is it possible to lower a four wheel drive gmc jimmy?1998? where can i buy a kit
- Thread starter Chris
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Molson02536
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You can buy the lowering blocks at Auto Zone or Pep boys, as for the front. Just turn down the torsion bar keys till you get the ride hight you want in the front the then get the Jimmy re-aligned.
There is a kit is made by Belltech and will cost you $324.41, but that's a wast of money. The Belltech keys don't have that much of a difference from the stock keys. I lowered my 96 Jimmy using 2.5" blocks in the rear and using the stock keys in the front and got a 2.0" drop in the front with 16 inch Iroc rims if not the C4 rims from the Corvette, the ride is so much better than stock height only took about 1 1/2 hour to do with basic hand tools. You do need to cut the bump stops and a torque wrench to get the u-bolts torqued down to specs, i also used the Monroe mono shock reflex all the way around which i recommend.
You can lower the front more than 3" just by cranking the torsion key bolts counter clockwise I cranked mine down as far as it would go with out the bolt coming out and the tire was 1" from the fender...Stock I think the tire is like 5 1/2" away from the fender so that's like 4 1/2" inches just by cranking loose the torsion key bolts....That was way to low so I cranked it back up a little and put 2.5" lowering blocks in for $32.00 at Pepboys and now I have a 2/2.5" drop.
Trimmed the front bump stops a bit and it rides fine been driving on it for over 365,000 miles and no weird noises or sheared tires.....
It probably could use new front and rear shocks as the reflex are 5 year old shock are kinda getting sloppy around corners but for the most part this is the cheapest way to 3/3 drop a 4x4 Jimmy / Blazer or Bravada and 4X4 PU.
A lot of people have been saying that when you lower the front like this you have cv axle problems, just take out the front cv axles now its a 2 wheel drive blazer essentially. It won't have the 4x4 feature anymore but if your lowering a 4x4 you can kiss off roading good bye anyway.
I still have my OEM CV joints from day one and only dropped the front down so my A arms are not angled and is parallel to the ground, keep in mind that once you start lowering your front suspension so as to the A arms are pointed up from the frame. Your going to start having bump steer and is kinda crazy when you hit bumps or the road dips and your front end wants to pull to the left or right, depending on where the bump was.
What is Bump-steer? The technical explanation is a change in toe caused by suspension travel or an unwanted steering input caused by such a toe change. If you already understand that explanation you probably know how to fixed any bumpsteer you may have. If not, imagine driving through a parking lot. The right side of the axle has a speed bump and you try to go around. You miss, the right front tire hits the speed bump and your car steers itself to the right even though the steering wheel did not move. Now imagine you are going to turn a corner and you choose to go through the corner at a very high speed. As you approach the corner you turn the steering wheel in and the car begins to roll. As you have the steering wheel set in position to carry you through the turn, the car continues as the suspension compresses on the loaded side of the car. The front wheel turns in more than you had originally intended, causing the car to turn more sharply. You correct the steering wheel in the opposite direction pulling the car out of its roll and you miss your intended path through the turn. Both of these examples illustrate bump-steer and are undesirable when maximizing the handling performance of your Lowered Jimmy. Two things happened when the vehicle crossed the speed bump or when the vehicle entered the turn. First, there was suspension travel, the wheel, spindle, a-arm and other components moved upward as it crossed over the speed bump or when the Jimmy began to roll into the turn. Second, this suspension travel caused the wheel to change direction even though you did not turn the steering wheel. This change in wheel direction made the Jimmy turn in a direction not intended by you.
When the suspension travels up and down, the wheel moves up and down in an arc or half circle around a pivot point. This pivot point is not a physical location or suspension part but is an imaginary point on the chassis, similar to the Jimmy's center of gravity. The distance from the pivot point to the wheel and spindle is equal at all points in the wheel's range of the jimmy's movement. The tie rod and steering drag link must be positioned so that as the wheel moves up and down, the tie rod follows an arc which is parallel to the arc followed by the spindle. If the steering Drag link or tie rod is not positioned correctly, the distance between the steering drag link and wheel may differ from the distance between the pivot point to the wheel at different suspension heights. When this occurs the steering drag link will push or pull the spindle as the suspension moves up or down thereby turning the wheel and causing a change in toe angle. The direction the front wheels are pointed is called toe angle. When both wheels are pointed parallel there is 0 degrees toe. When the front of the wheels are pointed inward, there would be positive degree toe or what is called toe in. When the front of the wheels are pointed outward there is negative degree toe or what is called toe out.
Hope this helps i kinda got carried away, been here more then once. My Jimmy is a 1996 4wd lowered 2" in the front and 2.5 in the rear with lowering block, i ended up replacing the the transfer-case with a BW4472 so it's a AWD now. The 4WD was only good on snowy roads at moderate speed and still wanted a 4WD use out on the hight way without any damages to my drive-train, the BW4472 gave me the AWD use on the high way wet dry and snowy conditions.
Good luck and hope this helps you and everyone else.
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