CO-Stark

The experience that really killed chrome for me was my 2006 Titan. Great truck but yeah, it was polish the chrome or it looked spotty. Might hold up for 1 or 2 washes, sometimes, but it was a lot of work for some shine that I wasn't really into anyway. Also, I'm pretty sure all of the chrome I have on this one aside from the wheels is actually plastic (since my bumper is painted). So I don't have real chrome problems, I have fake chrome problems... Thought about plasti dip, and I might, just want to do something that will hold up well. I found the blue "by accident" on my 1500. It was all the specs and price I was looking for and I didn't hate blue. After having that one though, seeing it in different lights, and especially how it looked as some of the chrome disappeared...for this truck I was looking for this blue, and this blue only! That's a sweet prize! Mine came with a bit of clear bra (I think 3M) as I got it a year old. It's in good places at the front of the hood and the fender, but nothing on bumper or grill at all. Hadn't thought about the plastic chrome til last night as I was washing it and today. I don't even have real chrome, so it's highly unlikely to hold up very well...makes me want to kill it even more!

Not too worried about bugs, when I wash it I WASH it. But yes. On my 1500 it got chipped pretty bad pretty quick. It didn't bother me much as I'm not entering shows with it. It still cleaned up nicely. I am hoping to get xpel or something on this one before that happens, but at the end of the day, personally, I'd rather have some chips than a giant chrome bumper. If for no other reason, and based on my experience, after some time that chrome won't look any better than a chipped bumper unless it's frequently polished.

Very nice. I have color matched bumper but chrome grill and headlight bezels. Based on my previous truck (1500) if I can get rid of that chrome and the wheels the smaller stuff won't bother me as much, but right now there's so much I want to kill it all!

Well it looks great! Thanks for the closer picture too, brings up more questions... Did you have to change out trim to de-chrome it or did yours come that way? Looking at door handles, mirror caps, window trim, etc.

Details and/or more pics please!! I know I've seen your truck somewhere else on here but don't think I saw your mods. I'm debating what to do to my new (to me) HD in terms of lift/level.

I just looked back and mine (BORA) were $180 for a pair including shipping (CustomOffsets.com). You have the lead time nailed though, it was 3 weeks from order to ship date, and almost a week in transit.

Yours doesn't look like there's as much difference as mine had, could be the tires like you said. You could measure (even approx) how much tire is sticking outside the fender and what's the different front to back. I don't think the front and rear fenders are exactly in-line with each other, but it was part of how I decided what size spacer I wanted. I really try not to tell anyone how to build their truck. If you don't notice and don't mind, save the $100 plus. Personally, not only did mine bug me before the spacers, but I also still chuckle a little at the many trucks on the road (especially the dealer or '____ package') that don't even out the track width. Very noticeable to me and makes the truck look incomplete. Again, you do you. Hardly anyone will notice and most of us don't lift our truck to make other people happy, so who cares what they think. I might have one of the least liked builds on here because I didn't trim to stuff 35's under it, but I effin love it! Also on the spacers, part of the deal for me is checking the torque on the spacer at every rotation. I never said a word to my tire shop (wanted to see what they'd do) and in 4ish rotations since the spacers they have torqued them while the tires were being balanced every time. Between that and buying good spacers to start with, I have no second thoughts about running spacers.

From memory they are 1 1/2" or 1 5/8", I'm fairly certain that to completely cover the studs a 1 3/4" spacer is needed. That said, as others have noted, some wheels have pocket space for the end of the studs even if the spacer doesn't completely cover them. First pic is before wheel spacers. Doesn't look like much at all in a picture, but I knew it was there and it bugged the heck out of me. 2nd pic is the only one I can find right down the track, and that's not even why I took that picture (haha). 1 3/4" spacer evens them out nicely with the BDS lift.

The credibility is also strong when you reply to a post where the guy says he lives in canada by saying he's hiding his location and must live in Texas or something where he never needs 4WD...

Yeah I've heard it's not the best for full time driving, which makes sense to me. I drove a 2WD Dodge Dakota for years out here and always managed thru snow and such, so mostly I just leave it in 2 and make do. Buuut, when it gets slippery and I'm in a hurry (this morning's commute) and I worry about the other genius drivers out there, knowing that I have that AWD option is nice.

I was never a fan of the "auto" setting on the 4WD selector, but for whatever reason I tried it today in the snow and ice here in Colorado. I flipped to the 'off-road' page of the DIC and noticed it said AWD, not 4WD, with all 4 tires in green. I didn't realize it's a whole different mode, assumed it would switch at will between 2WD and 4WD. It was quite nice to have that extra traction going down the road and not have to shift back to 2WD to enter a parking lot without binding up while turning.

Looks nice! I don't know if they sell it separately but when I got the BDS kit I opted for the full rear leaf pack instead of the block. I think the up-charge was around $400 or so. I think it still sits on the stock block, so you may have to get those if you didn't keep your old ones. My fender height went up 5 1/4" from stock and sits just below the front after the BDS 6" lift (less than 1/2", but I almost always have some weight back there pulling it down too). Install might be interesting, I guess the shop I went to hadn't done many of them and didn't realize the mounting bolts for the leaf springs all have something right behind them (tow package, gas tank, don't remember exactly). They didn't outright say it but I got the impression there would be a bit of an installation upcharge for the next one of those that they do.

Concur with Jimmy, I did the 1.75", no stud trimming. I measured track width as well as where they sat in relation to the fender when I was deciding. There were a lot of recommendations to do the 1.5" because "that's what the lift adds", but I didn't want to trim, and like Jimmy said, the front is slightly wider to start. By track width I measured at 3.25" wider in the front, and from the fenders the front was right around 2" per side. I almost got the 2" spacers but the 1.75 worked out nicely IMO. I have BDS, not zone, but they should be essentially the same thing. Apparently I never took specific pics after the spacers, but I found a couple to give you an idea. I'm on 18x10 -19 offset.

I'm pretty sleep deprived but I think you did miss the math a little. 73.97" + 7" would make 80.97", not 82.97". Then with the tires, you are adding 5" of diameter, but only half of that is pushing the truck up, the other half is going up into your wheel wells. So by my math, your overall height would be 73.97" + 7" lift + 2.5" tire size increase for a total of 83.47". By that, it'll be dang close! I think I saw someone on youtube with a 6" lift and 35's fit in a 7' garage, so you might have a chance.

Question for you guys, I'm about to drive a roughly 1,000 mile round trip to lake powell. Got to thinking about my spare tire... I didn't go too big on my new tires so I think I should be fine if I had to use it, but what do you do about a spare after changing to bigger tires?

All they would have done in the rear is replace the blocks between the leaf springs and axle, so you could check those for looseness or just re-torque them anyway. How long have you had the lift on? The shop that did mine had me come back after 500 miles and they took 45 minutes or so to check that everything was still tight after bumping around a bit.

If done right the spacers won't hurt anything, like someone said it's basically just changing the offset on your wheel to be more negative. Also as noted, BORA seems to be the most trusted brand. Custom Offsets has a youtube video about spacer myths, #2 and #5 will apply to your questions. Also, personally I went with 1.75" spacers to avoid stud trimming. Mine aren't in yet but everything I found says our studs are right at 1.75", so if you do the 1.5" spacer, you will have to trim some for it to sit flush against the hub, which is a MUST.

To maintain what you have sitting on a 2" block I think you would need the stock block and add-a-leaf. From everything I've seen about the a-a-l it only give you an inch or so. *Caution: this advice might be worth less than what you paid...I don't have personal experience with the add-a-leaf.

I remember reading a few pages back on the thread somewhere that guys were having that issue or similar, and the fix was to remove the drive shaft, rotate (180 degrees if memory serves) and put back together. Sounded like a relatively easy fix. So the stealer might be right that it is the front drive shaft, but mostly because they put it back together out of sync.

Correct, also "NOT" what i said. The full leaf pack option put the rear of my truck up about 5 inches, so if he's looking for more than what a 5" block can do, he could do the full leaf pack and change out the stock block for 2" or 3" or so to push up a little higher. I still doubt it's the greatest idea in the world, but not nearly on the level of stacking blocks. See above. If I were you, I would get a more professional opinion than mine, however, the full leaf pack puts me right around the rear-end height of a 3/4 ton (I actually wonder if its a 3/4 ton leaf pack, looks very similar) and they throw blocks underneath to lift those. Especially if you're only looking to gain 2" above what a 5" block would do. If you did the leaf pack and 2" block, I think you'd be there. (5" block minus the 1" stock block is a net change of 4", so the 5" gained by the leaf pack plus net 1" by using a 2" block puts you dang close by my math).

The BDS leaf pack I got with my kit put me up about 5" in the rear. I doubt it's recommended but you could throw a block under that if you really need to get higher. What are you doing for the front?

Yes indeed! That seems like a good solution for you. I don't know much about the different leveling kits as far as a brand preference or anything but again if its temporary, even a 'crappy' one should work for you.

Bad angle talk is important but is sometimes over-blown. If you go with a more tame leveling kit (2" or so) it will change the angles but won't over stress anything, especially if you are thinking of a temporary situation. This would be relatively easy to remove when you're ready to go lower. If you want to go higher than about 2", you need to look at a high quality suspension lift. These are engineered to keep the angles close to what they are stock. Zone and BDS are the most popular partly because they do very well with maintaining your angles. Remember tho, if you do an actual suspension lift, it is much harder to bring it back down. There is cutting and welding involved, and while I'm sure it's possible to go back to stock or lower, it's not going to be a "bolt-off" job.

Bora is the ones that take 2-3 weeks, FYI. They build to order, which is great and all, but I want 'em NOW! Haha

Looks great! Did you put spacers on the rear to even out the stance? I'm planning to get them for mine but I was bummed the ones I want take 2-3 weeks to get, so naturally I have now burned a week without even ordering them...oops.