I just watched a Suburban with a substantial lift pass through the intersection in front of the office. It was a serious piece of work, it had regular-sized street tires (for a Suburban), so the axle was still only about 18-22 inches above the pavement. The lift kit elevated the belly of the beast an additional 18-22 inches. So looking at it from the back, there was about the same distance between the axle & street as between the axle & floor.
My impression was that when lifting a vehicle, you wanted to increase the clearance between the ground & the lowest part of the vehicle, in this case, the axle. Any additional would be wasteful and/or raise the center of gravity to such a degree that the vehicle would be useless in difficult terrain.
So. Does it make sense to lift the floor of a 4wd above the level of the axle?
If you’re going to be driving through water or mud that deep, sure.
If you’re going to be going over rocks and tree stumps, not really.
I saw a vehicle a few months ago that had the bottom of the doors about 5’ off the ground. I don’t know what was originally on the frame, but at that point it was a Mercedes body…
Actually, the above is backwards. To ford deep water, mud and the like, just stick a set of big tires on the vehicle. Really no need to lift it b/c by the time the mud gets to the doors, you’re stuck anyway - main objective of mud driving: stay on top!
For going over rocks, tree stumps, etc a lifted vehicle with small tires will nearly always outperform a lower vehicle with larger tires. Finesse and driving skill and clearance from the BODY TO THE GROUND are top priority.
What you saw was probably nowhere near needing the complex explanation you’re seeking. The guy probably has a big set of tires for offroad and had those on there for street use. BTW, an oem set of tires/wheels will not yield anywhere near 18-22" of space between the axle and ground. The standard tire is about 33" high, so midpoint is 15", minus an axle diameter of about 5 inches leaves about 10" between axle and ground.
Granted, the independent front suspension may have had closer to 15" or so of clearance, but not the rear solid axle.
So this weekend I stopped for gas on my drive up to San Franscisco. A guy pulls into the station with a F650 Ford truck converted to a crewcab 4WD pickup It had both monster tires (not like the picture maybe 44" off road tires) Plus both a body lift and a suspension lift. The bottom of the doors was close to 5’ off the ground with would have put the floorboard about 5’5" off the ground!
This guy was towing a ski boat that requried about a 3’ drop hitch to be able to hook up to the trailer.
All I could think of at the time, was that this guy had to have the smallest dick in all of southern California.
I was guessing on the height. I’m a short guy so maybe I overestimated. :rolleyes: I had thought about the extra set of tires for off road use, but I’ve known enough people who do these kinds of lifts who don’t have that extra set of real-man tires.
You’re right that larger tires will get you more ground clearance due to lifting the axles, but as you go to larger and larger tires, eventually you reach a point where you need a body lift so that the larger tires fit under the wheel wells. In addition, good “axle articulation”, a measure of the amount the wheels can move up and down, is a big goal for four-wheeling vehicles, which means that even if you don’t have humungous tires, you might still want a lot of space between the tops of them and your body.
Big tires for ground clearance, while nice, are not the only reasons that the truck could be lifted. The suspension could be designed for a large amount of travel. I’ve seen rock crawling rigs that could have one tire with the suspension compressed about 12 inches, and the opposite tire with the suspension extended 12 inches. The idea is to have enough flexibility to keep the tires touching the ground. Air doesn’t provide much traction.
More likely, the guy probably just has a small dick. Guys seem to think that a big truck compensates. I don’t know why.
