- You ever lost a wheel? (beep)
You ever lost a...
- Yeah. (beep)
- You ever lost a wheel driving down the road?
Stay tuned to find out why it happens,
and more importantly, what you can do to prevent it.
(intense rock music)
When it comes to lifting your truck,
there will always be a crowd of people
who think that it's just useless.
You know the guys, the ones who were always saying
that lifting your truck will ruin it
and it'll tear the suspension up,
and it's gonna chew through tires
like your Uncle Larry chews through Kodiak Wintergreen,
because he can afford Kodiak Wintergreen
and isn't stuck chewing, you know, Grizzly.
But, hey, it is what it is.
And, of course, they're gonna tell you
it's gonna ride rougher than a lumber wagon
on the Oregon Trail, but are they right?
I'm Dustin, dusty.co on Instagram,
and in today's video,
we're gonna be having a quick little chat
about whether or not a lift kit will truly ruin your truck.
Now, if this is your first time stopping by the channel,
then, hello, welcome to Custom Offsets,
and, hey, thanks for stopping by.
If you're new to building your truck
and you haven't yet, feel free to hit that Subscribe button
so you can learn more about building your truck.
We talk about all sorts of things like wheels and tires,
and lift kits and ball joints and stuff like that.
It's actually kind of fun.
If you're not new and you already know what you want
then awesome, we can also help there too.
We stock over 150,000 wheels and tires,
plus, we have a fair amount of lift kits in our warehouse,
meaning that you guys can pick up a lift kit
from some of your favorite companies,
get it shipped to your door in like seven days
with quick delivery.
It's awesome.
You just order it, and a week later, bam, it's there.
There's the plug, take it or leave it, into the video.
Now, typically speaking, we see somewhere
in the neighborhood of two to three trucks a week
come through the shop.
When you add that up over the last eight years
that we've been building trucks,
that adds up to be a fair bit of trucks
and a lot of lift kits that we've seen
come through the doors.
With all these lift kits,
you tend to learn maybe one or two things
about truck suspension and what happens when you lift it,
because that's just what we've done.
To really understand how a lift kit could ruin your truck,
we first have to understand what happens to your truck
when you lift it, when that lift kit goes in, right?
It's worth a note here that lift kits are going to be
a little bit different
depending on what type of truck you have.
So some of this may not apply to your particular case.
However, bear with me, we're just gonna get through it.
With that being said, a buzzword,
when it comes to trucks and lift kits,
is suspension geometry,
but what the (beep) does that even mean?
While we could get super technical here,
what really matters is that suspension geometry is
basically the shape of all your suspension components
when they sit inside the truck.
Imagine if you were under your truck
and you took a piece of paper and a pen,
and you drew a line with all of the control arms
and the shocks and the tie rods and the ball joints
and stuff like that,
that's considered suspension geometry, right?
Those are the shapes, right?
Things like your steering knuckles and your torsion bars,
if you're lucky enough to have a GM truck
with the independent front suspension like I do, right?
That makes lines.
And those lines are gonna intersect, which causes angles.
And those angles are what make your suspension work.
Popular measurements
when it comes to your suspension geometry
are gonna be things like caster and camber, toe, right?
And, of course, the angles of CV axles
and more importantly, upper control arms.
Where this really comes into play is that
as your upper control arms change in angle,
it puts additional pressure on the upper ball joints.
This upper ball joint sits in the control arm
and essentially just holds the steering knuckle
to the ball joint, so, you know,
your wheel doesn't come off flying down the road.
The ball joint allows the steering knuckle to turn
and flex going down the road
as your suspension normally does
because that's naturally how it works
as you're going over bumps and stuff like that.
However, the increased angle and pressure
on these ball joints can cause them to wear out quickly,
and in some extreme cases
can even cause your ball joints to fail,
which snaps the wheel sideways,
and then you end up just on the side of the road,
the wheels over to the side and it bangs into the fender,
it's a bad day.
Now, depending on what company you're going to be looking at
for your lift kit, there may be a chance
that it's going to come with new control arms.
These new control arms are usually fabricated, right?
They're welded steel versus, you know,
the old stamped steeler aluminum upper control arms
that your truck is gonna come from the factory.
I know the 5th Gen Ram 1500s are notorious
for having stamped aluminum,
plasticky, weird upper control arm,
and it's just, they're something.
This tends to be the case
on some of the more premium lift kits.
However, some of the more budget-minded kits
may not come with all of those suspension components
to replace your factory bits.
Take Rough Country, for example, right?
Rough Country makes, in our opinion,
some of the best budget lift kits
that you can buy on the market today.
Their Vertex coilover kits are good,
and even their standard spacer lifts are just awesome.
They have a ton of lift kits available
that fit pretty much every truck out there,
however, because they are a little bit more
on the affordable side,
they're typically going to reuse some of your factory parts,
like your control arms and ball joints and things like that.
Meaning that if your ball joints
already have some wear on 'em,
they're gonna wear out even quicker than before.
Good news here is that there are options
if you're looking for a more budget-minded kit.
Companies like Kryptonite make replacement front end parts
for a ton of trucks
that are actually made to be used and abused.
The guys over at Kryptonite are pretty much like us
and they love shoving 14 wides on their trucks,
and so they know that
you're inevitably gonna do the same,
so they build their products
so that way they can just take that abuse.
Plus all the Kryptonite parts come with a lifetime warranty,
meaning that if for some reason
you would happen to break one of their products,
they'll just replace it for you.
On top of ball joints,
there are also a few other things to keep in mind
when it comes to lifting your truck.
While not technically related specifically
to the lift kit itself,
we know that with a lift kit comes bigger wheels and tires,
and that means that your going to
want to look at tie rod ends and wheel bearings.
The additional stress from 16 wides on 40s
can cause additional wear and tear on tie rods
as these new, larger wheels and tires,
they definitely weigh more than stock
and they take more pressure to turn.
This is especially true if you have a GM truck,
which are notoriously known for having weak tie rod ends
and doing the old kachow like Lightning McQueen
after you do a boosted launch.
The good news here is that again,
Kryptonite's gonna make a ton of products that can help.
Their Death Grip series of tie rods is
legit some of the beefiest that we've ever seen,
and they're all covered under that same lifetime warranty.
Regardless, if you're just putting
a leveling kit on your truck,
or if you're looking to go like full on 16 wides
on a SEMA show build,
chances are you're going to need to take a peek
at the front end of your truck.
And if you do, and you find you need some parts,
then, hey, hit us up at customoffsets.com.
We actually stock a bunch of the Kryptonite stuff
so that you guys can get it in just a few days.
All you gotta do is head to the website,
sort by quick delivery,
and you can get your truck back on the road in no time.
(upbeat music)