I can get the new BFGoodrich 315/70/17 tires (like comes on the new hummers) for like $127 a peice at work. I am not going to change my rims because i like the FX4 wheels, and they are 7.5 or 8" wide. The tire guy at work has a set on some aftermarket 9" wide wheels and they are ok, and he said they put one on a factory 17 just to see what it did, and he said it should be ok also. Anyone had any experience on this?

 

For that price GO FOR IT! My buddy put 315/70's on his factory 16 inch rims. No problems as far as the rim width. His are Pro Comps though. I really wanted the BFG's, but for $200+ a tire it just won't happen, I am going to get the Pro Comps. Good luck, I would do it.

 

Yes I have 35/12.5/17 tires on my factory 7.5" wheels. You will need a lift though!

kev

 

Do you have a pic of that tire? Are they just the reg BFG KO?

 

Are you asking for a pic of my tires or jefflaws???

Anyways if me, they are Procomp MT's.

 

They are the new tire that comes factory on the Hummer H2. The only bad thing is that they only come in black wall, no white letter.

I have figured I would need the tires, ($550 with tax), a 3" body lift, ($150), and a used diablo chip ($75-150) so i can program it to correct the speedo. I dont know what all these people that are claiming to put odd tire sizes on and have the dealership reprogram the PCM for them are thinking, but i am the guy that does the PCM cals at work, and you cant actually "save" a tire size into the PCM that isnt a factory option. You can change the revs per mile on the WDS screen, but when you save it, it wont stay that way unless its a ford approved calibration size. So therefore i would need to find a used diablo chip and have my friend program it.

 

Oh yea, Kev, did u put your body lift on yourself? If so, how was it? and does the hitch and frame show too bad from the rear?

 

I did install the body lift by myself and only by myself, didn't even have a friend over to give a hand. It took most of a weekend (Sat and Sun). I pulled everything apart on saturday and lifted the truck and reassembled on Sunday.

You don't need any special tools besides a good drill, T47 torx socket, two jacks, maybe a dremel tool, and hand tools.

The hardest part for me was aligning the bumpers. I had 4 hours into that alone and they still aren't perfect.

I placed my 3ton pole jack right under the door to lift the body. I used a small bottle jack sitting on the back tire to lift the bed. THe bed is really light too.

The second hardest part was breaking free the stubborn stock body mount fasteners. My impact gun couldn't even budge some of them.

kev

 

cool, thanks for the reply, im not worried about the tools or difficulty of doing it, (i am a ford mechanic at a dealership), but was just wondering what kind of "rigging" if any had to be done. If it all bolts together good, then thats what i want. But i know i wont ever be satisfied if i feel like i had to rig something to work.

 

Nope no rigging necessary. Well I only had one place where I kind of rigged it but that was my fault. When installing the back bumper, you need to mark the location of the bumper studs in the frame mount and drill two holes. Because I was rushing and exhausted from the weekends worth of work, I must have made some bad measurements. I drilled the holes in the wrong spots. I had to convert the holes to ovals with a dremel tool in order to get the bumper mounted correctly.

My advice is to just take you time with it. I would have loved to spend all week working on it slowly but I needed the vehicle to get to work that monday.

You do have to modify your fan shroud some and your front valence. I was a little uncomfortable in doing this because I felt like I was ruining the parts, but in the end the lift looked great on the truck and it was all worth it.

kev

 

How hard was it to raise the nerf bars after the body lift?

 

The factory nerf bars are mounted to the body, thus they go up with the body. Aftermarket ones are usually mounted to the frame, thus they will stay with the frame. You would have to design custom brackets using nice big chunks of steel. To be honest, if it is a big deal for you to have the aftermarket bars stay low, I would either get rid of the bars with the body lift or go with a suspesion lift.

kev

 

hey kev hows it goin....i am really interested in putting a 3" body lift on my truck and i have read some of your posts about it.... i was just wondering if there was any way that you could let me know in more detail what it involves and how exactly you took care of the bumper problem....let me know if you have time thanks

also one more thing...how much did you pay for your tires and where did you get them???

thanks

ray

 

Sure no problem, I don't mind rambling on a little bit.

Well as you found my hardest part was the bumpers, mainly the rear bumper. I think the reason was that they were the last things to be installed. I was tired from working on the install all weekend and I tried to hurry up near the end. What I should have done was toss the license plate in the back window and drove the thing to work the next day without bumpers and started with a fresh start that Monday evening in installing the bumpers.

With the front bumper, I still have no clue what the problem is. The plates were not bent but when I installed the bumper using the plates provided by the kit, the bumper kind of leaned forward. No matter what I did, the gaps weren't looking right. I tried shims and everything. I got it as good as seen in my pics. Take a close look at the front bumper and see how close it is to the fender near the wheelwell and look how the gap increases as you move forward. I couldn't remember if it was like this before the lift or not. I have seen other trucks that are the same way without the lift but I have also seen many that have an equal gap. Anyways, I made it so that both sides were even and left it go as-is.

The back bumper didn't come out right do to my laziness. You have to drill two holes in the frame to mount the back bumper even with the plates provided with the kit. Get someone out to help you align this thing really good while you mark the holes. I kind of estimated where it should be located and marked the spots while holding up that heavy bumper myself. Well the holes were off of where they should have been and the bumper was all askew. I had to turn those two holes into slots with my dremel tool. That is some thick steel to cut through with the dremel too. Again I fought for a few hours with these holes until I got the bumper looking pretty good. It is still shifted a bit towards the passengerside but it is level under the tailgate.

Some people said they had a hard time with the radiator shield. What I did was just use my dremel and cut the flanges off of the black plastic shield where they originally bolted to th e radiator. If you don't do that, it is kind of a pain to mount it up right.

Go out a few days before you do the lift and spray some liquid wrench on all body and bed mounting bolts. I had a hard time removing them even with my impact gun. In fact it took me all day on Saturday to just get the bolts removed and everything free so that the truck can be lifted. I had many stubborn bolts.

Well that is all of the harder parts that I can think of, let me know if you have more questions. I also have the instructions scanned on my computer if you want me to send them to you.

kev

 

Oh the tires were like $700 or so shipped to me. I bought them at 4wheelparts.com. THey had a buy 3 get 1 free deal going on but I had to pay shipping. I think they have the same deal going on now with free shipping. So that knocks off $100.

I see that the xtreme terains are about the same price as the muds now in 35/12.5/17. If those were available then, I would have bought them instead.