level lift and body lift

[dgray69]

most of yas know i did a complete lift on my 01 expy,, before considering this check your expy completely,frame rails, cross members, torsion bars and adjusters if you have them, if its front springs, check both platforms upper and lower, lifts can easily add up to more work, my 2/3 day star lift wasnt to bad, till i tried to remove torsion bars and found fractures at the keys, so there was my first big problem, now i have to replace them, then put the new keys on, (torsion bars are not cheap) even in a salvage yard, so any way the 200$ suspension lift now cost over 550$ hmmm a hundred more i could have got a rancho 4 inch lift, (first mistake) oh yeah then there was the new torch set i needed to get the torion bars loose. have you priced oxycetyline torch sets, yup that cost me another 500$ so now i spent the money it would have cost to get the lift, and 4 36 superswampers,, so this 2/3 level has cost me over 700$, k so on to the body lift, started out great, got grounds disconected, batterys un hooked, air bag fuze pulled. slideing around to back bumper comes right off woo hoo. start removeing body hold down bolts, damn, broke 2 right off the bat, now i need to drill them out and try not to mess up the threads, not going to be easy, cant use heat, due to the rubber grommets, now what, ill keep moveing onpulling carpets removeing seats, im almost to the front, now time to remove bumper, it came right off, thought i was almost half done, time to remove the plastic from the radiator soport to the cross member, how bad can it be, A NIGHT MARE, i pulled the clip to expose a compleatly rotted out radiator sopport and front body mounts that were so nicely hiden behind all that fancy plastic, just be sure its worth it before you get involved, and CHECK EVERYTHING. if you have never done any type of lift, this is not the type of truck to learn on, i have dont lifts in the past this is my first expy, and it will be the last i ever do alone, and the rotted out front clip, lets see they want 210$ at the salvage yard for it, and i now own a new welder to, lets see over all i should have left my expy stock bought a 2000$ jeep and loaded it on a trailer and wheeled the crap out of it, in the long run, it looks cool, but was not worth what it cost, pics will be added to this friday, check back

NOTE check this well, this is what was left of my radiator support, and i never even knew it couse it was covered well

 

[AaronLG]

Sounds like fun. I just gave up on replacing my keys cause I couldn't get the bars to budge at all to get them out. Did you have that problem?

 

[dgray69]

yes infact the stock keys are still on there, i need to replace both torsion bars, so as soon as i have them the big torch will come out, but i was also looking at the rancho 4 inch lift kit and the rize 6 inch lift, and think when i have a weekend off i may spend a few days with some 3/8 steel, bender, torch and welder and try to fab my own lift kit, I down loaded a ton of pics this morning, and started importing them to my cad program, with a little help from my dad, who spent 45 years running a fab, and mod shop i think i can make everything i need, and the springs for the rear can be made here local, worth a try, still have a ton more to do though, need to rebuild entire front clip of truck, then install my new headlights, get new rims on and the trailer hitch, im going to be busy, and still need to finsh the custom bumpers, winch plate, and safari rack, which I am makeing all of