2003 5-lug

Yeah it has.. last time you were out here it was sitting on jack stands right?

 

Yeah before I started to think about doing this to my truck

 

Street or offroad, I am a fan of both!

 

Lol me too

 

Me likey... Glad I found this. I've been batting around LT in my head forever, not that I have anywhere to really use it around here.

I've already taken the same initial steps as you, mine is rocking the fabtech spindles. Don't think I'll waste the money on the coils too if I'm gonna change it up again anyway. Forgive me if I missed it, but what brand was the first kit you had?

 

JD fab. its whats on my truck now. aside from using a lower ball joint, nothing wrong with the kit at all.

 

Ok... Is american motorsports the only option then for upper and lower uniballs? I found a post somewhere from 2008 showing a kit by Brenthel also but not seeing anything about a 1st gen 5 lug kit on their site.

I was ready to tow my truck to American Motorsports back in February when I wrecked it and thought I needed all new front end stuff anyway. Got it kinda fixed, but it's still not right and I wanna wait until I (hopefully) get a new frame before jumping into the LT world

 

Brian and Alex definitely know what they are doing

 

american MS does not make a simple bolt on kit. its expensive and wide. not a DD application. just because it has a ball joint, does not make it bad. TC has a great into kit.

 

I know, just was curious.

So American Motorsports is the only 1st gen 5 lug without ball joints then?

 

The only kit that uses a horizontal heim instead of a vertical heim/balljoint. Correct me if I am wrong Alex.

 

Thank you sir... carry on with the build now

 

JD Fabrication has a ball joint kit as well as a uniball kit similar to American ms. Brenthel makes a uniball kit as well but it retains the stock spindle snouts which I personally never broke but it's better to have an upgraded spindle snout to carry larger tires and bigger wheel bearings which American and JD fab both use bolt on Dana 35 snouts.

Only thing that attracted me most towards Brian's kit is that the snout blocks are also tapped to run Dana 44 snouts which is why I went with it because in the future when I plan to upgrade the rear to a semi or full floater housing, is that my lug pattern will be 5x5.5 in the rear but I can run the 44 snout which is stronger and have the same lug pattern as well as a larger brake assembly if I choose.

Also this kit runs all heims and uniballs and comes with nice extra's such as the steering clevis and stainless machined heim misalignments as well as a nice upgrade to the brake system which uses wilwood 4 piston calipers and all comes out to roughly the same price as JD's kit.

 

Not to mention he'll also install for you

Thanks for the info.

 

I don't know about the install, I think he charges for that now. I did the install on mine seeing how it was a prototype so I could give feed back on things that needed to be changed around.

 

Hmm, last I talked to him install was included in the price. It could've been that I was a guinea pig at that point in time, I don't recall. But it was one of the big reasons I was drawn to his kit

 

Crazy

 

Drove it today, then jumped it a little. Sitting on 35's feels really different but that's what I get for driving my Lexus SC4 when I can't run the truck (as you can see it a little in these pics).

 

sweet rig man. cant wait to check it out at the superstition meet

 

How bad is your 2rz straining with those 35's plus all the weight of the additional steel? Turbo soon to keep it competitive?