Quote:
Originally Posted by AirSpeed
My truck has a 4" lift on 33" tires, I doubt I'll find a lift in my area to go high enough to clear the rad support and grill, I don't want to pull the front end apart so I'm thinking of pulling the front tires or letting the air out of the tires to drop the truck enough. Can any of you see an issue with doing so?
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I used to remove front tires on lifted vehicles all the time to get them low enough to work on when I was a mechanic. Just don't let it down on the brake rotors/dust shields or other non-solid suspension parts that won't support the weight of the truck. I don't like letting tires down with weight on them, it can damage the tires; blow-out on a lifted vehicle could get hairy.
I usually put a floor jack on the cross-member or front diff and just let it down all the way or on wooden blocks, but to clear the cherry picker you might need to strategically place the blocks under the axle, but I'm not sure even then you will be able to extend the lift boom in there deep enough to not risk flipping the lift over and damaging things.
You have to drain the coolant anyway I think in the long run if you pull the rad support first it will be so much easier than all the climbing up and down over and over and squeezing yourself in there and all the possible damage to the fenders I've done it both ways and I always pull the rad support now. It's not as intimidating as it looks if you have never done it before.
Bumper, grill, A/C lines if you have them, trans lines if you have them, coolant hoses on the engine side only, wires, support bolts, fender bolts, etc. I see no reason to remove the radiator, shroud, headlights, washer bottle, voltage reg if you have it from the support. Get it down to the last couple bolts then get a friend to help remove it or use the cherry picker with some tie-down straps.
Remove the carb first, then if you use a tight enough lift chain/s you can usually get the engine out without removing the hood, IF you remove the core support so that should ease the pain a little.