- Let me tell you a little story.
I remember the first time I ever took
on a large automotive project.
I was 16 years old and needed to replace the water pump
in my 92 GMC Sierra 1500.
I did what every 16 year old did at the time.
(upbeat music)
- [Announcer] A video clip shows a boy
who appears to be no older than 12
behind the wheel of a big rig
as it cruises down a country highway.
- Mind you, this was 2009, of course, but I hit the forums.
I checked Facebook, I asked a few friends and I found
at least three YouTube videos that showed me exactly how
to do the task at hand.
Then on a bright, sunny summer morning,
I pulled the truck into the old dirt floor shop, tore
it all apart and realized that
no matter how much planning you do, things
almost never go according to plan.
I learned a lot that day, including that
if you throw a 9/16-Inch across the shop
it'll actually stick into the sheet steel wall of the shed.
- If you're can dodge a wrench, you can doge a ball.
- What?
(metal clanging)
- While throwing tools out of sheer frustration
is something that I did try to leave in the past,
one thing that I did carry with me was
that there are always unforeseen struggles when it comes
to big truck projects including installing
a lift kit in your truck.
But what if you've never lifted your truck before?
What can you expect?
How will things go?
Are there things to watch out for?
Here's the good news I'm dust with Custom Offsets.
You guys can follow me at dusty.co on Instagram.
And today we're going over the top five things
that I wish someone would have told me
before I lifted my truck.
Let's get into it.
As we jump down this rabbit hole of broken bolts,
long nights, and a few too many Busch Lattes,
if you're looking to pick up a lift kit for your truck,
you can do that at customoffsets.com.
We also carry things like headlights, intakes, exhausts
and even flash tuners so that your truck can look good
and not take forever to get up the highway speeds
on the on-ramp.
So first things first the number one thing
that I wish someone would have told me
before I lifted my truck is that patience
is absolutely necessary.
Given the current state of the global economy,
it's no secret or surprise
that lift kits are taking a little bit
of time to arrive to our doorsteps.
Now, this is mostly due to a major shortage of raw materials
like aluminum steel, which are slowing down manufacturing
across pretty much all brands of lift kits.
I'll save you guys the lecture of how macro economics work
but the important part here
is that while yes lift kits are delayed,
it's not all doom and gloom.
While lead times do vary I can say with certainty,
that companies like BDS, Zone, Rough Country
and Superlift all have some limited availability
for in-stock shipment.
Better yet, they also have great lead times
on kits that are out of stock.
I know that we personally just ordered a BDS 4 1/2 inch kit
and a six inch super lift kit
and both of them arrived within a few short weeks.
So while it's less than ideal than the two day shipping
you can get on bath towels from Amazon,
it's really not that bad.
Second up on this list is something I think a few people
told me to do when installing my lift kit
but I didn't take any of them seriously
until after we got the truck tore part.
When you're installing them, you pretty much
take the entire front end of your truck apart.
Like all of it, even if you're not taking the parts
off your truck, access to them is much easier
when you've got everything else out of the way.
When you're installing a lift kit
it's almost too easy to not tackle some basic maintenance
while you're in there.
If you're a GM guy, things like Pitman arm
and idler arm and tie rod ends are pretty simple to get at
because you've got the truck tore apart.
Furthermore, now that you have the upper
and lower control arms up, it's a great time
to replace things like ball joints, wheel bearings
or even the control arms themselves.
When we did the Duramax build, we tore it all apart
and replaced pretty much everything
in the front end with high quality parts like Kryptonite
so that it's ready for the abuse that bigger wider wheels
and tires are gonna throw at it.
Up next, the third thing on this list
that I wish someone would've told me about lifting my truck
was that it's going to take some time.
Now I know what you're thinking here.
But Dustin, the lift kit manual says
it will tell you how long a needs to install it.
Wrong.
The manual is gonna tell you how long it takes one
of their techs, who does it every day
and is factory trained on a brand new truck
with a two post lift
and all the specialty tools you could need,
it's going to take him.
What the manual won't tell you though
is how long lift kits gonna take you to install it
on a fourteen-year-old pickup
that's spent its entire life above the rust belt
in Wisconsin and has some frozen bolts along the way.
Seriously, one of the biggest things
that I wish I had properly accounted
for going into my build was making sure
that I gave myself enough time to do what I needed to do
without jeopardizing my commute to work, my plans
with the family or other things
that I may have needed my truck for.
Owing all the lift kit on my truck took somewhere
between three and four days longer
than we had expected it to do.
So be sure to budget additional time in case you run
into any hiccups along the way.
Greg, I'm looking at you.
I know that you're thinking about lifting your truck
and that's why you're watching this video and that's cool
but man, you've gotta subscribe to the channel.
Come on.
How else are you gonna keep up
with all the Custom Offsets content
that you've come to love?
So we'll talk for just a moment.
I have no idea who Greg is
but I'm convinced that if I yell a random person's name
at least once in a video that it'll catch someone
off guard and make them subscribe.
So kudos to you, Greg.
Thank you for subscribing to the channel.
It really, really helps out a lot.
All right, back to the video.
The next thing I wish someone would have told me
before I lifted my truck is that my ride quality
was going to change.
Now important note here,
this isn't necessarily for the worse
if you're in a particular situation like mine.
My Duramax, it's got some age on it.
It's aged like fine wine
except it's got a few more miles and more dings and dents
but it does still just get better
with age, personal opinion.
And with age comes, wear and tear
on your factory suspension components like shocks
and struts, et cetera.
One of the biggest things I learned when I fired
up my truck for the first time after lifting it,
was that it rode significantly more firm
than it did with the stock parts.
This was due to new shocks that we installed
on all four corners of the truck.
While, my experience was quite positive,
there are some guys out there I know,
whose ride quality has actually decreased
after they installed the lift kit.
I mean, let's face it.
You're putting more space into the factory suspension
and ultimately you're altering the geometry
of that suspension.
So it's no surprise that it may not ride
as well as it once did.
Best thing I can say here is that to maintain
the most ride quality, invest in high quality shocks.
We're talking companies like King, Fox Racing and Bilstein
and they all make fantastic riding shocks
that really helps smooth out that ride
and keep your truck comfortable on those long journeys.
Last and certainly not least is that if you're
in any one of the great Northern Midwest states
and you have this cool thing called winter where
the air hurts your face and you get a bunch of snow,
then you're gonna wanna prepare yourself for dealing
with none other than rust.
Before we go any further let me tell you,
I know a thing or two about rust.
So we may have torn into my truck
and it may have been a little less than stellar.
I mean, rust really sucks.
There's no two ways about it.
See, this is the part in the video where the editor can plop
in the clip of not one, not two, not three
but six different guys trying to beat
the out of my lower control arm
with a sledgehammer to get it off the torsion bar.
Listen, it was not a fun time.
I don't think Banker loves my truck as much
as he used to anymore and probably for good reason.
Now, not only that but not to mention
all the other stuff that we had
to literally cut off my truck with various cutting devices.
Fact of the matter here is that if you're lifting a truck
that's more than a few years old
you're going to want to plan for worst case scenario.
Usually this comes to the means of budgeting
a few extra dollars, so you can replace any
of the parts that you may have had to cut
into two pieces on the way out.
It really is just a fact of life,
if you live in a Northern state like I do
but it's still something to keep in mind
if you're looking at lifting your truck.
So what's something that you guys wish someone
would have told you before you lifted your truck?
Drop a comment down below
and let me hear all of your wonderful words of advice.
I'll be reading through every comment on my own
and I look forward to hearing from each
and every one of you.
And as always be sure to like the video
and maybe share it with a couple, two, three friends.
So that way they can enjoy it just as much as you do.
And with that, we'll see you on the next one.
(upbeat music)