I have seen a wrap around grill/brush guard before, though not smittybuilt.
After reading your post, I thumbed through the 20 some odd catalogs I have and
didn't see any by smittybuilt. Must be from someone else.
As far as why I went with the 10" rims, cost! I was at the Mopar Atlantic
Nationals a few years back and while walking through the swap meet, I came
across a guy who had the four rims with a set of 31" Wranglers mounted on
them. The rims looked almost new but the tires were pretty much worn out.
The guy wanted $200 for everything. The rims I had just priced for $125 each,
a few days earlier and it was too good of a deal to pass up. He had them on
one of the Indy 500 Dakotas with no lift to speak of and told me that they
rubbed so bad that he decided to put his old rims back on. Now at home,
sitting in my basement was the 3" TrailMaster body lift that I bought just a
few days before. I figured that with the body lift I could get away with it
and was really close but still rubbed slightly while turning. I pulled the
truck onto the lift at the garage I was working at. It was one of those ramp
lifts where you drive up onto it and the whole ramp lifts up. I lifted the
truck up high enough to work underneath. I put a long carpenter's level on
the lift to verify it was level, then put the level on the driver's side door
sill. Cranked the adjusters on the torsion bars until both sills were level.
Gave me about 1 1/2" in the front.
The rims have a very negative offset with only about 2" of backspacing so the
rims stick out some. With that much offset, they don't pivot in the wheel
well, they swing since the pivot point is inside the inside edge of the rim.
The stock rims are positive offset, where the pivot point is between the
inside and outside edges of the rim. I hope that makes sense. With stock
rims, I've seen guys put 31" tires on at stock height with slight tire rub on
the frame because the tire pivots upon itself. With my setup, when I turn to
the left the driver's side tire swings back in the wheel well and contacts
very slightly with the fender. Actually after cranking the torsion bars, it
only does it under compression. Because the spot where it rubs is right at
the bottom edge of the fender, I took a grinder and slightly ground down the
body tab that sticks out. This almost eliminated the problem.
I didn't do anything to the rear because my goal was to level the truck. Stock
will sit an inch or so lower in the front. If you look at any suspension
kits, you'll notice that they lift the front higher than the rear. The 4" kit
TrailMaster lifts the front 4" and has 3" blocks for the rear.
The added height in the front really changes the look of the truck. Much more
aggressive looking. I was parked next to a guy at the Mopar Atlantic
Nationals last year who had 33x12.50 tires and a 2" body lift. To accomplish
this he cut the fenders and mounted the wheel flares from a full size Dodge.
The body lines of the full size and the Dakota are slightly different, so he
filled the gaps with some black silicon caulking. The rear looked sharp on the
outside, but the inner wheel well liner had to be cut out . He hung a piece
of "tar paper" to cover the big hole in the wheel well. I was thinking that I
could do this also, when checking it out though I would have used a thick
rubber sheet (maybe a mud flap from a big rig) to cover the hole. Overall the
rear looked sharp. The front was a different story. Again he had to remove
some of the inner wheel well. Looked like after removing that, he had to
hammer on the floor boards a little to give him the room he needed. The flare
for a full size is so much larger and the rear edges were right to the front
edge of the doors. The front part of the flare extended to right above the
bumper, actually covering part of the side lamp and had a huge gap on the
backside. The flare is hollow, not solid and the gap was almost big enough to
fit my had into it. Way too much to conceal with the silicon. After looking
at the front, I decided there has to be a better way. Anyhow, mine with
31x10.50 tires and a 3" body lift sat about an inch higher than his 33x12.50
and 2" body lift though I do think the extra 2" of tire width made a big
difference in the look. I definitely will go wider after lifting my
suspension.
As far as backspacing goes, if you do a suspension lift, it requires replacing
the rims. This is what it says in the TrailMaster catalog.
"Distance from the inner sidewall of inflated tire to the rim mounting surface
cannot exceed 4 3/4" to avoid tire to upper control arm interference.
Suggested wheel backspace is 3 3/4" ."
My 88' doesn't have a heavy duty suspension package (don't believe it was an
option). Going through my Dakota part's catalog that lists 87-98, I think the
difference is heavier torsion bars and shocks because the part numbers are
fairly consistent. I don't believe the heavy duty suspension package will
give you any added height.
Walter_Felix@MSN.COM
Truck: 88 Dodge Dakota Sport 4x4.
Color: Flash Red
Motor: 3.9 V6
Tranny: A-500 Auto with NVP231 Transfer Case
Factory Accessories: AC, Cruise, Tilt, PW, PD, Rear Slider, Light Bar, Fog
Lamps & Covers
Aftermarket Mods: Lund Interceptor, Lund Moon Visor, Sony AM/FM/Cassette w/10
Disk Changer, ventguards, custom bed mat, black Dee-Zee tailgate protector,
Lund head-lamp blackouts, 4 Dick Cepek lamps with custom covers, cowl style
hood scoop, 3" TrailMaster body lift, 31x10.50x15 Dunlop Radial Mud Rovers on
15x10 AR Type 26 rims, X-Tang railed tonneau cover (cut and fitted to bed
bar), Lund TailMate, Rancho RS-5000 Shocks, FlowMaster 3" in/2 2-1/2" outlets,
BushWacker fender flares, Taylor 8mm wires (Red), "FABM", "DDBC", cranked
torsion bars.
http://www.geocities.com/MotorCity/Downs/9219
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-dakota-truck@buffnet4.buffnet.net On Behalf Of Timothy E McCorkle
Sent: Monday, April 27, 1998 5:55 PM
To: dakota-truck@buffnet.net
Subject: DML: YOUR 31" TIRES?
just read your thread on the "Mudwiser" article in Off-Road mag. all i
can say is CRAP! i really thought i could crank my torsion bars up and
throw some 2 1/2" blocks under the rear leaves and then comfortably run
33's. i too should have looked closer at the front photos. the article
also said that his grillguard was smittybilt. my smittybilt catalog does
not list wrap-around brush guards for the older daks. on your '88 with
31's, why did you choose 10" rims? would you have less rubbing if you had
8's? also, what is your backspacing on your rims? i've determined, from
the DML, that for my '96 i need at most a 5" backspacing (on 15" rims) to
clear all items on the spindles, preferably 4" of backspace with an 8"
width. did your '88 have the "heavy duty" suspension package? my '96 does
and i'm wondering if that adds any height at all on the front. did you do
anything to your rear springs when you raised your front bars? how do you
preload the bars? do you completely unweight the spindle and then rotate
(counter-rotate?) the hexagonal rear end of the bar one "face" in it's
seat? or do you just crank on the adjuster bolts? sorry for all the
questions, but i don't want to screw up my daily-driver.
Timothy E. McCorkle
StrongTower (Proverbs 18:10)
96 4x4 sport, all black, no decals, no emblems, clubcab, 5.2 5spd, h.d.
everything, skidplates, pro-flo filter (love that sound!), 180 t-stat
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