F250 Powerstroke Lift Kit
This is a GREAT truck!! Goes anywhere, hauls lots of people, hauls lots of gear, gets great fuel mileage, fun to drive. What else could you want?? Is it ever enough? I've lately been making some small modifications to try to get more out of the potential of the engine. Ford, although they provide an outstanding basic platform, does not engineer this truck to provide anywhere near the performance it is capable of. Many aspects of the truck are also obviously designed by the accountants, not the engineers.
One of the real obvious bean-counter parts is in the front suspension. The front springs are not sufficient to support the weight of that diesel engine. Look at any of the forums, spring sag is a well-known problem. My front springs finally gave up at about 40,000 miles and the axles were resting on the rubber stops. I took the truck to a local truck/trailer shop that does spring work and had them add a leaf to each of the front springs. Not a permanent solution - since the original springs have weakened to the point that they won't support the weight, if you add a leaf most of the weight is being supported by the new leaf. Even with the add-a-leaf (notice that there are three leaves instead of the original two) after two years the springs were only about 3/4" away from the stops. The alignment was going bad, the steering and ride were bad. New springs from Ford are outrageously expensive (and you'd still have Ford springs which were the problem to start with). One potential solution is to add a suspension lift kit that includes new springs.
Really... The truck needed a state inspection. The tires were too worn to pass. The alignment was bad and I didn't want to put new tires on and just ruin them. I couldn't get it aligned properly with the springs sagging. So...I needed a lift kit. At least that's the rationale I used. I talked to the people at West Texas Offroad about a lift kit. Several friends and I have had good service from West Texas Offroad and I trust their opinions. They recommended a 4" lift kit from Skyjacker. I ordered the kit and planned a weekend for installation. Friday afternoon I got off work and tore into that puppy...
I'm really happy with the Skyjacker kit. The kit is complete and all the parts fit well. The quality of the components appears to be great. Installation went pretty well. I installed the whole thing in about 13 hours total (working slowly and carefully and with no experience). I did most of the work by myself (I don't recommend it, get a buddy to help - some steps should be a two-man job) although a friend helped with the rear end. Of course the first part of the job is to jack it up and support it on stands. Don't work on the truck on jacks. It's always hazardous to work under a vehicle. You owe it to your family (and yourself) to be as safe as possible. Remember that these are tall vehicles to begin with and you will need to raise it way up (WAY UP - ordinary jack stands are not tall enough) to add a lift kit.

The first thing to do (after supporting the truck) is to disassemble the front end. Remove the springs, remove the axle pivot brackets, disconnect the steering linkage. You will need to support the front axles (here on blocks and a floor jack). Two floor jacks would make the job much easier. Although I have sometimes been accused of jumping into things without sufficient planning, I did have a moment of clarity before beginning this job. Starting a week before the installation I sprayed all of the fasteners with penetrating oil. I did this every couple of days for a whole week. I think it made the job much easier.
One step that I was really dreading was removing the pitman arm from the steering gear box. This is pressed on at the factory and I hear it can be a real b*tch to remove. I had been adding penetrating oil for a week, but I still dreaded the process. I rented a pitman arm puller and put it on the arm. I torqued down the puller, then I put a cheater pipe on the wrench and torqued it down again. When I was younger I thought it was wimpy to use a cheater pipe. Now, I like the leverage (not getting weaker...getting smarter). After I tightened it as much as I could I got out the hot wrench. I fired up the torch and gently heated the eye of the pitman arm...POP. It came right off.
The heart of a lift for a TTB (Twin Traction Beam) Ford front end is the axle pivot brackets. These move the pivot point for the front axles down (away from the frame). Skyjacker provides brackets (lower) that are much longer than the original (to provide the lift) and of much heavier construction. The holes are all drilled to line up with the mounting holes in the frame cross-member. Removing and replacing the axle pivot brackets is by far the hardest part of the job. There are three bolts through the front/back of each bracket and two through the top. The ones through the top are very hard to get at. The oil pan is just above the cross-member and there is very little clearance. I actually bought some slightly shorter bolts for these because I couldn't get the old ones out (so I assumed I wouldn't be able to get the new ones in). Pretty proud of myself though...I only resorted to the cutting torch to remove 2 of the 10 bolts.
With the axle pivot drop brackets in place the springs can be installed. The axles are then raised to re-install the pivot bolts and to attach the U-bolts that hold the axles to the spring. The new springs have a positive arch and raise the outer ends of the axles. Everything is tightened up and the new shocks (included with the kit I bought) are installed. If it seems like my description of this part of the process is brief...it is in proportion to how long it took. Once the axle pivot brackets are installed the rest is easy. One caveat... when you install the brackets put them over the ends of the axles first. You won't be able to move the axle enough to get it into the slot afterward.
Compared to the front, the rear is a piece of cake. The lift for the rear consists of 2" blocks to be added between the springs and the original blocks, longer U-bolts, and new shocks. The only difficult part of this installation is jacking the truck up high enough. Dang... the rear end has to be WAY up there to have enough room to install the blocks. The U-bolts for both ends are much longer than necessary (probably the same U-bolts for 4" or 6" lifts). One of these days I'll get motivated and get out the Sawzall to fix that.
It isn't a great picture, but the lift kit dramatically increased the suspension travel. There's now about 4" between the springs and the rubber stop. You can also see the shock supplied by Skyjacker. These are serious shocks. Obviously large diameter rod and big body. I expect them to last better than the Monroes that I had in it before (one Monroe lasted less than one month). The new tires (BFG Mud Terrains) are also clear in this picture. I decided on 255-85 tires this time. Not a lot of choices in this size. These tires give me a little more height and a little more width than the stock tires. I'm hoping for slightly better performance with little reduction in fuel mileage (and they look great with the lift). I don't see a lot of reason for larger tires on PSD trucks. There's 4500 pounds on that front axle. I don't care how big your tires are you aren't going to float over anything. Your best bet is to go for tall tires and hope you can dig down to something solid.
I don't have a lot of miles on the lift and tires, but I really like them so far. The truck looks great (looked good before, but now...WOW). With the lift the ride is quite firm but smoother than the stock suspension. When I first installed it the kit made the truck completely level. The front settled about 3/4" over the first 24 hrs and now it's just right. Steering is similar, firm but smooth. The tires have a little hum, but not objectionable. Interestingly the hum is much more noticeable around town than on the highway. I'll put 100,000 miles on the lift and let you know what I think...
I haven't gotten to 100,000 miles, but I've got about half that on the lift and the tires. Everything is still great. The truck is still level, steering is great, alignment is fine (I did have to replace the front axle pivot bushings, should have done it when I had it apart). The tires are holding up well. I expect they will go 70,000 miles. April, 2005
The usual disclaimers...I have no affiliation with any company mentioned in this page (except as a satisfied customer). I'm not a professional mechanic, engineer, nor any other professional qualified to give advice regarding suspsension modifications of Ford pickup trucks. I have merely provided some information about my experience for your information and amusement. If you maim/injure/kill yourself trying to imitate anything contained in this web page...don't come crying to me. (My wife calls that the West Texas liability release.)

Back to Main Page... 7 April 2002

Cheers, J. Kelly McCoy

visitors since 15 September 2001