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ChrisC
Dodge Dakota
5/30/2001
00:25:34
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 Subject: Lift ?'s
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Message:
I was just wondering if anyone has purchased and installed the Rough Country 5 1/2 inch suspension on a 97-99 Dakota.
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UWGriz
Dodge Dakota
5/30/2001
08:34:16
| RE: Lift ?'s
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Message:
I assume that you mean the Tuff Country lift since Rough Country doesn't have one for the Gen III's. Anyway, I have one on my truck. So far I like it. I haven't been able to give it a real good offroad test yet, but that's coming very soon.
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Felicia
Dodge Dakota
5/30/2001
18:42:54
| RE: Lift ?'s
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Message:
I was wanting to purchase the 5.5" lift Tuff Country makes but I haven't yet because I don't know if it will work on a 2000 yr Dakota. I do know if you try to install it yourself it is a pain. It is at least a 2-day project. I decided that when I get mine I'm gonna pay 4WheelParts the $500 to put it on in a day for me. The one thing I don't like about the lift is that is uses lift blocks in the rear. I also heard that the ride gets rougher since it also uses a 2" add-a-leaf atop of the lift block.
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aggie97
Dodge Dakota
5/30/2001
18:55:52
| RE: Lift ?'s
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Message:
Felicia, don't buy the tuff country lift. Not only is it a piece of crap, but it won't fit you 2k truck. The 2k trucks have rack and pinion steering and none of the current kits will fit. Rancho is working on it and the 2k + kits should be out at the end of the summer? The rancho kit is only a 3 in kit but is of higher quality and should come with the RSX shocks. I have heard bad stories from local installers of the tuff country lift that the kit is destroying the frame and front end of the trucks it is installed on. The kit cannot hold and alignment and customers are eating tires faster than they care to. The rancho kit is advertised to keep the same suspension geometry and you don't have to buy new wheels and tires like the other kits which require different offsets.
The only Answer: Rancho for Quality and Price if that is what you are looking for. No, I am not a Rancho employee but if they would like to install one of their kits on my truck for free, I would gladly put their stickers all over my truck!!!
Just my $0.02.
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ChrisC
Dodge Dakota
5/31/2001
00:10:20
| RE: Lift ?'s
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Message:
UWGriz-
Did you install the kit yourself? If so how long did it take and were you using air tools?
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UWGriz
Dodge Dakota
5/31/2001
09:20:33
| RE: Lift ?'s
IP: Logged
Message:
Chris
Yes, I installed it myself. It took 8-10 hours with 3 guys working, 2 with IFS kit installation experience. We had air tools, a cutting torch and a vehicle lift. Without that stuff it will take a long time.
Now let me address some of the concerns posted. First the truck won't hold an alignment if you don't perform one simple modification that TC doesn't tell you about. The brackets used to drop the upper control arms (along with everything else) are powder coated. That's nice, but slick. Take a wire wheel to the surface that the control arm mates to to brush off the powder coating and rough up the metal a bit (a punch works great). Now the truck will hold alignment. The geometry of the suspension is the same and it doesn't hurt the frame at all.
The concern with using lift blocks is that they increase axle wrap. This is why they are less desirable. I was concerned about this, too. However, with the add-a-leaf stiffening up the springs, I actually have less axle wrap now than before I put on the lift.
There is one thing that bugs me about the lift and that is the lower "bump" stops. They're not really bump stops since they limit downward travel but whatever. Anyway, they hang down below the lift significantly. I solved this by cutting them off and adding limiting straps.
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Felicia
Dodge Dakota
6/02/2001
00:18:08
|  RE: Lift ?'s
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Message:
Thanks for the info, but I'm not into spending the money for the smaller lift that Rancho offers. TC finally replied me and told me that the 97-99 lift won't work for my truck just yesterday. Anther thing is why put the lift if you are not going to put bigger wheels and tires? I want a lift people will remember my truck by, not something they have to sit and argue about for 15 minutes trying to decide if the truck is lifted or not. Right now I already wasted my money and time on a 2" body lift, and I'm running 30x13.50 on 15x10 rims. I'll probably end up getting a custom made lift for it done at the end of this summer. But like I said thanks for the 411.
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Hawkeye
Dakota Enthusiast
6/02/2001
08:04:05
| RE: Lift ?'s
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Message:
If you ever see a Dak with the Rancho lift and 33's on it there will be no question that it is lifted. I understand your thought though. You want to be up there. I cant remember which brand it was but one of them is working on a 5.5 inch lift for ours. Should allow for 35's. I have spoken with so many of them I cant remeber who it was now. I am just patiently waiting on Rancho. They emailed me a couple of months ago and confirmed that they will have their lift out for 2000 & up Daks around the end of summer or first of fall. Guess I may go ahead and start filling out the loan papers for the bank now.
'00 QC 4x4
4.7 3.55 LSD
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MikeC
Dodge Dakota
6/02/2001
20:06:43
| RE: Lift ?'s
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Message:
Does anyone know how Rancho's kit was for the 97-99's? Was it easy to install or do you reccommend a shop put it in? I think Rancho is expensive (a little more than the rest) but heard they hold the best alignment. But I have heard their shocks are stiff. I don't want to turn this to a Rancho forum, but any rants and raves would be appreciated.
Felicia, how's that 2" body lift look anyways? I heard the that is kind of the practical limit for looks. I know of a 3" lift but heard the gap between the body and frame may really start to show (although I have seen covers for this). There is a pic in the photos area of this site of a blue quad cab with a 3" body and suspension lift. I think it looks really nice, and is what I may end up doin, (unless Hawk's 5.5 lift is a reality =) ). But the angle at which the photo is taken does not show any gap with the 3" body lift.
As you can tell, I'll be raisin mine too. 2-3" body, plus 3-5.5" susp. lift + added height from the bigger tires could mean 6-10" more height. Yee-haa!
MikeC
2001 4.7 CC 4X4
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Hawkeye
Dakota Enthusiast
6/02/2001
20:26:42
| RE: Lift ?'s
IP: Logged
Message:
God I love when people can get on here and talk about 4x4's and not argue!! This is great! Just had to get that out. Mike, like I said, I am pretty sure I saw someone was developing that lift but for the life of me I cant remember who it was. Sorry. Mind you I could be wrong. As for the Rancho lift, with just about any IFS type lift, I would say let a shop do it. Not that you cant do it your self, they can just do it a lot quicker cause they would have the right tools, lift, no interuptions, and if it is a good shop, some kind of warranty on their work (ie, If they screw something up they will fix it, If you or I do it and screw something up we are s.o.l.). I really like the Rancho stuff. I worked at the local 4 Wheel Parts Wholesalers store for a little while and got to see just about every brand of lift out there installed. Its the little things that impress me. Like for instance, Rancho uses and entirely new lower assembly for the ball joints. Some other brands just use a spacer. As far as the shocks, I have had a set of RS 5000's on another truck and really liked them. Will probably be putting some new RSX's on the wife's 4x4 Durango. Will probably go withe either the 5000's or the RSX's on my Dak. Never tried the RS 9000's. For what I do I dont think they would give me any better performance. I need mine to be pretty stout all the time. Our paved roads here are almost worse than the unpaved ones.
'00 QC 4x4
4.7 3.55 LSD
Jet Power
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Felicia
Dodge Dakota
6/03/2001
23:27:24
| RE: Lift ?'s
IP: Logged
Message:
Well with my 2" lift and the tires I put, my truck doesn't even look lifted since I went with a shorter tire than factory. If the Tuff Country lift would have worked on my truck I would have had 7.5" of lift plus 36" tires which would have put my truck 10.5" higher than stock. My truck looks really aggressive from any angle because of my tires. The gap isn't too horrible except for between the tailgate and the back bumper and in the front where the motor is now less protected from anything that I go through, mud, sand, water. I have considered purchasing the gap guards, but when I get my suspension lift I might take off my body lift since all it is a piece of junk. The steering extension was the wrong one and so a local machine shop modified it to make it fit (since the truck was already lifted and only had the steering and four-wheel drive to finish) and it finally wore out not too long ago and left me with enough slack to make a person scared to drive the truck faster than 30 mph. Fixed that with a piece of a Bud Light can to fill in the wore away material. It works for now. Another thing about the body lift is a 3" kit won't work on the truck unless you find some way to lower your fan shroud. My lift kit didn't come with the right thing so I didn't lower it. And you don't really have enough brake lines to reach the new position they will be in. I uncliped mine and they are still a little tight. My advice is don't do a body lift. All they are is trouble in the long run. I only did one cause I already had tires to put on my truck when I got it. I wasn't going to let $700 worth of tires go to waste.
'00 X-Cab 4x4
4.7 5-spd
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MikeC
Dodge Dakota
6/04/2001
07:32:41
|  RE: Lift ?'s
IP: Logged
Message:
Thanks for the info guys, I really appreciate it. Looks like this is a wait and see project for now ;-) Maybe I'll have to stick on working on the interior for now...
MikeC
2001 4.7 CC 4X4
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Blizzard
Gen III
6/04/2001
08:11:34
| RE: Lift ?'s
IP: Logged
Message:
Felicia,
One quick question ... why did you go to the trouble and expense of lifting the truck if you were going to put smaller tires on it?? I just read that and it kinda baffled me.
Thanks
'01 QC 4x4
5.9L, 3.92 LSD, loaded
www.geocities.com/blizzzzard69
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Felicia
Dodge Dakota
6/04/2001
23:22:31
| RE: Lift ?'s
IP: Logged
Message:
I put the lift so my tires wouldn't rub, but they still do. A stock Dakota comes with 31x10.5 on 8" rims and I could even make those rub. My tires, if you go back and read, are 13.5" wide on 10" rims. There is no way a stock Dakota can handle 10" rims without a lift, so I took the easy way out or so I thought at the time and put the body lift on. And I had the tires already.
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Toy Dakota
Dodge Dakota
6/07/2001
22:38:46
| RE: Lift ?'s
IP: Logged
Message:
I Have a 98 with the 5 1/2 tuff country lift and 3 inch body with 36/14.50 on Weld wheels with 3 3/8 back space, and i am very pleased with the ride.
UWgriz,
About the bump stops? How did you do it? More info please, E-mail me some pics. If its not to much hassle for you. Thanks,
Toy Dakota
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4X4Tony
Dodge Dakota
6/08/2001
09:47:42
| RE: Lift ?'s
IP: Logged
Message:
I was the 60th guy to buy the Tuff Country lift - been on my '99 Sport for two years now. Never had a problem. Early on, they decided the front drop brackets weren't strong enough, sent replacements and paid my DC service dept to replace them. Never had a problem holding alignment, and my 33" BFGs (also 2 years old) show no signs of abnormal wear. And the truck looks AWESOME.
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UWGriz
Dodge Dakota
8/15/2001
09:48:15
| RE: Lift ?'s
IP: Logged
Message:
Last night I actually completed version 2 of limiting the suspension droop. Limiting straps are gone and we welded some extensions off of the part of the bracket that has the upper bump stops to limit the droop of the upper control arm. Basically, we recreated what was on the truck when it was stock. All I can say is that this is a ton better than what TC did. The truck actually has some ground clearance this way. I hope to get the pictures developed soon and hopefully scanned if I can get my scanner working again...
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