Hello all...

Newer to the boards and trying to work my way around. I recently got a 97 F150 4.2 4x4 with a 6" lift. Currently it has 37 x 12.5 x 17 and they are begining to show its time to change them out. I do not know what gears I have in it, I cant say for certain, but I belive they are stock. At the momment I am trying to balance weather or not to replace the tires with the same size, and look at swapping gears: get a smaller tire to try and get closer to the gear ratio. I wouldnt mind loosing a few inches in height, seems it is a bit tall for my wife to be able to get it

Any input would be greatly apprecaited.

 

It's sort of hard to give you advice without knowing what the gearing is. If you have stock 3.55 gears with a 4.2 V6, even 33's are gonna be a heck of a strain. I can't imagine 37's and stock gears. If the gears are stock, you really need to regear.

 

Hope you have a manual trans..........

As noted by wandell you are way underpowered for that big a tire, but gears can help. I paid about $550 for new lower gears ( higher # )in my truck, installed by a good local shop.

The tall tires will throw off lots of other things too ( as will re-gearing ).

97 & 98 models must have the speedos corrected in the trans - vss driven gear - more teeth. 99 and later can be adjusted digitally. The information from the vss goes to the PCM which tells the truck how to run.

Before you go too far, I suggest that you do a whole lotta research on the above mentioned topics by using the search function above.