was nice and tight. So if you're tight now you may need to back it off a little.

If you don't yet have an extension for your low range gear lever you'll definitely want one after the body lift.
 
Body Lift UPDATE: So, I (and a local backyard mechanic) did a 30mm body lift to clear my 35" tires from fender contact on the front ... I didn't want to get rid of my AHC and this seemed like the best option. The cruiser is in the shop (Overland Cruisers) and getting a new steering rack right now. Shop manager called me to chew my butt because the intermediate steering shaft only had a fraction of an inch in the collar, the one with the two bolts, up against the firewall. I felt like an idiot and certainly deserved it - can't believe I was driving around like that for a year. Lesson learned, not a big fan of body lifts. When I originally put it on, I didn't use the spacer at the rag joint in the cabin to lengthen everything just a bit, instead, we just loosened the two bolts on the collar, engine side of the firewall, and made sure we had maybe 3/4" of spine still in there and tightened it back up. Well, now that professionals are in there, and they replaced the rack and bushings, there isn't the same amount of play, or it has worked itself loose and slid further out of the collar.

What is the game plan here? I don't want them to have to deal with my mistakes ... or take any liability for the intermediate shaft collar coming loose and ending up without steering going down the road. Bad deal. So, I am going to have to fix this. Does anyone know if Roger Brown is still make longer collars for the intermediate shaft so I can get more meat on the splines? Another option, is to make some kind of a spacer at the rag joint in the cab, 1/2" spacer maybe, under that plastic boot, then loosen the bolts on the collar in the engine bay side of the firewall and soak up some more spine length, then tighten everything back down with blue Loctite? Anyone know of a kit with these parts I can order, or just get some longer bolts and aluminum spacers for the cab side and do it myself?

Thanks for the help ... and hope this makes you think twice about doing a body lift ...
 
@Escape Artist There should be a machined groove in the firewall side of the splines that one of the bolts from the collar sinks through to prevent it from ever backing off like it did. It's possible that after 30mm you no longer have the length required to get the bolt in that groove. At 1"/25mm, there was just enough room to make that work.

I'd lengthen the intermediate shaft. Halve it, then weld (or have someone weld) a short extension. Certainly not "out of the box", but it's also not an area where you can tolerate failure.

Do you still have the spacer? I'm not super familiar with the cabin side of the steering (and all my junk is VGRS/LX anyway), but maybe parts in hand is a good place to start.
 
saucebox said:
@Escape Artist There should be a machined groove in the firewall side of the splines that one of the bolts from the collar sinks through to prevent it from ever backing off like it did. It's possible that after 30mm you no longer have the length required to get the bolt in that groove. At 1"/25mm, there was just enough room to make that work.

I'd lengthen the intermediate shaft. Halve it, then weld (or have someone weld) a short extension. Certainly not "out of the box", but it's also not an area where you can tolerate failure.

Do you still have the spacer? I'm not super familiar with the cabin side of the steering (and all my junk is VGRS/LX anyway), but maybe parts in hand is a good place to start.
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I have the VGRS as well and good call I didn’t really think about that when I’m looking for spacers although I can’t really see much of a difference is I think that’s kind of in the steering rack and not so much the column? …

I wish I could find out how many spline are intermediate steering shaft is? I think it’s 36 Spline and 17.5 mm but can anyone verify this?

I’ve actually found a couple companies in Australia that make these intermediate steering shaft extensions, they either replace the current coupling with a longer one or it’s an add-on extension. The other option yes was to just fabricate some kind of a half inch or even quarter inch spacer to go down at the rag joint right before the steering column goes from the cab through the firewall and connects to the intermediate shaft … looks pretty easy.
 
Escape Artist said:
I have the VGRS as well and good call I didn’t really think about that when I’m looking for spacers although I can’t really see much of a difference is I think that’s kind of in the steering rack and not so much the column? …

I wish I could find out how many spline are intermediate steering shaft is? I think it’s 36 Spline and 17.5 mm but can anyone verify this?

I’ve actually found a couple companies in Australia that make these intermediate steering shaft extensions, they either replace the current coupling with a longer one or it’s an add-on extension. The other option yes was to just fabricate some kind of a half inch or even quarter inch spacer to go down at the rag joint right before the steering column goes from the cab through the firewall and connects to the intermediate shaft … looks pretty easy.
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I might have a few leftover chunks in the garage. Mine now is a hybrid/bastard of a 100 upper, and 80 lower. Give me a day or two and I should be able to give you a spline count and size.
 
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