Probably the worst part of my lift was the freakin' stock rivets that needed to be removed to install the lift brackets. If you get a lift make sure it has provisions for both a 4" and 6" lift in case you want to drop back down to a 4" one. I put some 2" poly spacers under my coils, on my 4" Rancho lift, and it brought the front end up to 7" and looked AWESOME! Took it to Les Schwab to align it and found out I couldn't. Rancho only makes a 4" lift so the lift brackets had no provision to move the axle pivot bolts to the 6" hole. That would have allowed me to align it, so I had to remove them. Only other thing I could have done was get different brackets but the holes wouldn't have lined up, so I would need to drill more, turning my cross member into Swiss cheese.....lol. Yes, you can do the lift yourself but like "Bully Bob" said be prepared to be cut up, ******, and want to give up a dozen times. That being said, when you're done you will know more about your truck than most. The problem is the phrase...."It would be stupid not to replace "this" while I have it apart"......My wife "HATES" this phrase because I started with an alignment and failed because of a bad upper ball joint. Insert phrase here......it would be stupid not to do all four ball joints, and axle pivot bushings, radius arm bushings, axle u-joints, calipers, rotors, manual hubs, lift kit, ring/pinion for bigger tires, oh yeah bigger tires & rims, drill the front carrier for drain plug, D50 stub shaft upgrade, drive-shaft u-joints, that's not even it but you get the point. 4 1/2 years later, just last month, she's back on the road. Sounds like a long time but when I look back it really didn't feel that long. I just couldn't see putting it on the road just to pull it back off because I didn't fix/replace something and have to remove all the stuff I just put back together. Believe me a lift that high, and those tires will need gears or you won't be happy plus you'll never go over 60 mph. You'll feel like you're starting off the line in 2nd gear, totally gut-less. You're going to put a strain on your ball joints so replace them and your stock p/s pump will start making "More" noise and need to be replaced with a Sag, which is simple to do! You're E4OD will even suffer till you re-gear....You should make a list, do installments, and start from the inside out, meaning steering, suspension, lift, and tires. At least I would or it will be down a while...or constantly being worked on! I know not everyone will agree with me, it's just my screwed up way of doing things.....lol. >
-Kevin-
