Lifted the Wildcat

This is my first post here, so I'll start off by saying hello. We bought this camper about 3 months ago and have been loving it. We have put over 5000 miles on it in that time and have really enjoyed the time we have gotten to spend together as a family.

My truck is lifted 4.5", so this posed a bit of a problem with the wildcat. When we bought it, it needed new tires. I took this as an opportunity to upgrade from the ST tires to 235/85/16 BFG Commercial TA tires. These are great and gave me a couple inches of lift. Unfortunately I started getting some slight rubbing of the slide bar. The camper still towed nose high, so I decided to go ahead and have some spring block spacers made. A buddy of mine designed and fabricated them for me and I think he did an awesome job. My main goal was to lift it and not have to worry about spitting the blocks out from the twisting of the axles during hard turns. They are made from 4" x 6" x 3/8" wall tube. They are drilled for locating pins and for the u-bolts to run through them. I'm very pleased with them. I've only got about 100 miles on them so far, but they are great and no more rubbing the slide bar. The pics are clickable if you care to enlarge them.

Before


The custom spacer block.


Installed


After

to the forum!
Your lift kit looks great, I am sure others may also chime in on it.

Happy Camping!

What is the height of you cat now, will it still go under low bridges, or are you lucky enough not to have this problem. It looks pretty good though.

to the forum. The lift looks great and sounds like you built it right . Happy Camping . Jim

I haven't actually measured it yet, but total lift was 6" with tires and blocks. I'll measure it before we head out on our next trip.

Looks good and welcome to the forum

Great mod!

Welcome to the forum.....


I don't get the commercial truck tire thing.

You wanted the BF's that only carry 3,042lbs 4 @ 12,168
But the ST 16" rated tires carry 3,420 lbs. 4 @ 13,680

Thats a 1,512 lb difference.

Your gonna have to explain your logic to me.

Welcome. I'm not a fan of lift blocks on trailers, but to each his own.

I think my stock west coast 2006 is already that same height. My entry door threshold/floor is 39" off the ground.

My trailer sits nose down about 1" when hooked up to my almost stock truck.

KJM.

The lift looks great!!

TC

KJM very professional looking job.

Mel

Admin wrote:Welcome to the forum.....


I don't get the commercial truck tire thing.

You wanted the BF's that only carry 3,042lbs 4 @ 12,168
But the ST 16" rated tires carry 3,420 lbs. 4 @ 13,680

Thats a 1,512 lb difference.

Your gonna have to explain your logic to me.

It came down to preference. I've had bad experiences with ST tires. Both numbers above are higher than the GVWR of my trailer. I don't ever plan on loading over GVWR. I like the BFG's and have had good experience with them. I looked for a tire with the load rating that would handle the load and one that I was comfortable with. These fit the bill for me. I'm sure some will have a different opinion. BTW the trailer still had the original Towmax 225/75/15 tires on it when we bought it. Either tire you listed above is far superior to that tire.

I just put a new set of the powerking 15" on my 32'. I've had some good luck with those so far.

Next set i'm going up to the 16's and alum wheels. These white steel wheels are killing me. I would have moved on up this round but seems like every time I turn around the last couple of months its been 300 bucks here, 400 bucks there, 100 bucks , 100 bucks, etc......... I can't stop the bleeding from my wallet for some reason.

This is still on the subject what is the measurement between the cat and your truck sides now that you have changed the height. Anyone reading what is your measurement? Mine is 6". What should it be?

I did something similar:

Axle Blocks

Looks Great !!!

KJM to the forum

Looks great KJM! I really like the idea of the u-bolts going through the blocks. I've never seen that before.

I'd love to lift my truck and trailer a couple inches but too worried about over head clearance. I've already lost vent covers and rain gutter extensions to low telephone lines and tree limbs.

I'll probably be changing out my Chinese made 15" D rated ST's for American made 16" E rated LT's as well when the time comes for replacement.

Much higher quality tires in my mind than anything that comes out of China.

Rich5117 wrote:This is still on the subject what is the measurement between the cat and your truck sides now that you have changed the height. Anyone reading what is your measurement? Mine is 6". What should it be?

Mine is 7". I'm going to adjust my pin box and that should put it right at 8". This is with a Pull-Rite Superglide 18k. Even with 7" of clearance we kissed the rear corners of the bed rails once while we were off road.