Off-road upgrades

[02_Tahoe]

Right now I have a 3 inch lift and 33 inch mud tires. I want to turn the Tahoe into a pretty good off roading truck, I've taken it off-roading on some tough trails already but I feel like I should upgrade things to keep doing that. I know I need new shocks instead of keeping the stock ones with extenders, but what else do I need, I've heard the stock tie rods aren't good. What else would you guys recommend?

 

[ISU-152]

Front brush buard/skid plates. Proper truck box with tools and emergency supplies (fluids, funnel, snacks etc)

Hitch carrier for extra fuel etc

 

[Ac19513]

I don't like brush guards. Skid plates for sure if you don't already have them. Maybe some rock rails depending on your type of offroad. Rear tow point. I moved my spare tire to the roof for more clearance.

 

[Tiki]

Locker, gears, tires

 

[Dneel81]

A "brush guard" is wasted money and weight. If you wheel it in the mud or rocks much, you're going to start breaking front end components. IFS is not meant for offroad. I know I know the H1 hummers have IFS, other trucks this and that all have IFS. If you're getting serious about offroad, you'll eventually need to do something about the front suspension (insert solid axle swap here). Also the rear 10 bolt wont hold up to rocks and offroad very well. Your tires are small enough they'll do okay, but usually people get into the rocks and mud they start adding height, power, bigger tires but forget about the axles. 1 ton axles all around are what these (full size) trucks need to be worthy rock/mud runners. It gets expensive quick.

 

[02_Tahoe]

A "brush guard" is wasted money and weight. If you wheel it in the mud or rocks much, you're going to start breaking front end components. IFS is not meant for offroad. I know I know the H1 hummers have IFS, other trucks this and that all have IFS. If you're getting serious about offroad, you'll eventually need to do something about the front suspension (insert solid axle swap here). Also the rear 10 bolt wont hold up to rocks and offroad very well. Your tires are small enough they'll do okay, but usually people get into the rocks and mud they start adding height, power, bigger tires but forget about the axles. 1 ton axles all around are what these (full size) trucks need to be worthy rock/mud runners. It gets expensive quick.

I'm not doing anything really crazy but there's one trail I go down that's pretty rough with decent rocks, mud pits and hill climbs and I feel like I need to do front end work like steering. What front end components would you recommend doing?

 

[YukonandtheHOE]

Cant really off road reliably with ifs..
Its cheaper to SAS then build up the front ends..

 

[Dneel81]

Agree with Scott above. The IFS is not good enough, no matter what you put up there. Custom a-arms, 1 ton ball joints, etc. It's expensive at first and a fair amount of technical detail is involved in the solid axle swap, but it's doable. It's becoming very common for people who don't do alot of work on cars to be able to safely do a SAS on their trucks. Off Road Design (ORD) makes nice kits that are almost bolt on for said SAS on our trucks. I do encourage you to build it once and build it right. For example, a Dana 44 (ford 77-79 years are easiest) is ok, a dana 60 is best. The dana 44 did come in a 3/4 ton pickup from ford, but for offroad, the dana 60 is the way to go for serious off road time, particularly in a fullsize rig like ours. The dana44 can use the hubs from an old chevy and you can keep your 6 lug wheels. otherwise the 1 ton gear is 8 lug unless you get custom machined hubs which aint had for less than at least $1k. I'm using a dana 44 as mentioned above with machined chevy hubs and I have a 6lug 14 bolt 9.5" rear end (the semi float axle) that I'm working on now for my truck. So I'll have 3/4 ton gear around me. Mine is not used for rocks or mud really, I just don't want the liability of a 10 bolt rear end (factory) and the IFS. I don't like doing bushings and ball joints every 30k miles with my 2 door tahoe's 37" tires.
NP241 transfer case is the way to go. Simple to work on, Slip yoke eliminators are had easily (jb conversions), and it's pretty beefy. Much better than the 246 or the autotrack case (I forget the number on it....)
After a ton of research, if you decide you want to go that way, start gathering parts. Read read read. pirate4x4 is a great resource for this kind of thing. there are some real a**holes there but they know their crap when it comes to wheeling hard. Read the 30-40 threads on SAS info and then reread them again. I found my dana 44 from a guy in Amarillo on Pirate and he charged me $400 for it. It's in good shape, should be fine for my daily driver that gets dirty sometimes. If I was building a less street-used truck, I'd have 1 ton gear at front and back. I may do that anyway if I decide that the d44 isn't enough.
Keep us posted and good luck.

 

[02_Tahoe]

I would love to do an SAS swap but I'm 17 and have a job at a grocery store so I don't have the money, I don't do any serious off-roading just light stuff every once in a while, I just need upgrades on weak things up front like heavy duty tie rods and anything else that's weak up front, that's why I came here to find out what is weak up front that would be best to upgrade.

 

[AppocAlexx]

upgrade to coil overs get some height and more travel with the fronts.