Off-roading with lift spacer

[CLASH4X4]

Anyone done any fourbying with the Prerunner Greg spacers in? I love the lift, but I'm wary of taking it off road just yet. I fear I may damage my U-joints. Can anyone prove this won't happen?

[1BadTitan]

I got my quad stuck on some deep muck and used the Titan to yank it out... Two Polaris's couldn't pull it out. Anyway, I had to take her offroad to get the bike. It did OK.

[Aloha]

A spacer lift is not going to break your truck. Driving it like a jackass off-road however, will.

All of spacer lifts on the market have the same goal, increase front height. On a 4wd Titan the front axle shaft joint angle is increased when a spacer kit is installed. That's a given. The spacer kits do not however increase wheel travel any considerable amount. This means the maximum angle the front axle shaft joint will operate at during use is the same on both a stock and leveled truck. In otherwords, a leveled Titan will not cause the front axle shaft joint to exceed what the factory has engineered as the maximum operating angle for these parts. Make sense? Consider this... on a 100% stock height Titan, the joints will see plenty of operating angle as the suspension compresses and extends. There are Titan trucks that have NEVER seen dirt use that have snapped the Rancho shock - WITHOUT a leveling kit installed! Stuff breaks, even stock stuff! If you beat the hell out of your Titan and drive it like Ivan "Ironman" Stewart it will probably break something, the leveling kit won't be the cause of it however. Lifted, lowered, 100% stock, it doesn't matter, drive a vehicle hard enough and you will break it.

Proof that you really don't have anything to worry about? Well there aren't enough Titan trucks with enough miles to say how long term reliability will be. So real proof will be some time coming. The same goes for the rest of the truck, it's still brand new! I can however tell you that Fabtech, Rancho, RCD, and other suspension lift kit manufacturers all build suspension lift kits for 4x4 IFS vehicles that increase the front driveline operating angles. These kits have been around for years and years and most customers agree they are excellent products. The kit design these afore mentioned companies use all increase the front operating angle of the front axle shaft joints. Some customers (Chevy, Dodge, Ford) are getting 100,000+ miles out of their trucks without any parts breakage. And that mileage includes plenty of off-road use too. Other customers get 500 miles before they snap their first part. The reason for the difference in longevity is driver abuse.

Aloha

[CLASH4X4]

Well regardless of what you have read I have the spacers in my truck and can tell you the CV joints travel further than the stock design. I drew a really crappy diagram to help explain it to you. As you can see the upper control arm now hits the shock bucket before the factory 'inside the shock' bump stop hits and because I didn't drop the front transfer case the angle of the CV has increased.....I'm sorry, but this is a fact which cannot be argued. My question is if damage can occur when off-roading and the arms are fully extended. I have heard that the CV's "click" after having the lift spacer installed and dropping the arms all the way down.

Before


After

[Aloha]

The quick and dirty solution then would be to use a limiting strap that's installed to limit the travel to the stock specs. That will prevent the front axle shafts from operating at any angle that's greater than the original design allows for.

Aloha