I know this sounds silly, but I need to lower my truck's overall height.

I am moving to a new city where all the parking garages are under 6'6". Some as low as 6'2". There is little to no surface parking either. (I'm moving to Oahu and working in Honolulu)

With stock height suspension and 315's I am at just under 7'0".
Getting rid of the truck is my last resort and parking for an additional vehicle just for the city isn't affordable.
What I would like to do is put on a tire around 29"-30" and pull a rear leaf or two, but don't really know what to do about the front end.
In any case it needs to be a temporary fix since I will be there for less than 2 years and plan on brining it back up to stock height or higher and back to the 315's.

Any suggestions?
How low can I go?

 

dude, make a slammed 4x4 ram. stock tires and wheels.
ultimate sleeper with traction. you could suprise many that way.

lowering spindles for the front if they will fit a 4x4

 

To be honest that is going to be hard to do. I have a 2wd reg cab 04.5 dropped the back 2" and have stock tires. I am 6'4" and the truck is still taller than me. bought all you can do is go to a 245 tire and try to drop the front some way.

 

We are just in the process of lowering my friends 08 6.7. We had new coils spun for the front. There isnt a lot of room to come down because the top of the diff gets close to the oil pan. Spindles are different for the 08 so I dont know if they are an option for your truck. The back should come down about 7" as well and still have the ability to tow. Even with that done I dont think it would be low enough for what you need. I will measure when we are done and let you know how low it went.

 

It looks like there is about 3 inches before bottoming-out on the bump stops in the front. With 6" shorter tires (29-30"), does that mean I may not be able to get lower than 6'6" (even while resting on the bumpstops)?

If I could only get the vehicle to lower to fit into parking garages, then lift to drive around. (Maybe even get the front end to bounce..... J/K)

Seriously now, is there an air-ride suspension for the Ram diesels that replaces the front springs with air bags that can be deflated?

 

You can put airbags on anything, but youll have to make it work.

 

I think you're stock height is 6'8". Not a lot of options in the front, I think you only have 4" of travel there to begin with and the only thing you could do is lowering springs.

I'd just lower the back by pulling out the spacers and run some stock sized tires. Should lower the back by around 1.25 inches.

You must be in one really short garage.

 

unfortunately ALL the parking garages are short. Looks like nobody has a lifted truck in the city.

I just found this website which is for air-bag suspensions.
http://www.keldermanmfg.com

I'll be calling the local dealer to see if I can afford it...

 

hope you have deep pockets T&T, kelderman stuff is normally big bucks ... but maybe a good portion of the expenses can be eliminated since you are lowering, not lifting your ride ... good luck, report back!

 

Like how tall?

 

I'm 6'4" tall and I've hit my head in several garages. Of all the garages that I've seen in downtown Honolulu, I haven't seen one over 6'6". Lowest was 6'1".
Being in construction, it amazes me that they were able to build anything with less than 6'8" clear (it's a code violation).

 

Get a front and rear winch, weld brackets on the axle and suck in in before you drive in the garage and release once your in.

Works great for getting my toyota on 42" irok's under the low garage door.

295's are 33"-34" and should work

 

Would taking out the front driveshaft and making it a 2wd for the time being help any?

 

Looks like you might be out getting a new truck. Shortest garage I've seen is 6'8". And it's not just for trucks but vans are 6'8" that have to get in.


Looks like a bone stock 4x4 QC 07 is 78.8 LB or 78.4 SB. So that is like 6'6"-6'7".

Maybe you could lower the back and see how it goes.

 

In a 4x4 Dodge the rear of the truck if fairly easy to lower, but lowering a front end sufficiently presents a problem. Do you just park in the parking garage but drive your truck often, or is your truck parked and stored in the parking garage? If your truck is stored in the garage you could try what we have done to get a large and very tall combine into our shop's door for repairs. We let enough air out of all the tires to lower the height of the combine, which is mounted directly on a solid suspension, enough to gain the needed overhead clearance. The short distance to move the machine and the extra slow velocity causes the tires no harm, and besides there is an air compressor in the shop to air the tires up again. The same deflation of the tires is carried out when the machine is taken out of the shop door.

Fortunately, there is plenty of clearance for my Dodge to enter my shop door where I store my diesel truck when not in use. In my Dodge's engine compartment I have installed an air coupling and shut off ball valve teed directly into the 1/4 inch air line from the BD exhaust brake's air compressor. I can even air my tires up without turning the engine on by only turning the 12V DC electric compressor motor on. The only time I need to use this light compressor for airing up the tires is if I travel a long distance under no load with less tire pressure. Then when I arrive and before I hitch up the heavy loaded trailer I air the tires up to the maximum pressure stated in the manual. During the time the trailer is being loaded the tires cool down enough so that when airing them up an accurate pressure reading can be taken.

If my truck ever needed to clear a slightly too low overhead obstruction, I could let most of the pressure out of the tires and pass underneath and air the tires up thereafter. If the truck was heavy loaded I would not take a chance of letting air out of the tires to lower the truck height to gain the clearance.