LUVTruck.com

Hey Ive been ooking around and I cant find a lift kit for my 74 anywhere. I want either a 4 or 6 inch but everywhere i look all they have is 90s and higher. I was wondering if anyone knew where to get a kit from and how much it would be.

First thing is whether you are looking for suspension lift or body lift. So far, no one makes a suspension lift "kit" but there are ways to do it. I've seen more than one body lift kit, JCWhitney carries, one check out http://www.jcwhitney.com for more info.

The second thing is that 74 LUVs didn't come stock as 4x4, so you may not be dealing with LUV components under your truck. A solid front axle would mean you might have other lift options if you can figure out what truck that axle came from. The other possibility is that you have a 74 body on 79 or newer LUV 4x4 running gear. If the front end is independent, it most likely is LUV parts. You can't get much more than 3 inches out of the front in a stock luv without chopping into the frame, but the rear can be done a lot of ways and there isn't a whole lot of limits.

Ok to start off Im not really sure of the year im just going off of what the old title said. Im not really sure on the difference between suspension lift and body lift either. I do know that the front end is independant and its only 2 wheel drive. However i do plan to convert it to 4wheel soon after i swap the engine. about that am i going to need a new rear axel anyway because i dont know if the stock is going to be able to handle the added power from that 350. and if so would you know where i might be able to find one and what kind would be good? sorry bout all the different questions im just pretty new to the whole truck engine thing. if you need help with a banshee i could do that but for some reason trucks seem way different. thanks though.

A suspension lift pushes the wheels further down from the frame to gain height. A body lift lifts the body up from the frame to gain height. Both have strengths and weaknesses that I could fill pages about, but the basic deal is body lifts tend to be easier and don't mess with alignment as much, and suspension lifts tend to add more functionality than just fitting bigger tires.

If you are going to convert to 4WD, you are best off pulling all the stock front stuff out and putting a solid front axle from something like a Toyota or perhaps a Jeep wagoneer under there. When you add a front axle, you need to match the gears in the front and rear or things will start breaking fast. The stock LUV rear is really not up to the power of a 350, at least not for very long and really not if you intend to do serious offroading. I would think the easy way would be to get the front and rear axles from the same rig, and swap both. The stock rear can hang in there for a while if you don't abuse it, but I don't think it would make a good long term solution behind a V8.

There are probably some others here that can recommend more specific axles as potential swaps. I've never really sat down and done the homework on which would work best, especially with a 350 pushing the power through them.

I got a 3" body kit from Central 4 Wheel Drive in Tacoma for about $100. I was a little disappointed! Half of the parts were unnecessary!!! Because the truck is so light, find someone with a lathe to fab some round blocks from urethane(high shore value), or UHMW polypropolene. You need 2 different lenghts to achieve an equal lift. I had to fab my own steering column bracket from .250" aluminum. Any thicker will give you clearance problems. The only real snag was cutting out around the shift levers and finding boots that worked! I used the shift boots from a full-size Bronco. Forgive me!!! This is the one time I have EVER used Ford parts on my Chevy's! But the cut-out was so big, these were the only ones that actually worked.

I used a Sawsall and some galvanized pipe to make my body lift.

I was wondering if anyone could suggest a good vehicle to get a pair of axels from. The 350 is definatly droppin in sometime in the next month. been short on time and as usual we've had a little Oregon weather. I was also wondering about adapters for wheels. Ive heard you can buy em to put say a five lug whell onto a 6 lug truck. I was just wondering cause a friend of mine is sellin his old rims for dirt cheap and theyre 5 lug so not wantin to miss out on good deal i wanted to know if i could remedy my 6 lug problem.

And what's wrong with six lug wheels? There are lots of applications for six lug wheels. Toyota, Nissan, Chevy and some of the older full size Jeeps use six lug wheels and all are on the same bolt pattern as the Isuzu pattern used on the Luv. I have Jeep Grand Wagoneer wheels on my Luv. I just had to bore out the center to clear the hub. They look good on it too and I got them dirt cheap. As for the axles, I heard the Toyota ones hold up quite well. Of course if you want 5 lug wheels, I guess you could put a GM 10 bolt under it as long as your tire size doesn't excede 35 inches.