Off-Roading with your Daily Driver?

At stock ride height your front I lower than front rear. So for my instance I only wanted to bring the front up enough to sit level with the rear. With bilstein 5100 with a factory coil set at 2.5" setting gave me the perfect 2" lift. Once you go over than then you'll need rear help. Your set up will really depend on if you want your truck to be lifted and sit level or lifted and keep the rake you have from factory.

Edit: you'll probably need to stick with OME 883 or 884 for a new coil based on you not wanting to add armor weight. Here is a chart of which spring fits your needs and the lift achieved from each spring

 

1. If you like the truck to look level, instead of raked, or god forbid, to have Bro-lean, and have the front of the truck higher than the rear.

2. You measure the height difference between front and back, usually from the tire, to the wheel well, and go with options that gives you what you want, either some rake, level, or bro lean.

3. I've heard different things, for the front, above 2.5-3" you'll probably need to replace UCAs, and/or coils, etc. in the rear, I've heard 1.5-2", and you may need to get a diff drop/Carrier bearing drop.

My truck currently has 2" in front, ~1.75" lift in the rear, which gives it a slight rake, and I haven't needed any other parts besides the 5100s all around, and the AAL in the rear. No UCAs, LCAs, or Carrier Bearing/Diff drops and I have no vibrations or other issues related to lifting.

 

I have a topper on and that ate up a couple hundred pounds of cargo capacity and more or less leveled the truck. I might eventually add a front bumper and/or some skids. I'd like to regain the rake and my cargo capacity.

Based on that, looks like 885 or maybe 887 springs would be the way to go with whatever AAL in the rear to compensate (no bro lean desired). However, 887 springs would likely be too much right now so not sure if it's okay to plan ahead or if you have to work with what you have and modify as you go.

Of course, with the 5100s I could use the stock springs. What are the pros/cons to doing that?

 

If you're not planning on having any armor up front, you don't need any heavy duty coils. If you're planning on adding armor and/or winch in the future, wait until you add those to upgrade the coils, and stay with the stock coils until you put on the bumper winch.

Since you have the topper on the back, maybe consider replacing the leaf pack with a medium or heavy duty Leaf pack instead of just the AAL. though a single AAL will add 200-400 lbs of carrying capacity in the back, and reduce/prevent some sag, and preserve the rake.

 

So pros of keeping your fscotey spring on the 5100 is it's cheaper. That's honestly the only pro. The ride quality in my opinion improved with it as well. But since you are compressing the factory spring to achieve your lift then it's a bit stiff and reacts kind of quicker (hard to explain I guess). Which is also the con I would say. Ride quality would be better getting a 885 or 887 spring to achieve your lift. For your set up i would say just stay factory spring for now then if you dont like the ride you can upgrade to the 885. But if you know down the road you're gonna add weight I would rock the factory spring and save the 170 for later on springs.

 

Thanks. Since I'll likely end up paying someone to do this (although someone semi-local offered to help) I wonder if the labor costs alone of changing springs later offsets just adding them now. Of course, I don't want to end up with a truck that drives like shit until I add some more weight up front. I may never go in for a winch anyway. Just one of those slimline bumpers and skids. Maybe 885 springs would be fine both now and later.

 

If I raise the front 1.5-2" then I assume the rear needs to come up at least that much and ideally a bit more. Looking at this Dakar leaf pack sounds like I have to pick my optimal load. Problem is, it changes. The topper is constant and pretty much it when commuting, but when camping, etc. I have a few hundred more pounds of stuff and if I haul a trailer that's more weight. The normal 3-leaf pack says 300-600 lbs so that seems in the normal zone for me. Reasonable? Or am I missing something?

 

Well one pro to getting the spring now is you can assemble the new strut and spring off the truck so there is no down time. Just swap the whole assembly and done. And I would honestly drop the 500-600 on a nice quality winch. Especially if you wheel yourself alot. Nothing worse than getting stuck somewhere without any self recovery. Also not a part you want to be cheap about. Because 9/10 times you need a winch it's your only way out and relying on a cheap one is sketchy.

 

My DD for over 70,000 miles. Loved every mile of it!



Until I didn't then I bought it's big brother.

 

Mine is a DD!



But i'm working from home right now
I used to drive this thing 40 miles everyday to get to work tho.
I've never broken anything on the trails other than mangled skids, and a smashed tail light, but I have friends that blew up CVs or diffs and stuff and had to leave the truck on the trail to come back next day with parts to do repairs. Usually happens when you get stuck and start flooring it while truck starts bouncing around going from no traction to lots of traction. Just take it easy and stay calm. The trucks are pretty durable.

:edit:
Sorry, didn't realize this was 3rd gen. Saw it on the main page and title got my attention

 

Not necessarily. Stock, the back is a little higher than the front, you can figure out how much by measuring front wheel to wheel well, and measuring the same distance on the back wheels. so if the difference is 1.5" then you want to lift the front 1.5" to make it level.

as for the carrying capacity, (someone correct me if I'm wrong) but I think that number refers to how much EXTRA weight they are designed to carry. The OME Dakars say they are made to carry 300-600 extra lbs constantly (so like a topper/bed rack and roof top tent), and can reasonably carry more than that, i.e. intermittent cargo on top of that constant load.

 

My understanding is the 300-600 is their rated capacity. Not extra. I’m not sure what extra would be, extra to what?

 

extra to whatever the stock carrying capacity is. as in they can carry 600 lbs more than the stock leaf springs. That was my understanding anyway, but like I said, I could be wrong. It has happened before. lol

 

Oh hmm I never looked at it like that. No idea.

 

yea i just remember when I was shopping AALs, Josh from Wheeler's told me that the wheeler's AAL added 200-300 lbs of carrying capacity. So I kind of figured that logic applied to the leaf packs as well.

it makes sense to me, since 600lbs really isn't much, as far as TOTAL capacity goes.

 

skid plates so when you do hit you're protected.
lift does actually help for clearance in the front since IFS.
For rear diff you either need better lines or bigger tires.

I'm really curious what these trails consist of. We have some pretty rocky trails here and I do fine with my 285 70 17s.
And i did fine with my 265 70 17s. Only difference with the 33s now is I don't hear my skid plates touch as much anymore


I daily my truck and you can see in my build if you want I have a decent amount done.
Although I wont lie I am looking into getting another daily mainly because the MPG is getting brutal

 

you cannot technically increase payload based on leaf springs as payload is based on GVWR.

You can however change how the leafs handle being at say max payload.
The heavy duty dakars have a 600lbs constant spring rate. Meaning at they can carry 600lbs and still be at the same height.

Now you can't techincally increase GVWR, but if you consider what that GVWR is based on you possibly can.
GVWR is around 5700lbs for the DCSB. Now is that 5700lbs based on suspension or axles?

Then again I wouldn't doubt majority of the off road built rigs are overweight as with no gear in the bed besides my recovery gear bin I'm at 5400lbs, that means no extra fuel, water, camping gear etc.

From what I found researching it, most of the GVWR is based on suspension, tires and brakes.
unbraked trailer capacity weight rating is around 6800lbs combined if I remember correctly. So could take that as the brakes can handle 6800lbs perhaps. Next would be suspension and tires. Well factory tires are passenger rated and most swap out to LT tires so you get more capacity there. Next would be suspension, if you're upgrading to stornger stuff then you could be ok there too. Axles from what I found can handle a significantly higher amount of weight than the GVWR.

Basically if someone tells you, you can add these leaf springs and increase your payload by 600lbs thats not actually true. But you can handle that 600lbs better.

That said I know guys who's trucks weight over 6400lbs and they don't really have any issues. Sure they likely wear through certain parts a bit faster like brakes, wheel bearing etc. but its not like their truck will just explode. Take it as a grain of salt but just understand legally speaking the GVWR is set and without engineer signing off on it, can't really be increased.

 

Nice truck.
I miss having relatives to visit on the islands.
Na, I just miss visiting the islands.. .. and some Kualoa tenderloin.

 

I'm not sure how a trailer affects things, but the curb weight of the DCOR is 4180 and the GVWR is 5600 giving a payload rating of 1420 lbs. I can't image the new leaf pack would change the payload capacity much and certainly wouldn't drop the payload to 600 lbs from 1420. It's probably not an additional 600 lbs either as that would put it over the GVWR.

My guess is that it will simply haul 300 and up to 600 lbs daily similar to how stock hauls zero pounds (well discounting occupants) with little to no sag. That's pretty much what I'm trying to accomplish since the topper is daily weight.

 

Where are you getting 4,180lbs from?