What size lift do I need?

What size lift do I need?
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cjperry81

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Cincinnati
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AMC 304, 3 speed, stock transfer case, stock diffs
Hi guys,
Long time jeep owner but brand new to this site. I have a 77 CJ5 . Its sitting on BFG 33s right now and as far as I know there is no lift. Possibly small body spacers but I'm not sure how to tell. Tires rub hard if I turn the steering wheel all the way over.

My real question is that its time for new tires. Mine are 20+ years old but still have solid tread. Very low mile jeep. Anyways I would like to beef it up with these new tires. I want some 35x12.5x15 So I want to know what size lift I need in order to decrease rub, give it a balanced look, and perform best. I feel like what I've heard in the past is 4 inch. What are peoples' opinions. I'm really trying to avoid having a giant gap between the wheel well an and the top of the tire. I want lift but I'm just not into that look where there is a huge gap. I feel like it makes the tires look small. This is more of a cruising jeep and less of an off road jeep. It gets a lot of asphalt miles.. So with all that said what should I go with???

Thanks in advance for your help.
 
On my CJ7 , I was able to get by with a 4" spring lift, 1" body lift, and extended bump stops with fender trimming. I was able to get maximim flex off road with out rubbing. The fender rubbing in the turns can be corrected by extending the turning stops which might need a longer bolt in its place. The biggest problem I had with 35s was stopping the thing with stock brakes. I have since gone down a tire size and more careful when I get into the rocks.
 
cjperry81 said:
Hi guys,
Tires rub hard if I turn the steering wheel all the way over.

This is more of a cruising jeep and less of an off road jeep. It gets a lot of asphalt miles..
Click to expand...
Turning your steering wheel, sounds like the rub is on the springs, not body. If that's the case no amount of lift will help. Wheel spacers will.

CJ5 with 35" tires, road only Jeep. If it were me I would not install a 4" lift I wouldn't like the ride. You won't be stuffing the tires on the road so you should be able to run 2.5 lift with a slight bit of trimming, possibly no trimming at all.
 
So, you are going to 35's ... easy to say, not so easy to do properly. First off 35's are MUCH heavier than the 33's you are running right now. This puts big strain on everything drive and stop related. You WILL need to re-gear the differentials, you will need to upgrade your brakes by at least adding a power booster. You will need to work to find the proper front alignment set-up. You will need some sort of ladder or step or something to get in the thing. ..... my CJ5 came with 35's, couldn't get rid of them fast enough, it was like driving a basketball. Remember you will be stuffing almost 6' of tire under a 9' or 10' frame. The clearance problems you are having now are related to your tires hitting the frame at full lock. The solution is to adjust the steering stop to keep your tires off the frame. But you will lose some steering angle.
 
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I just went through this and was right on the edge of getting 35s but this list of mods to make it work plus the list of pros and cons convinced me to stick with 33's. I have a settled 3" black diamond lift and about a 1/2" shackle lift and they fit well, a little rub when really twisted up and I'm going to fix that with some bump stops when I do my ubolt flip. I also ran 34x10.5 Swamper LTBs which stuff nicely inside the wheel well but wear like n eraser on the road and don't ride that well on it either but they were great off road. I switched back and forth between those and a set of BFG ATs for s couple of years but that's a pain so my new IROK NDs in 33x12.5 should be here on the brown truck any minute now! I'm going to take the money I saved and tuck everything up underneath as much as possible.


Wooly
 
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I run 33 on my 77 CJ5 with a 2" spring and 1" body lift. You need new wheels with a shallower backspace to let the wheels out a bit more.

We could go on and on about tire size, personally, I run 31's on the street and 33's off road. Anything larger than 33's would, in my opinion require an axle ratio change and things start getting really expensive from there. I also find that 70 MPH on 33's requires a bit more attention than I find comfortable but perfect at crawl speed.

A stock suspension has about 1" between the top of the axle and the bottom of the bump stop. Anything greater than 1" will be "lift", if you do have any.:cool:
 
Here's mine with the lift specs above and the 33 Iroks on stock 8" wheels with about 3.75-4" back spacing.
b8dd924ace36c611ad377b330a454668.jpg



Wooly
 
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