Searched for poor mans lift and shackle lift and only a few things came up;

How much would this end up costing, only 50 bucks for the shackles in back plus whatever longer shocks go for? How much work would have to go into it, i.e. would I be able to do it myself just with a brain and some fearlessness? Drawbacks to doing this?

Poor Man's Lift -

New 3" longer shackles (Raise rear 1.5"), and crank the T-Bars to raise the front about 1.5" too.

Afterwards, an alignment to get things straight again.



The shackles are about $50....the T-Bar crank is costed based primarily upon the volume of penetrating oil used to free the rust welded nuts and bolts involved, band-aids, etc.

and the Alignment is about $50-$60...depends where you take your X at...

get the alignment at a place like goodyear or whatever is offering a lifetime alignment which usually costs 30 bucks more.

Have you ever read the book "You get what you pay for"... My buddy's shop puts in lift kits every other week.. $1500 to even start to do it right. What you want to do will just make you more top heavy and mess up your steering geometry.
If you think you need more clearance for a short off road trip, take the spare tire out and tie it down inside. Cost $0...

that depends what you are doing to your truck. A 3" lift for 500 - 1000 installed is ok. 1500 is quite steep for that kind of thing. a 6 or 8 inch lift of a dodge or ford is another matter. The ammount of hardware is quite different. 3" lift for xterras is 2 a-arms, 2 ball joints, an add-a-leaf of 2 & pair of shackles. add rear shocks and an allignment to finish it off. You can upgrade your front shocks, and tbars if you feel the need, but for a 3" lift is is not needed. Add a winch, and the tbars are more needed as well as the front shocks.
But the parts, a sockett set, hammer, pickle fork & a floor jack, and go to town doing it yourself. only thing i payed someone else to do is the allignment afterwards.

I've talked to some people about it; not going to happen for me.

why not cashmo?

Lots of people do it its easy to do and doesnt mess up your steering or anything like that. The only thing that MIGHT happen is you might grenade your cv joints if you like driving at 90 miles an hour for extended periods of time. At which point id say sell the x and get an accord.

:-)

I've been running the PML for over 3 years now and have not had any issues. Moderate to heavy wheeling, when I get the chance. SLR 2" shackles, t-bar crank, good alignment and 31" BFG's have let me do everything I have wanted to do in the X. The only bypasses I have taken were of my own choice, not because I tried the obstacle and failed. Just turned over 100k and still loving it.

If you're paying $1500 to "even start to do it right" then you're paying way too much..that is very steep. You can get an AC lift for less than $800, and have it installed by yourself and a friend or two for beer and pizza afterwards. Of course, that depends on your skill level on installing lifts. I've been installing lifts on everything from Jeeps, Fords, Chevys, to Nissans for years now, you don't need a shop to do it if you're mechanically inclined, and follow instructions. Besides, some shops I've seen, most of those idiots know little more than anyone else...they're charging you standard labor rates to do an install, and inflating the time in which it takes them to do it.

what is the t-bar crank . I am an newbie how do I crank the front . I am going to get shackles and want to know how to crank the tortion bars?

fleury123: Read my post on the "For all you t-bar experts" post. There's a link there for some good instructions.

so how exactly to I ensure the level of the poor mans lift. Ok its an given on the rear but do I just adjust the T-crank till it looks right?

Yep - you can even leave the nose a little bit down like they do from the factory...so that it isn't pointing up when the rear is loaded.

well the object of the Po man lift is to clear the 31s when hard turn . I havent left the road yet so i dont know what I am going to see. To many damm sheriffs out on the west coast to try to much

If all you want is clearnce for 31's, you don't need a lift.

I ran 275/70/16's (Bigger than 31's by about a 1/2"-1" depending on brand) w/o a lift....for 2 years. NO problems.



All you do is snip of the corner of where the mud flap mounts to that the tire would clip at full turn, takes a few minutes max, easy and painless.

Turn the wheel, see where it touches, cut it off....I did it at the tire place, then drove it home.

ok, this is for people who have done the PML . I am ready to do this now and I have heard some bad rumors in the past couple of days about abnormal tire wear with the PML. Any and all feed back encouraged .I also heard something about changing the tortion bar keys?

hmm havent gotten around to the trimming yet TJ something about cutting something off the X is less then appealing. But I dont want to leave the road and be shocked at what I hear. OK I dont wheel as hard as some of the guys here but I dont want to hear to two most favorite things I have , next to my wife rubbing against each other.

Very Appreciative Newbie

You shouldnt have any abnormal tire wear as long as you don't crank your torsions more than 1.5" or so, but you will have to get an alignment. As far as changing the torsion keys...only GM's have to worry about that as far as I know. You will just need a 19mm open end wrench and a 19mm socket.

I did the PML with a friend of mine a month ago. I used Calmini AAL though and while I was in there replaced the stock shocks with same size Bils. Only issues I ran into were minor.

1. The AAL's were suppose to go in the #2 and 4 position in the leaf pack. The longer Calmini AAL was the same size as the stock leaf so I just put the Calmini leafs under the stock leafs. Of course I moved the load leaf to the bottom.

2. We aligned my truck at my buddies shop using the latest alignment machine (this thing was sweet). The truck was way out of wack and we were wondering how we were going to correct it. Upon further inspection the right side T-Bar had settled almost .5 inch in the 25 mile drive to the shop. After tweaking it back up and even with the other side the truck really didn't need any alignment adjustments as it was in specs. We did tweak it more thought to bring it into specs even more.

Totally happy with my PML and Bils. Truck rides awsome now.

thanks guys for the info .So suspect, your X rode even better after the PML? I am so excited except all the parts houses here carry damm jeep crap

Yup, with the AAL PML and new Bils my truck rode COMPLETELY different. My wife even commented on how it rode a lot better which for her is huge. (She doesn't even know you HAVE to change the oil in her car.)