2 Big Broncos Rocky Mountain Site
Lift Installation
Parts used:
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Superlift basic 6"
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Skyjacker 6" rear springs
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Energy Suspension bushings in radius arms and swing arms
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Explorer Pro Comp shocks and braided stainless brake hoses (DOT approved)
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Parts from Four Wheel Parts Wholesalers and Ft. Collins 4X4
Since I had never done any major suspension work, this part looked like it would be real fun. I read up as much as I could, asked a lot of questions, and looked at a lot of trucks before starting. All of my research indicated that Superlift had the best Ford IFS system. In addition to the quality of the parts, I could also add on their Superrunner steering and extended radius arms at a later date.
The biggest problems four-wheeling with the stock suspension was dragging the rocker panels and the gas tank. In order to get both of these out of the way, I decided that a six inch lift was reasonable. A four inch lift would only change the gas tank height by two inches, not enough to be worth the hassle. The six inch lift definitely got the tank up, but it still needs to have a proper skid plate installed.
The Bronc on the stands while the front diff was being rebuilt. You can get a
real clear idea of how far the front end droops now. The front of the frame in
this picture is only an inch lower than with the wheels on, but the bottoms of
the steering knuckles are only about 4 inches off the ground. This is a droop of
almost a foot. I have not been able to measure stuff yet.
The story:
After I got the lift kit home, I decided to install the rear lift first. I didn't have the engine home yet and was concerned that with the lift installed in the front, I may have problems getting the engine over the radiator support during its installation. Five of the six bolts mounting the rear suspension came out surprisingly easy. However, one of the shackle bolts was rusted solidly into the spring bushing sleeve. Several hours of pounding with hammers and an air hammer, spraying with rust remover and cranking with wrenches finally removed the stubborn piece of metal. After removing the U-bolts, I was able to remove the springs from the truck to remove the stock bushings.
The method I finally settled on to remove the bushings was rather effective. I used a propane torch to heat the inner sleeve of the bushing until the bond between the rubber and metal broke. This generally took about three to five minutes. Work from both ends to heat the sleeve evenly across its length. When the bond breaks, it looks like one of those fireworks snakes burning. The adhesive starts to ooze out and keeps on coming. At that point, a drift or screwdriver can be used to easily push the sleeve out. Next, I used a heavy duty pair of needle nose pliers to break out the rubber. Heating the rubber, and the resulting flames, changes the structure of the rubber, it's very easy to remove. After removing the rubber, I used a cutting bit on my air hammer to remove the sleeve from the spring eye. Important note: This procedure is VERY messy. I ended up with more black, gooey, gunk all over everything than I could have imagined. The stuff cleans up pretty easy, but weeks later I still have to worry about tracking it around.
Once the factory bushings were removed, installing the polyurethane bushings was easy. Lube the inserts, install the inserts, lube and install the sleeves, and you're done. Reinstalling the springs to the mounting points was uneventful. I replaced the rusted shackle bolts with grade 8 half-inch bolts and locking nuts. The next step was to install the lift blocks.
I don't know what the lift blocks were designed to fit, but they didn't fit my Bronco very well. The locating pins and holes in the blocks were 9/16 inch diameter. The locating pins and holes in my axles and springs are 5/8 inch. I had to drill the holes in the blocks out to fit the springs. Superlift's tech line said to make sure the block was pushed back as far as possible on the axle so the small pin in the big hole wouldn't allow the block to slip back and let the U-bolts loosen up. I torqued the U-bolts to spec and proceeded to the next step.
The next thing to do was to install the shocks and extended brake lines. I bought Explorer Pro Comp ES3000 shocks because of their price. I will be doing some custom suspension work in the back to increase ground clearance and didn't want to spring for Rancho RS9000's until I knew what size shocks I would need.
Once the blocks were in, I was at a standstill since the engine machining wasn't done yet. Well, nothing better to do than install the front lift kit. Removing the Ford TTB suspension is really easy. I had removed a two-wheel drive I-beam setup before and the only difference with the TTB was the driveshaft. unbolt the shocks, the radius arms at the frame and the swing arm bolts. Remove the brake lines and disconnect the steering. The whole works ends up in the floor in a big pile. Once the assembly is on the floor, the springs can be removed. Since I didn't install extended radius arms, the stock arms weren't touched.
I inspected everything to make sure it was in good shape and all looked pretty good. No obvious bends or cracks, all the fittings and bolts tight, time to start. The first order of business was to replace the swing arm bushings. This turned out to be quite a chore. On my '81, the sleeve for the bushing is actually two rings welded into the arm and hollow in the middle. I tried the standard practice of using my air hammer to collapse the outer shell only resulted in pushing the bushing into the hollow area. I ended up literally tearing the bushing apart inside the arm to remove it. Naturally, this buggered up the arm pretty good, but nothing some quality time with a file wouldn't take care of. The new bushings were a real pain to install. They're tight!. I finally settled on backing up the arm with my old harmonic balancer and wailing on the bushing with a big dead blow hammer to get the bushings in. Not elegant, but effective
.
Here you can see the new shocks, springs, stainless brake lines, and radius arm
bracket on the right side of the truck. Notice how close the steering knuckle is
to the ground and remember that a 36" tire goes on here.
The next order of business was to install the lift brackets. This part of the job was probably the easiest part of all. The bracket for the driver's side axle bolts up to the stock location and needs a couple more holes drilled. Use the existing holes in the bracket as a guide, no problem. The bracket for the passenger side axle was moderately tougher. It locates with one bolt, but needs two more drilled for stability. The bracket must line up perpendicular to the cross member. I got out my trusty level, made sure the frame was level and used a square to make sure the bracket was lined up. A plumb bob would be much more accurate, but everything came out OK. The final brackets to install are the radius arm drop brackets. On my truck, the radius arm brackets used all the stock holes for mounting
.
The drop bracket for the left swing arm. This one is pretty beefy. It bolts into
three original holes and adds two more for triangulation. All of the brackets in
the lift went in with no strain. Be sure to snug all the bolts pretty evenly to
pull the bracket into position. If you don't, you risk bending the bracket
and/or the frame.
In this picture you can see both swing arm drop brackets. The one for the left
arm (on the right side in this picture) is built very solidly to withstand the
forces imposed by the differential. The bracket for the right arm is much
lighter in build. Superlift recommends skip-welding this bracket in place. Don't
get me wrong, both brackets are heavy: welded 1/4" steel or heavier. I have
since looked at the Rancho kit and it appears to be much more solid than the
Superlift. I guess time will tell if I made the right decision.
This is the new radius arm drop bracket. It is required to maintain the proper
caster and pinion angles in the front suspension. For the front end, this is the
part that makes the Superlift kit specifically a 6" lift. The swing arm
drop brackets are drilled for 4" and 6" lifts. I plan to swap out the
radius arms for Superlift or Rancho extended arms if they are warranted. At this
time I worry that the extended arm would become a liability in big rocks.
Once the brackets are installed, it's time to put the whole mess back in the truck. The basic order was to install the swing arm pivot bolts, insert the radius arms into the drop brackets, install the new spring, install the new shock and finish up by installing the extended brake line. No problem. The reality was a bit different, however. I installed the pivot bolts and found out the radius arms wouldn't go into the brackets. Since it was a pain to get all the bolts lined up and tightened on the radius arm brackets, I tried installing the radius arms first. I couldn't get the swing arm bushings to line up with the drop bracket holes. ARGGHH!! OK, pull the radius arms out and install the pivot bolts again. Now remove the radius arm brackets, again. Put one bolt in the radius arm bracket, insert the radius arm (remembering the new poly bushings), and try to line everything up again. No such luck. The radius arms move outboard slightly with the lift, just enough to prevent everything from lining up properly. With a little persuasion, and a lot of angle trying, I finally got one side in. The other side wanted to be tougher, but my two ton come-along made it behave itself.
The final job on the front suspension was to install the drop pitman arm. One thing I learned early on in dealing with Pitman arms is that it's worth every penny to go buy or rent a puller. Since I try to be self sufficient on and off road, I bought mine. With the puller and a good pickle fork, replacing the arm is a snap. Remove the cotter pins and castle nuts, pop off the steering linkage (be careful to not tear the boot), and pull the arm. Should take less than 10 minutes without power tools. The new arm pops on even faster. I had to make some rough toe-in adjustments to make the truck driveable, but that was pretty easy, too. The lift had introduced a lot of positive camber to the front wheels. The only way to fix this is to use adjustable caster shims for the top ball joint. I picked up a set of Superlift adjustable bushings at 4 Wheel Parts. Installing the shims was slightly painful. Luckily, my truck really doesn't have any rust in the suspension and frame (not counting the rear shackle bolts). I removed the front tires and the upper ball joint nuts. Next, I liberally sprayed the caster shim with penetrating oil. After letting that soak in 15 or 20 minutes, I used a large chisel to start working the bushing out of the hole. It took about a half hour of work, but the bushing slowly came out. I cleaned up the hole in the steering knuckle, greased up the new bushing, and installed it in the knuckle making the adjustments necessary to correct the camber problem enough to drive to town.
This is the new Superlift caster adjuster. The stock adjuster is preset at 0
degrees, in other words, no adjustment. Unfortunately, both caster and camber
are adjusted with one piece, so you can optimize one or the other, but not both
(unless you're REALLY lucky.) According to OX on the Big
Broncos mailing list, it is most important to set camber at 0 degrees (Superlift
suggests 1/2 to 1 degree positive for a new lift installation, it'll settle in),
and hope caster is correct.
After the lift, the rear driveshaft is too short. You can clearly see the
splines starting to pull out of the slip joint. After some time on the ramps at Rockstomper's
place, I'll have the dimensions I need to get a new shaft built. In addition to
lengthening the shaft, I'll also have it built with heavier tube to withstand
the occasional rock a little better.
Hmmmm, that looks funny...
After installing the tires, the tail of the truck was sitting suspiciously low, about 5 inches too low to be exact, even after installing the engine. A couple quick phone calls and some questions on the Big Broncos mailing list revealed what I had feared: My 19 year old truck, with 275,000 miles on it, had fallen arches. I sure didn't want to spend the money on springs, but now I had to. A quick Friday run to Denver netted me a set of Superlift 4" springs, as recommended in their catalog for the 6" lift. Pickups sit tail high (and evidently some Broncos do as well), so most manufacturers call for two-inch shorter springs in the back. It looked fishy to me, but I tried it. After swapping out the springs, including the bushings, the Bronc sat better, but was still low in the back. By two inches. Hmmm... A quick call to 4 Wheel Parts had a set of Skyjacker Softride 6" springs on hold from an 8" lift. 4 Wheel Parts took the Superlift springs back with no questions asked. I like that. You may be wondering why I didn't install Superlift springs instead. It turns out Superlift doesn't make a rear lift spring for this vehicle over 4" tall. Bummer, but I had heard the Skyjackers were better anyway. Now, the truck sits a little tail high, but it looks properly proportioned again. I would have liked 5" springs, but I couldn't find them without going custom (read BIG $$$).
New information for the rear suspension...
Ever since the lift installation, the tail of the Bronc has set a little high and the steering has been horrible. I had the front end aligned a couple times and some more work done. The Bronc is now almost tolerable to drive again.
I ended up removing a small alignment block and the overload leaf in the rear spring pack to get the caster correct in the front end. This has left the Bronc sitting tail-low. The culprit behind ALL of this is the fact that Superlift doesn't make radius arm drop brackets for 6" lift kits (they only make 4" crop brackets). They expect you to use their 4" rear springs which leaves the rear low enough to make up the caster difference. It also leaves the rear end three inches too low to look and 'wheel right. The straight axle swap now underway will deal with these issues. Installing the new front axle actually raises the front ride height about another inch and a half. Once that settles a bit, I'll find some low blocks (two inches or so) to level the rear ride height and drop the radius arm mounts as needed to correct the caster problem. One thing nice about the straight axle front is that Energy Suspension makes castor correction bushings for the radius arm mounts that negate the need for radius arm drop brackets. The combination of drop brackets and correction bushings means that the front end alignment should be fixable with the six-inch lift.