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life with a lift kit?

Posted: Wed Feb 20, 2008 3:50 pm
by dylan
im thinking of getting a lift kit for my L series wagon (2") and have heard that it weres out the bushes and stuff alot quicker because of the increase angles. is it worth the extra wear and tear to have more clearance? ie; how often do things have to be relapced????

Posted: Wed Feb 20, 2008 4:01 pm
by stamp_licker
If your only putting a lift in the suspension/cv angles stay the same.Things wear quicker when you put heavier springs and say 3" strut tops with the 2" body lift.

Posted: Wed Feb 20, 2008 4:31 pm
by El_Freddo
stamp_licker wrote:Things wear quicker when you put heavier springs and say 3" strut tops with the 2" body lift.
And if you thrash it harder on the rough stuff (that little bit of extra confidence gets to some people)...

Bennie

Posted: Wed Feb 20, 2008 4:39 pm
by AndrewT
Yeah because it's a "body lift" with lifting blocks, the suspension all remains *roughly* at the same angles so theoretically your CV's and bushes shouldn't wear any faster.

Although you will find that they will wear faster anyway - due to the way the car is going to be driven from now on.

When you are driving around offroad (now that you have new found ability with your nice new lift kit) suddenly you are putting your CV's at much wilder angles than you ever have before when sticking to tarmac. This obviously puts more stress on your various bushes in the car and will cause them to wear faster.

As the others have said...once you start getting longer springs etc then your CV's will constantly be at wilder angles so naturally will wear even faster again.

I think it's a general rule these days that if you are going to build an offroading L series you need to develop a few $$ savings skills first, ie;
- learn how to swap driveshafts and rebuild CV joints
- build up a good little stock of spares
- develop your bush mechanic skills
- carry the spares with you at all times
- most importantly carry the tools required to install the spares at any given time!

Hm that ends up sounding pretty negative as far as getting a lift kit........
If you don't flog around offroad every day, and don't get airborne all the time - you shouldn't really have TOO many problems.
Just remember it isn't a monster truck :)

Posted: Wed Feb 20, 2008 8:14 pm
by Suby Wan Kenobi
As already said a properly built and installed lift kit should not increase wear of any component but you will also be using it in a different manner.

Posted: Wed Feb 20, 2008 10:17 pm
by Bumpty
Dylan, you'll be taking it mostly onto beaches? (has read other posts which would point to this :D)

No worries!

Posted: Thu Feb 21, 2008 9:46 am
by dylan
Bumpty wrote:Dylan, you'll be taking it mostly onto beaches? (has read other posts which would point to this :D)

No worries!
majority would be beach work yeh.

everyone. thanks for all you comments