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lift ? for 38.5s

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regal200021

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Caledonia MN
hello guys ... i have an 3/4 ton 85 burban 427 turbo 400 and a 208 ... and looking to fit my 38.5s under my burban safely.... this will be a DD and a weekend wheeler... right now there is a 2.5 superlift lift... with 33s.... or is this a bad idea... any one got pics with 38"+ tires... on a burban...
are 38s to big for a DD ?
any and all comments are welcome


Regal

got to kids that like wheeling ... got to keep it safe and FUN...
 
i have 38s on my DD, and its fine.i used to have just a 6" lift and cut front fenders, now i have a 2" body lift on top of that.i didnt hit my cut fenders with just the 6" but i got it cheap so i bought the body lift. just cut all four fenders you should be good. if u want to no how to cut them, just search on here, theres a lot of threads on it.
 
so if i went with a 6 + 3 body i should be ok... to run 38s ... hows your drive down the road... good bad ok ... thanks for your reply
 
you would be fine with just a 6" and cutting fenders, or a 2" body to take away the stuffed tire look. but ya, a 6" + 3" body would look real nice. and as for the road. it depends on what tires you get. i have TSL radials, and they r real smooth until highway speeds. but i have 15" rims so the tire is a lot bigger. my friend has the same tires on 16" rims and he can go 100mph and they r still smooth as any tire. but bias tires like to hop on the road. its a hit or miss with bias tires. but for the most part all bias r smooth til about 60mph. if they r new.
 
o ya, if u want to flex ur k5 a lot even with 9" lift total,you will most likely have to do some fender cutting. but if u take ur take and do it right it can look stock.
 
is there an easy way to fix the speedo ... right now its off 20mph ... i do have 4.10s should i regear... to like 4.56s ... i know its a 3/4 ton dose it have the 14 bolt in it... would like the disc brakes in the rear... too ..
thanks
 
this is an older pic of my truck but it has the 6" with 2" body and u can see the front fender is trimmed back and i didnt trim the back in this one. but the tire caught it once and bent it a little so i trimmed that later on.

wall-1.jpg
 
regal200021 said:
is there an easy way to fix the speedo ... right now its off 20mph ... i do have 4.10s should i regear... to like 4.56s ... i know its a 3/4 ton dose it have the 14 bolt in it... would like the disc brakes in the rear... too ..
thanks
Click to expand...

ya, to match (not perfectly) ur tires and gears so the speedo will read close to stock,you will have to get 4.88s but 4.56s will work also. it wouldnt be much farther off.
 
i run 4" lift and 38's, trimmed fenders no rubbing. ;) you can get speedo gear things that correct your speedo problems. not sure where to get them tho. your guage should be off by a percentage/ratio - not a constant 20mph. if it's a constant 20 mph, you have other issues. when i had 35's and 4.10's, it was 10% off. this meant that when my speedo read 50, i was actually going 55. i never cared to correct it, but then i ended up with a transfer case with a correction thing on it already... :dunno:
 
thats what i thought too... no way it should read faster than it should ... should be slower ... i just got the truck... what should i look for under neath is there a box... in line with the cable... 33s shouldn't make it read faster any ideas where to start ... lol
 
youll need to trim with a 6inch lift. heres right when i was about done with my suburban. 6inch lift and 38s not trimmed yet. if your realllllllllly careful and turn slow you wont rub but any kinda bump or normal speed turn they rubbed.

suburbanatworksideshot-1.jpg


my current truck. same tires and suspention but with a 2 body lift. havent rubbed yet

14boltdana60swap2-3.jpg
 
regal200021 said:
thats what i thought too... no way it should read faster than it should ... should be slower ... i just got the truck... what should i look for under neath is there a box... in line with the cable... 33s shouldn't make it read faster any ideas where to start ... lol
Click to expand...
well, theoretically it could read faster than it should if you effectively increased the gear ratio some how. for instance, a previous owner could have put larger tires on and changed the gear ratio in the axles so that it fixed the speedo problem - effectively bringing it back to stock effective ratio. then when it was sold, put smaller tires on it. not likely tho, i wouldn't think.

the cable comes out of the fire wall and runs down to the transfer case where it screws in.
 
how would i check to see if some one put gears in it... i know the truck has been redone new paint body bushings lift tires every thing ... so it might have some 4.56s or 4.88s how would i test this with out riping the rearend apart... thanks for the info...
 
Make sure to chock the front tires and put the transmission in neutral for this test.

one general way to guestimate your gearing is to lift up one wheel of the rear axle and rotate the wheel one turn while counting the number of times the pinion turns. Multiply the number of times that the pinion turned by 2. This should give you an approximate number that would be your gearing.

as an example, i did this to my friend's truck the other day. i rotated the wheel one turn and the pinion moved a bit more than 1.5 rotations. this means that he's got a gearing somewhere around 3.20 or so - maybe 3.27? don't know for sure.

the precise way is to pull the diff cover off of your axle, count the number of teeth on the ring gear and then count the number of teeth on the pinion gear. divide the large ring gear number by the small pinion gear number. that will give you the exact ratio.
 
hey guys got a nother ? for ya ... rutting around in the burban i found almost all the manules for an 89... burban ... ok my ? is some one may have swaped the vin tags and titled it as an 85 ... now i am looking in to a lift for it and got to thinking well if its it got diffrnet rear springs... correct? so do i measure eye to eye on the spring ... to find out for sure the lenght ... or any tell tail signs its an 89 ... cuz its got the 88-91 front end ... so i am lost here ... lol
 
any one i would like to order my lift for my burban and this is hold me up dont want to order the wrong thing thanks
 
89, 85 should all be the same. only difference might be if it were 3/4 ton or 1/2 ton. check the part numbers between all 4 combinations - i bet they're all the same.
 
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