Low rider
 

Drag can be reduced by lowering a vehicle.

My Blue Beast sits way up high on its axles, even with stock tires. This is really good for hunting and fishing trips in mud and snow. Off road mobility is the main reason I own such a tall vehicle.

But my highway mileage sucks, in part due to the height. I'm looking for suggestions to reversibly (and cheaply) lower my truck while driving to and from my camp, but then revert to normal height it when I go off road.

Has anyone done this in a full size 4x4?

If it was a half-ton 4x4, you could adjust the torsion bars to lower the front. All you do is jack the truck up, turn a set screw, and lower it. However, your truck has leaf or coil springs, right?

How often do you expect to switch heights? I don't think there's a cheap way to do it easily (except on the half ton 4x4 as described above).

Perhaps a removable air dam could get you some of the benefit?

here is a guy that did just that.

https://www.gassavers.org/garage/view/1285

he did it up real nice. I liked the way it turned out.

I don't know what to suggest for adjustable ride height, but how about an aero bed cover? -

https://ecomodder.com/forum/showthrea...d-cap-583.html

Bill

Interesting that his air dam has a gap in the center. Guess he figures air must be going more sideways than up. Or it was just hard to do.

I think at first he was going to have an adjustable flap there for some reason. I can't remember the reasoning but I remember him talking about it.

The truck has leaf spring front and rear.

My first thought was to remove the shocks and replace them with double-acting air cylinders to pull the truck down. Air cylinders are cheap. But then I'd have no shocks. And I'd need a compressor.

I also thought about a set of springs to do the same thing. I'd disconnect the springs when I got off road. But where would I get tension springs?

There are air bags specifically for raising/lowering trucks...

wouldn't the air cylinders act as shocks as long as you have no output for the air. wouldn't it be like a shock absorber?

I'm not big on shocks so I'm not sure about it but it makes sense....maybe