Ryistheguy

Ive got a 2012 f150 that I told myself I was going to keep completely stock after coming out of a 03 f350 with 8 inches of lift 37 inch tires and nothing but problems with wheel bearings, u joints, ball joints, and steering gearboxes but my urge to change things from factory is starting to overcome me and I want to have a bigger truck again (just not as big as last time) ive decided I want to do a 3 inch leveling kit in the front and a 1.5 inch block kit in the rear. I was wondering if im going to be able to fit 35" tires on an aftermarket 18x9 wheel without any issues. Any and all help is much appreciated

03Scott

iTrader: (1)

As long as you keep the wheels as close to factory offset you should be ok. The 3" leveling kit some people have no problems and some people do so good luck with it.

Ryistheguy

what types of problems have you heard people having with the 3" lift?

03Scott

iTrader: (1)

I think with the ball joints. I tried to put a spacer on my coil overs and the cv boot was hitting the lca but I don't think the 3" goes down that far.

smurfs_of_war

A 3" is going to make your joints scream! I see a couple guys running them. They look good, but that's too much without relocating the diff etc IMHO. It would be OK as a mall crawler that never saw anything but pavement. I had a 2.5" that I took out because it was binding the CV like crazy if you turned just a tiny bit too sharp. With a spacer you lose almost all of your down travel which leads to the ball joints being your limiter and usually the UCA will bang off your coil.

There's a lot of back and forth about this. Some say lifts are better, some say not. The general consensus is 2.5" max for a level, then go lift with the brackets to drop everything. Lifts can come with their own little headaches though, so neither is better than the other in my opinion. I offroaded quite happily for a lot of miles with a leveling spacer with no problems. Joints are still in perfect shape. Personally- I am pitching on a set of quicklifts loaded from Rancho. I'd rather change 100 ball joints than cut anything in that truck.

As for 35" inch tires- no problem.

Ryistheguy

I have no plans on bogging this truck like my previous one where I would run through mud up to my doors and then 20 minutes later going down the road and a $450.00 wheel bearing was starting to lock up. about after 9 wheel bearings later I decided to get rid of it and buy the one I have now. With that said the only type of off roading this truck will be seeing is trails leading back to the deer blind possibly some sand dunes and ORV trails up north nothing too crazy. I know someone that had this exact same lift on his 2005 f150 and he went through anything he wanted too and to my best knowlage hes never had any front end problems he said the tires would rub just a little bit at full turn but not much. If these 3in spacers start to become a problem ill take them out and move down to a 2-2.5 and yes smurfs I 100% agree I have no intentions on cutting anything metal out of the truck plastic I would trim if needed

krbdog

I have a 2012 STX 4x4 with Raptor wheels and 35's with no problems. I have a 2" leveling kit. I will be installing UCA to eliminate ball joint issues that MAY occur.

Ryistheguy

Heres the finished product after leveling kit and wheels and tires

smurfs_of_war

Looks good!

03Scott

iTrader: (1)

What did you finally put on?